I added a few new lines to "The 'Spaghetti-in-the-Face' of it All".
Sometimes, after all the shucking and jiving, I find that I hadn't stated my point cleanly. Not that I feel obliged, but since this posting offered the same insight from several different viewing angles, it seemed appropriate to include a nice, straight shot with no top spin at all.
Monday, September 14, 2026
Will You Still Be Sending Me a Valentine?
This photo would meet with his approval.
When I was a child, I felt that I had a line of communication open with my elder self, and received guidance therefrom.
Now that I'm old, it's the other way. I solicit *his* approval. Am I doing ok?
Guess I missed the crossover point. Oh well.
See also "Postcards from my Childhood", wherein I recount notes I sent my future self, worried that he'd forget essential stuff.
Sunday, September 13, 2026
The "Spaghetti-in-the-Face" of it All
Every day the world throws a plate of spaghetti in your face.
And if you wake up in the morning saying, "I will not tolerate having a plate of spaghetti thrown in my face," you'll have a very bad experience here.
Sure enough, most people have a very bad experience here.
It's a hallmark of aristocrats to eagerly draw red circles around the Unacceptable. They're accustomed to having their preferences coddled. Others come into more frequent contact with unavoidable friction, providing opportunities to perhaps stumble into acceptance, while aristocrats persistently assume they have a veto over how things work.
At this point everyone in the First World is an aristocrat, and thus entitled to draw red lines that God, the universe, or whatever must respect, even though, hilariously, they never do.
If, on the other hand, you lick your face and exclaim, "Mmm, spaghetti!" — or simply accept the experience neutrally — then you'll have a much better time here. And since we have free latitude to interpret anything in any way, one might even decide that an abrupt delivery of spaghetti is the Universe's notion of a beneficent gift, like the lovely fresh oxygen and life-giving sunlight (which the perennially irritated might frame as oppressive, as well).
But we're not taught to do that. Quite the contrary! We live in a world of people who feel they deserve better than to have a face full of spaghetti. Which makes the spaghetti-in-the-face result all the more uproarious.
Despising the spaghetti began with an arbitrary — even whimsical — choice. Another hallmark of aristocrats is the lavish accounting of despised things. The litany proudly defines them, and anything disrespecting those sharp borders is declared unacceptable. First on many lists: surprise and disruption.
So one must be super nonconformist to go, "Mmm, spaghetti! Delicious!"
You'd look like a fucking lunatic.
There's social stigma there. You'll be far more in step with society if you sputter and curse and fume and rage continually as the world vexes you, like the bully in a silent film comedy.
Everybody imagines the world compels their response. It does not. We respond according to our own framing.
Stuff happens, and we give it meaning in our post-processing.
And we are amazingly, hilariously, mind‑bendingly free in that assignment
....at least if we're not striving to conform.
The "Verses on the Faith Mind by The 3rd Zen Patriarch" (aka Hsin Hsin Ming) is an astounding bit of medieval Chinese wisdom, but it was written in a very different era for a very different culture, making it more inaccessible than is necessary. Here, I'm trying to take the gist and modernize it.
Have a taste of the original:
The "spaghetti-in-your-face" trials and tribulations are sufficient to leave a majority of the population in sour aggrievement. But what about worse stuff? Here's my take.
And if you wake up in the morning saying, "I will not tolerate having a plate of spaghetti thrown in my face," you'll have a very bad experience here.
Sure enough, most people have a very bad experience here.
It's a hallmark of aristocrats to eagerly draw red circles around the Unacceptable. They're accustomed to having their preferences coddled. Others come into more frequent contact with unavoidable friction, providing opportunities to perhaps stumble into acceptance, while aristocrats persistently assume they have a veto over how things work.
At this point everyone in the First World is an aristocrat, and thus entitled to draw red lines that God, the universe, or whatever must respect, even though, hilariously, they never do.
If, on the other hand, you lick your face and exclaim, "Mmm, spaghetti!" — or simply accept the experience neutrally — then you'll have a much better time here. And since we have free latitude to interpret anything in any way, one might even decide that an abrupt delivery of spaghetti is the Universe's notion of a beneficent gift, like the lovely fresh oxygen and life-giving sunlight (which the perennially irritated might frame as oppressive, as well).
But we're not taught to do that. Quite the contrary! We live in a world of people who feel they deserve better than to have a face full of spaghetti. Which makes the spaghetti-in-the-face result all the more uproarious.
Despising the spaghetti began with an arbitrary — even whimsical — choice. Another hallmark of aristocrats is the lavish accounting of despised things. The litany proudly defines them, and anything disrespecting those sharp borders is declared unacceptable. First on many lists: surprise and disruption.
So one must be super nonconformist to go, "Mmm, spaghetti! Delicious!"
You'd look like a fucking lunatic.
There's social stigma there. You'll be far more in step with society if you sputter and curse and fume and rage continually as the world vexes you, like the bully in a silent film comedy.
Everybody imagines the world compels their response. It does not. We respond according to our own framing.
Hypothetical Person: How could I not erupt into fury with a face full of spaghetti?
Narrator: The world throws spaghetti in everyone's face every day.
Hypothetical Person: Yes! And I fucking hate it!
Narrator: Well, then you hate the world.
Hypothetical Person: For sure. But the world compels my hatred!
Narrator: No, it doesn't. Your high-level policy decision to hate spaghetti in your face compels your hatred.
Hypothetical Person: Who could possibly enjoy having spaghetti thrown in their face?
Narrator: Well, you see, that's the conformity problem right there.
Hypothetical Person: The what?
And we are amazingly, hilariously, mind‑bendingly free in that assignment
....at least if we're not striving to conform.
The "Verses on the Faith Mind by The 3rd Zen Patriarch" (aka Hsin Hsin Ming) is an astounding bit of medieval Chinese wisdom, but it was written in a very different era for a very different culture, making it more inaccessible than is necessary. Here, I'm trying to take the gist and modernize it.
Have a taste of the original:
The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
The "spaghetti-in-your-face" trials and tribulations are sufficient to leave a majority of the population in sour aggrievement. But what about worse stuff? Here's my take.
Wednesday, September 9, 2026
Swagger
Swagger is the scarlet letter of mediocrity.
'Mediocrity' includes competence.
The culture has lost firm hold of the term, because mediocrity is the goal and baseline (which, as I explained here, doesn't work because it creates a downward spiral). So I need to clarify that I'm not saying swaggering people are screw-ups.
Swaggering mediocrities get things done. In fact, that's why they swagger! They know they can get things done, which is hard, and makes them people who do hard things. As I explained at that last link, competence requires great effort, which is why so many non-remarkable people feel like kings and queens. And I won't even condemn them for it.
However, I've known some remarkable people, none of whom of acted like kings and queens. They lacked spare time for maintaining a facade, or even a self-image, because all effort went voraciously into doing The Thing. This leaves no assets leftover for seeming like a Thing-Doer. Striking the pose is a whole other gig.
Remarkable people rarely swagger. John Thorne, Bill Monk, Major Holley, Arnie Lawrence, David Lerner, Arnie Lawrence, Stewart Sharpless, Les Blank, or The Sainted Arepa Lady...none of them ever swaggered a bit. They were just people, though, in every case, world class.
'Mediocrity' includes competence.
The culture has lost firm hold of the term, because mediocrity is the goal and baseline (which, as I explained here, doesn't work because it creates a downward spiral). So I need to clarify that I'm not saying swaggering people are screw-ups.
Swaggering mediocrities get things done. In fact, that's why they swagger! They know they can get things done, which is hard, and makes them people who do hard things. As I explained at that last link, competence requires great effort, which is why so many non-remarkable people feel like kings and queens. And I won't even condemn them for it.
However, I've known some remarkable people, none of whom of acted like kings and queens. They lacked spare time for maintaining a facade, or even a self-image, because all effort went voraciously into doing The Thing. This leaves no assets leftover for seeming like a Thing-Doer. Striking the pose is a whole other gig.
Remarkable people rarely swagger. John Thorne, Bill Monk, Major Holley, Arnie Lawrence, David Lerner, Arnie Lawrence, Stewart Sharpless, Les Blank, or The Sainted Arepa Lady...none of them ever swaggered a bit. They were just people, though, in every case, world class.
Tuesday, September 8, 2026
The Oblivious are Oblivious to Obliviousness
We don't know no one's listening to us because we're not listening.
We don't realize nobody's paying attention because we're not paying attention.
We underestimate how narcissistic everyone is because we’re too narcissistic to notice.
We don't realize nobody's paying attention because we're not paying attention.
We underestimate how narcissistic everyone is because we’re too narcissistic to notice.
Monday, September 7, 2026
Told You
MAGAs are discovering Trump's a fraud after all, just like they discovered that COVID was real after all, just like they discovered that the cabal of pedophiles (and cover-uppers thereof) was largely on the other side, just as conservatives discovered that the (original) Iraq/Afghanistan war was an awful idea, and the Vietnam war, and all the forever wars started by hawks from their side, and just as they wagged their heads in disbelief at this new forever war that's wrecked our economy, our readiness, our standing, and made Iran great again.
Yet none of the people who doubted my patriotism — or my sanity — at any of those junctures (while I objected heatedly from the Center) has apologized, or acted apologetic, or even just adopted some iota of humility. They'll keep blustering forever. Having been wrong a bunch doesn't mean you're not always right!
In the 1980s it got super unpopular to ever utter the words "I told you so." The culture deprecated that move. And now, in 2026, the entire concept of "having been right" is nonexistent. Vanished. A non-thing.
The opposition is wrong definitionally. You may have been wrong (though you're always right) a few times, but "they" were never right! It's the death of symmetry. Newton's Third Law of Motion has been repealed.
Liberals do this, too, of course.
Friday, August 28, 2026
Only Boring People Get Bored
Charles Bukowski noted that "Only boring people get bored.” It entered popular consciousness when Betty Draper stole the line on Mad Men.
It's worth considering the mechanism behind this. I think it reflects a flipped perspective; a misapprehension of cause and effect. A framing error.
It's not that the world bores bored people. It's that they suppress the world’s interestingness. Bored people are like Kryptonite for interestingness. They don't innocently miss it, they proactively thwart it.
Bored people drain the interestingness out of everything.
Interesting people experience this all the time. They feel compelled to overcompensate in order to merely register. Escaping the inexorable singularity of a bored person is likely how it feels to be sucked dry by a vampire.
It's worth considering the mechanism behind this. I think it reflects a flipped perspective; a misapprehension of cause and effect. A framing error.
It's not that the world bores bored people. It's that they suppress the world’s interestingness. Bored people are like Kryptonite for interestingness. They don't innocently miss it, they proactively thwart it.
Bored people drain the interestingness out of everything.
Interesting people experience this all the time. They feel compelled to overcompensate in order to merely register. Escaping the inexorable singularity of a bored person is likely how it feels to be sucked dry by a vampire.
Tuesday, August 25, 2026
You Are Not Special and Wonderful Exactly as You Are
In my posting, "Entitlement", I described a guy who treated me with nothing but dehumanized contempt while expecting me to lavish kindness on him (ironically missing the kindness I actually lavished on him because it didn't match the exact scripted kindness he sought, but let's not get subtle):
I keep meeting people (Americans, not Portuguese) who offer nothing. They have their little shtick, the Character They're Playing — cloned off some familiar roleplay we've all seen in movies or TV. But you can wait all day and they won't say anything interesting or smart or funny or kind or distinctive or useful. They just present character, imagining this perfectly sufficient for a social win.
"I'm Kenneth. I have nothing extra to offer you (and, really, who are you to expect anything from me, anyway?). I offer you a moment of Kenneth, and that's quite enough. So, cool, we're friends now, right?"
No, Kenneth. There are 8 billion people with whom I coexist, and while I wish them all well, and if there's some emergency I'll pitch in, but they don't become significant to me (or to any other individual) by virtue of being them. They must clear the extremely low bar of being something above/beyond the raw state of "I'm Kenneth."
How did our society lose the ability to imagine earning one's way, to any degree and in any fashion? Where did this entitlement come from? How did Americans get the notion that they are each very special; that simply being themselves is not merely "good enough', but downright wonderful?
Fred Fucking Rogers.
Having focused on the odd concern that Americans lack self-esteem, he kindled it to a degree where generations who've never heard of the guy have been convinced, by the echoes he left in our culture, that JUST BEING ME IS GOOD ENOUGH.
It's really not. One needs to show up with an ability to say or do interesting or smart or funny or kind or distinctive or useful things. Merely presenting character — a rendition of some prefab personality type — is...okay. You deserve all the perqs of membership in the human race, and no one should persecute you or deny your basic dignity. And that's a lot!
But it's not, in and of itself, wonderful, regardless of what Mr. Rogers and this post-Rogerian culture have led us to believe. You need to try; to contribute above and beyond your raw undeveloped you-ness. We are not entitled to love or fascination for merely showing up. It's not sufficient to hover in a no-effort raw state while expecting all the prizes.
I'm not saying Fred Rogers was malign. He was a very nice man, trying to comfort scared children. I'm claiming he was horribly naive, and failed to think through the adult consequences — which have been abysmal. And while he is obviously not solely responsible, I really think he played a significant part in creating this predicament.
I've made this same argument once before, but wanted to try again freshly to try to connect it with last week's observations about entitlement.
Focusing specifically on the low-effort aspect, see also "Why Aunt Marge Can't Be Just Marge".
This tight, ungracious, grim, uninteresting, self-centered little guy had offered absolutely nothing in terms of social interaction. But that was the last thing he had in mind, because he felt he deserved his movie moment from me just because. The notion of earning his way was totally alien for him.He offered nothing.
I keep meeting people (Americans, not Portuguese) who offer nothing. They have their little shtick, the Character They're Playing — cloned off some familiar roleplay we've all seen in movies or TV. But you can wait all day and they won't say anything interesting or smart or funny or kind or distinctive or useful. They just present character, imagining this perfectly sufficient for a social win.
"I'm Kenneth. I have nothing extra to offer you (and, really, who are you to expect anything from me, anyway?). I offer you a moment of Kenneth, and that's quite enough. So, cool, we're friends now, right?"
No, Kenneth. There are 8 billion people with whom I coexist, and while I wish them all well, and if there's some emergency I'll pitch in, but they don't become significant to me (or to any other individual) by virtue of being them. They must clear the extremely low bar of being something above/beyond the raw state of "I'm Kenneth."
How did our society lose the ability to imagine earning one's way, to any degree and in any fashion? Where did this entitlement come from? How did Americans get the notion that they are each very special; that simply being themselves is not merely "good enough', but downright wonderful?
Fred Fucking Rogers.
Having focused on the odd concern that Americans lack self-esteem, he kindled it to a degree where generations who've never heard of the guy have been convinced, by the echoes he left in our culture, that JUST BEING ME IS GOOD ENOUGH.
It's really not. One needs to show up with an ability to say or do interesting or smart or funny or kind or distinctive or useful things. Merely presenting character — a rendition of some prefab personality type — is...okay. You deserve all the perqs of membership in the human race, and no one should persecute you or deny your basic dignity. And that's a lot!
But it's not, in and of itself, wonderful, regardless of what Mr. Rogers and this post-Rogerian culture have led us to believe. You need to try; to contribute above and beyond your raw undeveloped you-ness. We are not entitled to love or fascination for merely showing up. It's not sufficient to hover in a no-effort raw state while expecting all the prizes.
I'm not saying Fred Rogers was malign. He was a very nice man, trying to comfort scared children. I'm claiming he was horribly naive, and failed to think through the adult consequences — which have been abysmal. And while he is obviously not solely responsible, I really think he played a significant part in creating this predicament.
I've made this same argument once before, but wanted to try again freshly to try to connect it with last week's observations about entitlement.
Focusing specifically on the low-effort aspect, see also "Why Aunt Marge Can't Be Just Marge".
Friday, August 21, 2026
Protocols of the Elders of Zionism
"Criticism of Israel is not antisemitism."
It would ordinarily go without saying. For example, one never hears anyone disclaiming that criticism of Denmark isn't "anti-Scandinavian." But the trouble is those "Israelis" are just so sensitive and self-righteous and pushy and exasperating and awful* that they see antisemitism everywhere.
* - which is why they require frequent excoriation!
It would ordinarily go without saying. For example, one never hears anyone disclaiming that criticism of Denmark isn't "anti-Scandinavian." But the trouble is those "Israelis" are just so sensitive and self-righteous and pushy and exasperating and awful* that they see antisemitism everywhere.
* - which is why they require frequent excoriation!
Wednesday, August 19, 2026
Adulation Inflation
There's a bit of business that inevitably comes up whenever a friend or acquaintance experiences some level of fame. I hear something like this:
But I can't manage it with conviction, because I'm crawling out of my skin with embarrassment knowing that anyone remotely prominent gets these stories by the bucketload. They're so formulaic that they seem mass-produced, but no. It's a certain sort of person with a certain goal.
If you ever met Chris Rock or Michael Phelps or Ruth Reichl, and told them "You're greeeeat. You're soooo greeeeat," you can easily anticipate receiving a glassy-eyed "thanks" at best. Adulation inflation is a thing, so if you want to have A Real Moment with the celebrity, you must cut through with something more galvanizing than "you inspired me".
And that's what this is. Cutting through.
Everyone who takes this route imagines they found a unique penetration tactic. But, no, it's utterly formulaic. Let's render it in MadLibs™:
But how, you might ask, does this apply to Natalie Harp, the president's constant fawning companion?
Here's how author Michael Wolff (who first broke the story of her outsized influence three years ago) explains her "rise":
"Sure, I'm just a golf columnist [or singer/songwriter or ceramicist or small town mayor or juicing blogger], but sometimes I find that I actually made a difference. For example, I received an email [or text or YouTube comment or photograph of a tattoo] from someone whose blah-blah-blah was devastated with blah-blah-blah, and they told me that the sheer blah-blah-blah of my blah-blah-blah gave them the strength to get through."I've been through this more than a dozen times with other people (and more often on my own paltry steam), and I know my prescribed response. "My God," I'm supposed to reply. "That's FANTASTIC! You! Are! Fantastic!"
But I can't manage it with conviction, because I'm crawling out of my skin with embarrassment knowing that anyone remotely prominent gets these stories by the bucketload. They're so formulaic that they seem mass-produced, but no. It's a certain sort of person with a certain goal.
If you ever met Chris Rock or Michael Phelps or Ruth Reichl, and told them "You're greeeeat. You're soooo greeeeat," you can easily anticipate receiving a glassy-eyed "thanks" at best. Adulation inflation is a thing, so if you want to have A Real Moment with the celebrity, you must cut through with something more galvanizing than "you inspired me".
And that's what this is. Cutting through.
Everyone who takes this route imagines they found a unique penetration tactic. But, no, it's utterly formulaic. Let's render it in MadLibs™:
Your [noun] inspired my [related person] to [verb] in a moment when [related person] was [adjective].My quandary is this: do I tell them? Or let them swell their self-regard to turgid magnificence by buying into this hackneyed form of 21st century fawning?
But how, you might ask, does this apply to Natalie Harp, the president's constant fawning companion?
Here's how author Michael Wolff (who first broke the story of her outsized influence three years ago) explains her "rise":
"She had a story in which she had...a serious cancer that would likely kill her...This story has a lot of holes.Natalie Harp perfected the form.
"She then maintained that she had been cured of this cancer because in the first administration there was a Trump supported bill that gave greater access to experimental treatments. So she maintained that because of access to those treatments, her cancer was cured. This then made her claim 'Trump saved my life.'
"And that gave her a speaking berth during the Republican convention in 2020. She was given television time to say "Donald Trump saved my life." This then gave her more access to Trump world, and, in fact, got her a job."
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