I Love You?

"I love you" = "Our rapport momentarily reminds me to disinhibit the love that's all I ever was."


Further Reading:
Love Theater
I LOVE YOU MOMMY

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I once defined Tai chi as the practice of embodying the natural flow one normally pretends not to be a part of.

Most every eternal mystery in the human experience - the devilishly-hard-to-define stuff - can be accounted for by digging an inch down into pretense.

And while we're at it, a great many recent mysteries in the human experience can be accounted for by noting that everyone in the First World is now an aristocrat.

That right there can serve as your all-purpose interpretative guide to mankind.

Entering the Asylum: Notes on Pretending

I've visited people in mental institutions and never found it difficult. Yes, such places can be objectively horrible—the smell, the baffling behavior, the eerie screaming in the distance—and I must find common ground with a friend in embarrassing circumstances. But I'm fine with all that, and can offer genuine friendliness and hope. I meet circumstances as they are; omnivorous when it comes to What's Happening.

When I visit similarly dysfunctional people in their homes, it doesn't go so well. I clock circumstances clearly, but am expected to ignore much of it and feign lovely normalcy. My job is to inhabit an alternative reality—or at least maintain the façade. "You're doing so great!"

Having spent my life deliberately dismantling my façades and finding easeful stance in What Is, I can have a perfectly smooth visit in a psychiatric hospital and lift a friend's mood, riding the truth with equanimity. But the tradeoff is that I've lost my falsehood chops. Saddle me with an obligation to pretend, and I'll grow so confused you might as well have me committed somewhere. 

Not Too Sweet!

When I hear someone compliment a dessert for being "not too sweet", my standard reply is "Also: it doesn't have any broken glass in it!"

100% of the time it's regarded as non sequitur.

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No one praises bread for being unburnt, or soup for being not-undersalted, or ice cream for being unmelted. In no other instance is a non-mistake something to celebrate.

But it's not really a compliment. The person is editorializing. They want it known that they don't like sweet things, and while they might have acknowledged dessert was never for them, they've pressed ahead all this time, expecting their minority taste to be catered to, and finally—finally!—it's been done the right way. They are offering a withering critique to the world at large, disguised as faint praise for some random something.

This is so normal that it hardly parses as batshit crazy. Entitlement itself has become an entitlement.

Optimism

‘Optimist,’ at this point, is what people who’ve set their hair on fire call those who think it’s not useful to set one’s hair on fire.

Wine Tip

I remember when you seemed like a lunatic for claiming a Venezuelan street vendor's corn cakes were superb. Serious food was eaten in serious places with linen napkins, and those other places serve cheap greasy sustenance for shabby shmucks. I had to beg my editor at NY Press to publish my rave of The Arepa Lady in 1993 (which became a sensation, as did she). Here it is.

Now everyone takes it for granted that "deliciousness is deliciousness", per the Chowhound credo (which, in 1997, seemed provocatively edgy). Now everyone's a food expert.

But the expertise is astonishingly thin and conformist. People know to eat Thai with a fork, and to tear off bits of pita to grab chunks of Lebanese mezze. There are about 500 little practices and factoids all foodies internalize, but I keep waiting for everyone to catch up on the wider wisdom.

It's not happening. This, apparently, is as far as it gets (which explains why virtually no one bought my app, which dumped all my food know-how into a convenient package for $5). People want to conform, not learn.

But I'll share a seemingly obvious trick not one person appears to have clued in on.

Pity those who create wine lists for fancy restaurants. You might think charging $75+/bottle allows them free rein to include fancy grog. But restaurant bottles are marked up 2.5-4.5x, so those smug sommeliers kvelling over their sumptuous offerings are all lipsticking pigs. Your $200 dinner includes legit pricey ingredients and preparations, but the wine is not special occasion wine. It's ≈$20-35 bottles. To bridge this impossible gap, wine directors wine-hound like a mo-fo, sussing out cheap stuff which pairs well with luxe, refined food. It's an excruciating task. Very much a Wizard of Oz reveal.

But it's fantastic for us. You might not drink $90 bottles at home, but you may drink $25 ones, and if you simply steal tips from fancy restaurant wine lists, buying in-store sans mark-up, you can draft on their labors.

I've never seen anyone do this. Just me.

For that matter, wine directors could draft on previous efforts (every wine list is out on the Internet). They don't, because they're smug and snotty and want to feel like wine experts, so every curation is bespoke. Me, I could "create" your four star wine list in like two hours by zeroing in on a dozen particularly clever ones, and mixing/matching.

If you read wine magazines for tips, or ask friends for tips, or (jesus) ask wine store bozos for tips, you're doing it all wrong. Print up the wine list from the most legit upscale place in your town, and go buy a bottle or two for 20-30 bucks.

"Wall-ah!" as the French say.

Marjorie Taylor Greene

Prediction: Marjorie Taylor Greene will be a major force in the 2028 presidential election. Perhaps even the candidate.

Trump won’t live forever (he keeps dropping out of sight for 4 or 5 days at a time), and Vance, Miller, Trump Jr. and Hegseth are not loved by Republicans or MAGAs. Being a clownish asshole helps, but, alone, it’s not enough.

Many Republicans are shaking off some Trumpism, presenting an opportunity for someone to draw smart lines between themselves and Trump. Greene’s done this with health, the Epstein Files, and inflation—the places where Republicans disagree with Trump. It’s smart, and nobody’s noticed what she’s doing. She’s extremely strategic (look how much power she’s wielded as a newbie!). Her break from Boebert (remember the "catfight"?) was perfectly timed. We’ve underestimated her savvy.

Independents currently think of Greene as a white trash bomb-thrower. There’s time to fix that image, and many press cycles for her to act grown-up and sane (she’s already doing it). Also, she’s never really been as trashy as she’s been seemed and acted. She’s actually done some stuff in her life. And her strategy sense and smarts have proven, and continue to prove, orders of magnitude better than dems or reps recognize.

By 2027, all the others will be shucking and jiving with the full Trump agenda, including stuff conservatives hate. All Wile E Coyotes hovering in mid-air having sprinted past the cliff edge with enthusiastic momentum. Only one person is acting smart now to position herself where she needs to be - a slate-cleaner who still fits the bill.

Right now, I’d put money on her being the 2028 candidate, but lots of stuff will happen before then. I don't "like" her, nor do I "agree" with her, but she's a phenomenon.

A friend who's a top honcho in the anti-Trump movement agreed, adding "Her pivot on the shutdown is absolutely a work of art."

Discussing "Letting Go"

Following up on my recent posting, "Levels of Letting Go"



What exactly are you suggesting letting go of at "Level Four"?

Everything.


Everything?

That's right.


So I'd quit my job and wander naked through the streets?

I didn't say to do anything differently. Just let go.


How can I let go while also participating?

If you drop a grudge, does anything materially change?


No. Just my perspective.

Bingo.

You can drop tons of exhausting weight without anything materially changing. Far, far more than you'd imagine.

Like I said, Atlas was wrong. He could have let go of the world at any time and it would have been fine. You have no idea how much you're holding up, because you're used to it. But it was always unnecessary. You can drop the unnecessary. When you do, you'll discover that it was the weight of the entire universe.


You wrote that we're all keeping Neptune going in our heads. I don't feel like I'm devoting much energy to that.

Not much, but you're devoting some. And Neptune's just one thing in a vast internal realm. Let it all go in one big drop, and that's Level Four. Nothing changes. You've just dropped an exhausting, unnecessary process.


I don't feel like I'm putting myself through an exhausting process.

Are you exhausted?


Yes.

I rest my case.


But I'm exhausted because my mom's in the hospital and my kid sprained her ankle and my boss underpays me and our president is an authoritarian racist. How could I not be exhausted?

Try it and see. Problems are mandatory, but burden is optional.

Atlas was silly. The world never needed him to hold it up. Letting go would have freed up his energy to really help!

We are all like Atlas, subconsciously obliged to pretend to bear all the weight. You won't fully understand until you opt out—of the pretending (not the engaging!). It all clears up once you finally let go.


How do I go about it?

This entire Slog is pretty much devoted to coaxing reframes. Meditation loosens up the gears.

Practice shifting perspective, aka reframing. Work on levels 1, 2, and 3. Forgive willy-nilly—even people you're not mad at. Even people you don't know.

Then, once you get a feel for it, bear in mind that the whole edifice can drop. Remember the foolishness of Atlas. Remember that burden is needless. Remember that when you cut everything out from underneath you that you'll float, not fall.

Correcting the Record?

If someone has a wrong idea about you—about something you said, did, or thought—you might, with effort, convince them otherwise. Maybe!

But here's the problem: we exalt our assumptions and opinions, even when they're whimsical. They outweigh provable truth (if this seems odd, imagine how different this world would be if it weren't so). So after all the explaining, you won't have cleared yourself. You'll have been given a reprieve. They'll frame it like forgiveness. They've forgiven your transgression...this time!

So the next time you offend, confuse, or simply trigger another wrong conclusion, you’ll be treated as a repeat offender. No more benefit of the doubt for you, mister.


I no longer correct people. Whatever wrong thing they're thinking about me, they can hold on to it. I don't exhaust myself playing whack a mole.

Levels of Letting Go

Level One: Forgiving
You finally decide to forgive your neighbors for having backed their car over Sparky, your beloved pet slug. One can't hold a grudge forever. You immediately feel better, confirming the old saw that "holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die." Not that we ever learn.

Level Two: Really Forgiving!
Your parents were alcoholics. But with maturity you realize they tried their best within behavior patterns learned from their own alcoholic parents. All those horrible memories you've hoarded and revisited innumerable times were just you needlessly stoking misery and senselessly curbing your happiness level.

You let go, and this one feels great! It's a bigger letting go, so the reward's commensurately more dramatic. You're downright unburdened, and the relief feels like the good Lord Himself rewarding your high-mindedness.

Level Three: Grinch/Scrooge
The Grinch drops his lifelong Grinch act and tries a little tenderness. Ebenezer Scrooge screams MERRY CHRISTMAS at strangers and neighbors.

Dr. Seuss—who, being a doctor, ought to know—insists that the Grinch's heart grows three sizes larger—or so it feels. This is the zone of transformation. It's like forgiveness, but at much grander scale, and the aftermath is ecstatic. No longer encumbered by a duty to cosplay this miserable character, you are free, and you bubble over with cheer and love.

Level Four: The Whole Thing
What if dropping pretense felt so good that you kept going? What if there's a chain reaction? What if, since you're letting go of a tectonic assumption you've been nursing your whole life, you let go of the whole damned thing? What if you even let go of, say, Neptune?

This is rare (few people read my "Surprisingly Uplifting Examination of Suicide" and come away thinking "That's relatable!"). But it happens. You drop the entire pretense, the whole shebang, the whole nine yards.

Reward Levels
All four levels use the same process of reframing, but they're increasingly broad wipes of caked-on assumptions and needless graspings. And in terms of after-effect, the more the merrier.

At level 1, you feel the peace of mind of removing something that's been on your mind. At level 2, it's a deep refresh after reinterpreting a foundational story. At level 3, you've reframed at the heady level of Identity, and it's like a reboot. At level 4 (assuming you can manage to refrain from dramatizing your de-dramatization, and simply let go into the letting go), you've got spiritual transformation.

Each stokes a greater intensity of emotion. Level 1 rewards with a cookie, Level 2 is a sauna, Level 3 is tearful bliss, and Level 4 is, well, all the power in the universe (the yogis call it Kundalini, which I wrote about here).

Why's the rush so immense on that last one? I've never seen an acceptable explanation. So here goes: upon letting go of Everything, you consciously experience the assets previously devoted to holding up Everything. And it's many orders of magnitude more than you'd realized. You've been busy!

You know the circus performer spinning 50 plates? Each of us spins billions of plates. And, at any moment, we can drop the whole ordeal. The effort. The clenching.

The good news is that the plates won't crash (Atlas, poor shmuck, never needed to hold up the world; it was always fine on its own). And all those assets come free like a tidal wave.

It's impossible to imagine the full magnitude. As I explained at that last link, when you let go of everything, you free up the energy you were using to create and maintain, for example, Neptune. Or, at least, the Neptune you've kept running inside of you:

Everything you conceptualize about the planet Neptune is in you. Is there a "real" Neptune "out there", too? Let's say, for simplicity, that there is. But you certainly model and maintain an inner Neptune. And a Toledo. And a Roman Empire. And an Andromeda Galaxy. Pile on top of all that emotionally fraught tales of struggle, victimhood, triumph - plus the myriad details of your Persona - and keep all those plates diligently spinning, and you'll have created a monster. A universe. A monster of a universe!

Smaller lettings go yield a cookie reward, and it's a lot like how our biology encourages us to eat, drink, sleep, wash, and procreate by making those things feel good. One might assume that letting go is another thing our bodies encourage. Perhaps so, but it's much better explained subtractively. Letting go of a grudge frees the assets and energies previously locked into that. We maintain myriad projects of poison-drinking, but letting go of it all brings ecstasy.

Whether the biology coaxes you or the good Lord consoles you, the ironic truth is that devoting massive energy to pretense means massive relief when pretense is dropped. Here's the first joke I learned as a four year old child: "I asked the man why he was hitting himself in the head with a hammer, and he replied 'Because it feels so great when I stop!'"

We carry the full weight of the world. And every Atlas deserves a break.


Here's a follow-up posting clarifying what, exactly, we let go of at Level 4.


See alsoJnani Train
The Toddler and The Steering Wheel 

"Both Sides" is the Way Out

"Both sides" thinking is the time-tested cure for contretemps, personal or political.

Step one: Refrain from shrieking like a stuck pig when you hear the phrase.

We need more bothsidesism...on both sides. That’s the only route back.

By turning our withering gaze on ourselves first, we start a process of transforming seeming-monsters back into friends and neighbors.