surprise debt + two jobs + Wednesday stuff + a combined total of 92 hours of audiobook to consume and write notes about = we gon give the next HDE two months.
I didn't consider book length when I planned this whole thing out, and wound up putting 5 of the largest books I own into one month.
Plus, for this I need to dive into the world of Incels to remind myself of Humpty Dumpty's ideology. I'm taking that in small doses, because every time I read something from the Incel Wiki I instantly start shouting at my monitor, and my hands get sore from smacking them together or off of my desk.
Good news is, this will be an angry entry, which is always more fun. Less pointing the finger at myself and the general populace, and more heaping shit on the self-described most pathetic humans on the planet.
My aim is to punch down with brass knuckles. "Bullying" you might call it. I don't want to rush it. A tiny-tiny fraction of the incel community deserves pity. The rest, I just want to hurt their feelings. And there's a lot of pseudoscience to unravel first.
⢠Humpty Dumpty Elegy 9 | five books on đ¤ŞSTUPIDITYđ§ â˘
I'm a real dumb bitch
It may have all started when I threw that brick up in the air as high as I could, and it landed on my head. Or when I pulled my arms into my sleeves, and faceplanted right onto a sidewalk, losing my front teeth. Maybe it was when fell down a steep gravel driveway, and though I had perfectly good arms, I still bounced my face off the ground again, leaving me with a very cool lightning bolt scar over my left eye.
Those were just a few big memorable blows I took to the head. The rest came in the form of daily bonks and pratfalls to make my friends laugh.
I can't be sure why I hit my head every day. Might have been inspired by my dad, who was a textbook case of CTE. Not only did he have endless funny stories of catastrophic head injuries, from football and bar fights, he let the people he loved slap him in the head when he was being a silly little baka, which was always.
Coulda been The Three Stooges, a show my dad revered, with Curly Howard taking hit after hit to the dome. The fact that Curly obviously died from head trauma only made him seem more like a hero to him.
Or maybe it was the constant threat of special ed classes. Which may seem designed to help us dumb kids, but in my school it was OBVIOUSLY a disciplinary gesture, not a learning resource. The teacher of the Speds was Ms. Clarke, our school's version of Ms. Trunchbull, a sadistic old witch with owl eyes. Her only job was to teach kids to stare at the floor and keep their mouths permanently shut.
Being threatened with Ms. Clarke's presence was the equivalent of being threatened with The Chokey, or Guantanamo Bay. And until the end of grade six my parents were constantly in meetings to keep me out of her arthritic bumpy old bitchass claws. In between discussions with well dressed drug dealers, trying to get me hooked on the same pills they gave to god damn Kamikaze pilots.
The stress of all that was very painful, and I think my headbanging was plain old self-harm. The dissonance of being told I'm clever by people who love me, but mentally defective by the people teaching me was a dilute form of hell. I was like, "Ah well, never going to use this brain anyway [bonk]".
Humpty Dumpty and I had remarkably similar sounding upbringings. Only difference being (aside from his lack of head trauma), he had nobody advocating on his behalf. He had weak, ignorant parents, who just wanted their broken kid fixed, and they trusted goblins to do it. He did a full sentence in The Chokey, and took the whole suite of PILLS NOBODY SHOULD FUCKING GIVE TO KIDS.
It ended in sixth grade, when a friend of mine decided to not laugh anymore. I banged my head on the desk, then looked at him, he was stonefaced. Couple more bonks, nothing. Bonk bonk bonk... arms crossed, unimpressed. I bonked till I had a headache, for nothing. The message I was getting at the time from him was, "Not funny, dude." But as an adult, I picture the look on his face and hear, "Please, please stop hurting yourself."
I stopped, thank gosh, but now here I am, the kind of guy who acts like he has mild brain damage, all the time.
And I love it! My name is a reference to my lazy mumbling mushmouth, like "gibberish" or "gobbledygook". All my favorite people have brain damage! Roseanne Barr, Roald Dahl, Alex Jones, Mike Tyson, Steve Brule, Lady Gaga, Abe Lincoln, Harriet Tubman, etc. it's a glorious club to be a member of. Next on my bucket list? Trepanation.
Around the time I threw that brick, and ate that gum off the underside of a banister, I also discovered the power of words: My friend Newfie and I were in the midst of a huge crabapple fight. We were in the middle of the street, circling each other counterclockwise, hurling crabapples, missing literally every throw, until the fronts of our t-shirts ran out of ammo. A crowd had gathered to watch, as we scrambled over the lawns to reload. Getting tired, and knowing round two would be just as pathetic, I decided to stand there and just dance as the apples flew by. With my friend getting all winded, I stood tall, pointed at my him, and boomed in my tiny little boy voice:
"Newfie! You are a PENIS TOUCHDOWN!!"
I stole the whole show. The audience (of other stupid kids) hit the ground laughing, including Newfie. And I was the neighborhood wordsmith until I moved away. Kids thought I must have some connection to the muses, to come up with something as devastating and one-of-a-kind as "penis touchdown". Nothing was more impressive than the stupidest thing I had ever said in my life.
I've always had a weird relationship with stupidity. While my family insisted that I had a big brain, I had to ask, whothafuck are they? Aren't they just obligated to say that? My grandad was my biggest advocate, but that silly bitch also accidentally put a cigarette out in my fucking ear. My dad was an R-word, and my mom, for all her booksmarts, married at least two different R-words. So what do they know? A boy must wonder.
"R" stands for "renegade" of course.
I went from the clever kid with the oversized skull (some boys called me "Epcot Kid" because my head looked like the Epcot Ball), to the dopey asshole with an oversized dented skull, to a sped kid, to "gifted", to a highschool dropout, to a line cook working beside two people with masters degrees and two-foot flames jumping off their frying pans.
Intelligence and stupidity are my greatest fascinations. It's why book #1 in this series is You Are Not So Smart. I remember my mom shouting in the car about how dumb people are, and angrily gesturing at a fumbling driver. Then at some later point, she nearly ran into a woman at a stoplight, and I saw the lady silently ranting about my mom... to her kids in the back seat.
This is the first topic that got me into psychology books. As a non-recovering stupiholic, I wanted definitive answers about what "smart" meant. Here's what I discovered about even the smartest people you know:
They are 99.9% ignorant of how the world around them functions; their memory is tiny, brutally selective, editable, and temporary; believing is seeing, 10x more than seeing is believing; they confabulate, and self-justify in a matter of milliseconds, a thousand times a day; the span and depth of their attention is as pitiful as just about anyone else's, and getting worse by the year; as objective and rational as they pretend to be, most of their decisions are inevitably swift and subjective gut intuitions. Our brain is a biased, excuse-making, faith-based, dogmatic hunk of pig shit. Show animals more respect, and don't you ever pretend you're not one. âĽ
Why did experts want to put me in special ed? Not because I was much dumber than my peers. I was just a giant asshole. And they justifiably didn't like me.
Socrates said self awareness is the basis of all wisdom. And what did he know about himself? That he didn't know shit.
This month, instead of passing over "Know thyself" and "I know nothing", as clichĂŠs people tattoo on their pubis, we're going to dig in deep. So that in the future, when you say "I'm an idiot", you can say it knowledgeably. Not as a fatalistic, nihilistic, irresponsible douchebag. But as a reflective, introspective, humble ape.
⢠#1 The Knowledge Illusion by Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach â˘
Can you draw a bicycle, from memory? Try it. Doesn't have to be beautiful, just functional.
Despite the fact that many people can ride a bike, or have at least seen hundreds of them, people fuck this challenge up royally.
Maybe you've got bikes figured out. How bout the flushing mechanism in your toilet, or the clicking mechanism of a pen? It's one thing to visualize the parts in your head, or even fix it when a piece comes loose, the question is can you put them together, in a causal chain, from beginning to end, so that they work?
For as many things that you can explain in depth, there are thousands more you can't. The list of known-knowns is infinitely smaller than all the unknown-unknowns. Even the simplest man-made things you can find are products of dozens, sometimes hundreds of different clueless participants. They specialize in one tiny thing and they work all day handling vague unanalyzed information. Then they blindly pass it off to someone else, who doesn't ask questions.
Astronomers don't have to go to school to learn how to melt or polish glass into lenses, or how to magnetize iron to make a compass. And the people who professionally make these instruments rarely get paid to use them.
How does a bike work? I get on that punk and pedal. Turning and leaning are basically the same joystick. Speed keeps you upright. The wheels suck dick without air. And don't slam on the front brake alone. Done. Bikes. đ˛đ˛â
But before you go feeling all inadequate about your inability to explain everything down to the gnat's ass, relax. Nobody likes to be reminded of the "illusion of explanatory depth". The point is, unless someone asks you to manufacture bikes, you have zero reason to look into it. Even if you did track that information down, you'd only be the holder of a handful of trivia. Not necessarily more intelligence.
When asked, "do you know X?" we substitute the question in our head for a new one, and hear, "could you find out about X, if need arose?" and say "yes." When the answer to the original question is, "no" the vast majority of the time.
The truth is, though, that's perfectly fine. Because individual intelligence is overrated. Intelligence doesn't exist in any one person's head; It exists in the collective mind. Sound spooky and ethereal? It is. Plato didn't fuck around.
What about geniuses like Isaac Newton? Newton had a library of books reaching back a thousand years before him. He's the one who famously said "If I have seen further than others, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."
What about Genghis Khan? Man ejaculated all the way to the fucking moon, and he didn't start out his career, flipping through books. But he was a central node, in an innovatively built network of highly mobile people, sharing news and oral history all over the silk road.
Most of the greats have famous quotations, begging readers of history to give their contemporaries more credit. But hell naw. In the end, complexity reduction always wins.
It's not that we're just a bunch of children who want superheroes to worship, and we're too stupid to handle all the details. Not at all. We just evolved as oral historians, without literature. The most efficient way to immortalize a person, and hold on to their contributions for generations, is to turn them into myths. Something that can spread from campfire to campfire, or troubadour to troubadour. Also, if we couldn't reduce big ideas into basic ones, we'd never have the brain power to reach beyond, and discover even bigger things.
Some people are more reflective than others. Meaning they're more likely to ask themselves whether they really understand something. They probe their own illusions of explanatory depth, and enjoy attending to details. But even the most reflective people still avoid 99% of all explanations.
We specialize, and collaborate. Like Gladwell wrote about in The Tipping Point. Nobody winds up in the history books all by themselves. You got people specialists, thing specialists, and specialist specialists. But alone none are terribly special at all.
Have you ever been subjected to the "Why?" game? Typically played by kids, the rules are simple: Ask someone a why question, and when they answer it, ask, "why?" again, and again, and again... till the person being interrogated winds up at the Big Bang, and has to either shrug or sob at all "why?"s from there on out.
This is one of the many things that Humpty hates about kids.
Part of the shock of the "Why?" game is that as we get older, we get better at overlooking complexity, worse at probing ourselves, more certain, and we forget all about our ignorance. Kids with their fresh minds effortlessly throw it all back in our face.
So what does that mean? Collective intelligence? Basically individual intelligence is the info you can personally recall, ad noodle. Collective intelligence is info you know how to find. A friend with expertise. A bookshelf. Google.
When my brother, Wednesday, and I wanted to experiment with drugs, I did 100% of the research on how to safely take them, find them, test them, etc. I learned contraindications, local laws, antidotes. I poured through best and worst case scenarios from trip reports on Erowid so I could reassure them if they're hesitant, or warn them if they're acting recklessly.
"We" know a whole lot about drugs, Brotherface, Wednesday, and I. I know, because I spent all of 2016 on Erowid, Bluelight, Reddit, WebMd, and beyond. They know because they know me, and we did drugs together. I'm their faster, more relatable Google, that loves them. I'm a big book on their shelf. That's how mavens do baby.
I forget who said it, but some dude on Sam Harris' podcast put it well when he said (roughly), "People aren't interesting based on what they say. They're interesting based on who they listen to."
Or as Aes puts it:
You fucking dorks ain't a source of the art. You can't be cooler than the places where you source all your parts. -- Aesop Rock, Dorks
Humpty Dumpty listens to bitter videogame critics on the internet, speedrun commentary, incel forums, fictional action heroes in movies or games, blackpill Doomer news, and people fighting on Twitter. That's his daily diet of mental stimulation; that's his brain. His working memory is stuffed with trash from sunup to sundown. He had two well-resourced and experienced dudes in his collective mind for more than a year, trying their hardest to redirect his focus to less nihilistic bullshit, and he absorbed not a single word from us.
This book kind of explains why. See, when we think someone is wrong, the natural, charitable view is to believe they merely have a deficit of information. So in order to change their mind, all one must do is make up for that deficit, fill them in, and they'll naturally come around.
That's called the "Deficit Model" of misunderstanding. But it's flawed the vast majority of the time. We don't believe things based on intelligence, rationality, or an understanding of causality. We believe based on emotions. Science isn't popularly believed in because intelligence is going up. Science is popular because of the glowing rectangle you're staring at right now. Its efficacy speaks for itself. Jesus didn't give us electricity and germ theory, so Jesus lost our faith.
Humpty didn't have a data deficit. He was just emotionally committed to despair. He didn't want anyone to change his mind, he just wanted people around. But we weren't looking for a decomposing nihilist. We thought we were helping someone along the same path we followed, towards emotional recovery and maturity.
He's just a pity addict. And the only way an addict recovers, is when they decide they're tired of their habit. He could have smartened up. It was always up to him. If he ever does get fed up with himself, these books will waiting patiently.
For everyone else, this book is amazing at demystifying personal intelligence, and drawing your focus to the far more important idea of collective intelligence. You don't need to be a supergenius to contribute to humanity's knowledge. Just start searching; Climb the first giant you see, and give the world a fresh look.
Don't discount your own curiosity. Don't idolize people; we're all peers. This universe can't observe itself without you. And as Isaac Asimov (tentatively) said:
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not âEureka!â (I found it!) but âThatâs funny âŚâ
⢠#2 The Forgetting Machine by Rodrigo Quian Quiroga â˘
If there's one thing my damaged brain does outstandingly well, it's forgetting. And no shit, that may be one of my greatest assets.
Until I get Alzheimer's, of course. But the only trick there is blowing my brains out before it really gets me. I'll wind up coming home with a grocery bag full of handguns, and look around to see the all the cupboards, drawers, and fruit bowls are full of the ones I keep forgetting to fellate.
But hey, by then, my incontinence and blabbering will be somebody else's problem, baybeee! đ¨âđŚ˝đ¨âđŚźâ
It'll be their fault for not shooting me in the face anyway. Selfish prick. You want nostalgia? Diaper duty's on you.
How is there any advantage to forgetfulness? Well lets consider what happens to people who can't forget anything. "Hyperthymesia", is a rare disorder where a person can perfectly recall every single thing they've ever experienced. Pick a date, and they can walk you through it from dawn to dusk, with seemingly zero effort needed.
A disorder? Maybe that sounds awesome to you. But it comes at a huge cost. The most obvious one being the fact that some things are better left as forgotten as possible, like the sensation of breaking a bone, or kissing a sidewalk at 9 m/s. There's also the issue of how distracting such an intense perception of memory can be. And surprisingly, it destroys a person's ability to think creatively, or "platonically".
You could go to a party with 100 people there, and no matter how bad you think your memory is, I guarantee that with the right strategy, you could memorize all 100 people before the party ends. But here's the catch, you won't meet a single one of them. You have to abandon comprehension in favor of memorization. In this instance, you'd have to abandon all hope of making friends that night.
That's a key difference: Memorizing vs comprehending. Memorizing is cumbersome, and frankly it's the last thing your brain wants to do. Even if you did remember all 100 names, without any emotional salience attached to them it's only a matter of time till your recall evaporates.
Salience is like memory saliva. Just as we can't taste food in a dry mouth, we can't remember facts without answering the question, "why the fuck would I care?"
They don't seem to teach this fact to teachers. Can't tell you how many times I got in trouble with them just for asking "so what?" or "why does this matter to me or my life?". They take that question as a complete affront to the meaning of their existence. Meanwhile, if the question goes unanswered, the lesson that day goes totally unabsorbed.
Kids with "ADD" are just chronically averse to wrote memorization, in favor of comprehension. Their brains don't reward them for learning things the stupid way, so they quarrel with their rent-seeking dipshit teachers. It's not a disorder, it's a high-powered bullshit filter.
Plus, there's nothing more salient than money. Before leaving highschool, I would have told you I have the most hopeless memory of anyone you know. Then I dropped out, got a job at a Spirit Halloween store, landed an inventory manager position after the original guys suddenly quit, and by the end of the season I had the entire inventory memorized. Front and back of house, plus what's coming in the next shipment. If they had told me what my job involved up front, I would have laughed hysterically, and left waving my middle finger. But that money snuck up on me. When I left, the info vanished without a trace.
Just as Atomic Habits reminds us that there's no such thing as overcoming our laziness, this book applies that wisdom to forgetfulness. You can make it to 72 years old, receiving more than a terabyte of sensory data every single day, and by the time you reach the finish line, you'll have remembered... a generous 125mb of data. That includes all your memories, intuitions, opinions, sensations, etc. The rest, you'll have forgotten it with a zeal you never knew you had.
When you focus on memorization over comprehension, you inhibit your brains ability to boil information down, and make connections between associations.
This reducing process is where wisdom comes from. Our brain sifts through the waterfall of stimuli in our short-term working memory, picking out patterns, meaning, emotional salience, sensory data, etc. And then discards the rest when we go to bed.
Whatever is left, we work into our long-term memory by creating time and space saving "schemas". It's the quality of one's mental schemas that determines their intelligence, not the sheer volume of memorized factoids.
I think of learning sort of like duckboards. Duckboards are a clever solution to getting over swamps or quicksand. Or famously, in trench warfare, over a bombed-out wasteland. You drive wooden piles deep into the mud, which stay firmly in place. To get around, you need only two planks. First you lay plank A over two piles making a bridge, carry plank B over plank A, hook it up to the next pile, pick up plank A, carry it over plank B, make a bridge again, and so on. A plank to stand on, and a plank to reach ahead. You can go wherever the piles are driven in.
Some nerds overcomplicate things, and waste energy. They do the mental equivalent of laying down ten planks. So to move forward, they have to walk back over plank I, H, G, F, E, D, C, then B, to pick up A, then walk it aaaaall the way back to the end of J. They see all the effort as a testament to their mental horsepower, not their extreme inefficiency.
Or some deny the natural impermanence of planks in a soggy quagmire, and try nailing them to the piles. But then it rains, fungus gets to work, the mud shifts, nails rust. Suddenly the footpath they were so proud of last week has become a worthless strip of disconnected punkwood.
Embrace your forgetfulness. Pack light. Don't sink into the mud. Consider the idea that maybe you forgot something because it was truly irrelevant. Demand salience from things wishing to be remembered. And don't be too dazzled by people with powerful rote memorization skills, it's a gimmick.
Oh! And get a notebook! Jot down your good ideas. I know you're full of them. But the odds of you recalling them later is like one in one hundred. I've got a pile of banged up Moleskines and Field Notes with both the dumbest and smartest ideas I've ever come up with. Re-reading them is very fun, and always surprising.
Humpty loved to pretend like he valued all our fancy advice, but he was just too gosh darn forgetful to remember any of it. But to me, all I could hear when he claimed that was, "Yeah, that's nice. Didn't ask. Didn't listen. Don't care. Fuck you."
Just like me when I was a student. I might admire him for it if he was wasting someone else's time. But he wasted mine. Dasa nono.
⢠#3 Mistakes Were Made, But Not By Me by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson â˘
"Confabulate" from Latin, "con" meaning "together" and, "fabulari" meaning "to talk, chat"; where we get the word, "fable", and, "fabulous"
In the general sense of the word, "confabulating" describes two or more people chatting (whereas "conspiring" describes two people breathing, i.e. whispering). In the psychological sense, it means "making up stories in your head."
Some say Homo Sapiens should go by another name. As sapience might not be our defining trademark after all. Animals play games, but none are as sophisticated as ours, so perhaps "homo ludens" hits closer to the mark. Or maybe, "homo coquens" for our grasp of fire, and the ability to cook food. Or, "homo deus" for the fact that in many ways we can play god, editing genes, harnessing fission, manipulating weather, etc.
Well I say add to the list of nicknames, "homo confabulans". For the fact that we never stop telling stories. To others and most especially to ourselves.
You know why deer always get hit by cars? Because those stupid fucks aren't story tellers. If they could, they'd have turned our headlights into scary bedtime stories long ago. Bucks would clash with bumpers and fenders on their antlers like they're enchanted items of magical power.
If I split your brain in half, separating your verbal centers on the left from your visual centers on the right, then fed humorous images to your right side, your body would start laughing. However if I asked you to explain why you laughed, since the story teller in your brain wasn't there to see the joke, it makes up any random ass reason it can think of, in a matter of milliseconds. But it'll have nothing to do with what you saw.
"What's so funny? Well you scientists just ask such silly questions, they crack me up."
Nature abhors a vacuum, and our brains abhor ignorance. Its solution to gaps in perception or awareness is to simply fill them with whatever is in reach, within that day's working memory. It happens so quick, we don't feel confused at all.
Worse than uncertainty, our brains hate cognitive dissonance the most. When do we feel dissonance? Any time our thoughts, words, or actions become misaligned with each other. It's painful, and we often employ drastic measures just to squash the feeling.
It doesn't take a lot to feel it. You don't have to think something all your life, say something countless times, or repeat an action over and over, for you to keep these things consonant. A small change in behavior can wipe away a lifetime commitment to certain ideas. And a minor adjustment in personal narrative can completely transform the way you act.
You could be someone's sworn enemy for as long as you know. But if I could convince you to give them a gift, that animosity would begin to diminish. You'd think, "I don't give gifts to assholes. Maybe they're not as bad as I thought. Life would definitely be nicer with fewer enemies. God it takes so much energy. Glad I'm forgiving enough to see past our differences. We've been through so much together. Can't find a bond like ours easily." And so on.
Try it, it's called the "Benjamin Franklin effect". If you want a hater to like you, don't do them a favor, make them do you one instead. The cognitive dissonance it creates breaks down walls like roots through brickwork.
Conversely, harming someone makes you dislike them. If I could fool you into violating or insulting a random person, then asked you later what your opinion of them is, while logically your opinion should be neutral, chances are you'll have a whole story ready to go about the stranger's bad vibes to explain why you fucked them over. Because you didn't know I tricked you, and your brain won't tolerate explanatory gaps.
We all think we're decent people, doing our best. We like to think we're competent and reliable. On some level we need to believe these things, true or not. When we fuck up though, these beliefs get threatened, and the most natural response is to self-justify. It makes perfect sense from an evolutionary point of view, but it's not exactly the most sapient thing to do.
This self-justification response is lightning fast and unless we're deliberately vigilant it'll run the whole show. Counteracting it is a slow cumbersome process, but there's no such thing as being an intelligent person if you don't.
I said, "don't" not, "can't". Anyone can, it's just a question of time and effort. Unless you have some glaringly obvious neurological damage.
Some people self-justify more often than others. Strangely, it's people with the highest self-esteem who cook up the most excuses. This includes expert professionals; doctors, police, political leaders, researchers, etc.
Not during this pandemic, though. They did everything perfectly. Mistakes were not made. /s
Disturbingly, when a perpetrator harms a victim, the perp is more likely to victim blame the more helpless the victim is. Like if a soldier kills a man in a knife duel, he just says "Es lo que es; I did what I had to do. Him or me."
But if that soldier firebombs a village of innocent rice farmers, "They put a lower price on human life over there." He'll say, "There's just so many of them, they don't mind if you burn a few. They'd do it to us if they could." Things go from bad, to disgusting, to odious.
People with low self-esteem may be less likely to make excuses. But they're also more likely to discount any information that might improve their self-esteem. Since all thoughts words and actions are self-reinforcing, and we naturally confirm our biases, people with low self-esteem will argue in favor of themself being trash, and high-self-esteemers will argue in favor of themself being treasure.
Hump had no interest in hearing anything that would counter his self-loathing. He was remarkably lucid about the power of narratives. He never argued with me about it. But the second it was time to analyze his narrative, out came the yeah-but's, and the broken record would spin.
You don't need money, or religion, or drugs to get good people to do bad things. You just need to fool them once, then let self-justification run its natural course. Like siphoning gasoline. Get a sucker over the edge, and gravity will take it from there.
Self-justification is what gets otherwise ethical police officers to falsify evidence and throw innocent people in jail (NEVER TALK TO THE POLICE. Repeat after me: "I want a lawyer"). Or worse, ignore the bullet hole in your face for six hours, because they decided you're the perp, not the second victim of a shooter who's still at-large. It gets doctors and psychotherapists to keep people on harmful ineffective treatments, till a patient dies or harms someone else, rather than undermine their original assessment. It gets two people in a relationship to turn small incompatibilities into deal-breakers. It keeps blood feuds roaring for generations, and makes retaliation escalate exponentially. It creates nonsensical prejudices and keeps them in circulation, long after their supposed use has worn off. It makes change nearly impossible, and absolutely destroys the impact of an apology.
Btw, I'm amazing at apologies. I don't even have to say "sorry," here's the script:
"You're right to be upset. I think I would be too if I were in your position. The last thing I was hoping to do was harm you. If I'd have known better, I would have gladly done something entirely different. I don't ever want to put you in this uncomfortable position again, so here's exactly what I plan to do differently from now on:"
It's wordy, but it's comprehensive. Your victim will probably want to customize and edit your apology a tiny bit to feel completely heard. Take their adjustments graciously, then thank them. A+ apology. What guilt? Big caveat: it absolutely doesn't work if you don't actually change the way you said you would, so be very careful what you promise.
One of the most important takeaways from the book is this: we live in a culture that doesn't tolerate mistakes. We don't see errors as a necessary part of learning. We see them as damning character flaws. We hide our mistakes, judge others by terrible standards, and when things aren't instantly easy, we're more likely to just give up and play the sour-grapes card. Like, "I could learn to do X, but it's just not my jam." or, "I wasn't born to do that like some other people."
In cultures where mistakes are respected, kids make better students, leaders are less arrogant and dishonest, and I gotta assume that life is a pinch less stressful. They have more of that Evel Knievel spirit, like it's not about how many times you fall, but how many times you get back up.
I made mistakes with Humpty. He was pitching, I was catching. I can say the guy throws like an inflatable tube man with cerebral palsy, but I also have to fully admit that my catching game was like Mr. Magoo trying to hunt mosquitos with a pair of chopsticks. This was a failure on my part. Period. I'm a shit therapist. I definitely figured I'd be better at this. But that's how the Dunning Kruger effect works.
(Unlike our boy Wednesday, who just graduated this week at the very top of his class. He's a bonafide therapist, not an ignorant wannabe prick like myself. Like I always say, Humpty's an anti-model, Wednesday's a role model.)
Or maybe I just hurled Humpty's ass into the air, and he landed on my stupid head.
Either way, he'd be better off ignoring all my criticism of his behavior, grabbing this book, and learning to do it himself.
⢠#4 The Shallows by Nicholas Carr â˘
Lets face it, ain't nobody reading no more books.
About 90% of all my "books" are in my Audible library. I write extensive notes but I'm also simultaneously playing something like The Long Dark or RDR2, or going on a walk while I listen. Sitting down with no distractions and flipping through a book for me is rare.
It just doesn't feel like an escape, because I'm constantly reading anyway, just like everyone else. I read as I scroll through my YouTube feed, social media notifications, comment sections and tweets, subtitles on foreign media, or flitting through aimless rabbit holes of hypertext. Powering straight through a fat wad of text from beginning to end is something my brain is just increasingly unwilling to do, no matter how much I beg or scold it.
I'm not alone.
Even famous galaxy-brains are admitting it. Long form, linear media consumption is disappearing; We're all developing attention deficit disorder wherever the internet exists. We want the Sesame Street version of absolutely everything.
Does that mean we're getting dumber? Not necessarily. Although it depends on who you ask. We're transforming into the kind of humans Socrates warned about, as people began to transition from an oral culture to a literate one.
He said it'd wipe out our capacity for memory, which is true. We can see this demonstrated in dyslexics, who have above-average memory abilities. When you have information stored in a page, you forget all the details, and simply remember where to find the page.
Practically speaking that's just fine. In fact it's far more efficient. But it has two drawbacks: if you lose the book, you lose the info. And we confuse knowledge in our hands or on a shelf with knowledge in our actual head, exacerbating our "illusion of explanatory depth" problem mentioned above.
The existence of books has expanded the whole human race's overall capacity for knowledge. But among individuals, they can make the reader a more shallow thinker, with greater pretenses to knowledge they don't actually posses. We couldn't have gotten to the moon, or invented insulin without literacy. But we also might be incapable of coming up with another Odyssey. If the computers all fry and the books all decompose, modern humans are going to vanish from history.
(Which is a major factor in me learning masonry. I want a mushroom cloud carved into stone, and I want people thousands of years from now to never forget that we harnessed the power of the fucking SUN.)
The internet has taken this to an extreme level. Books rewired human brains in an unprecedented way, and for the first time since those juicy Gutenbergers came hot off the grill, we've found a medium to displace or maybe even replace them.
We're trading intensity for extensity; breadth over depth. People give a web page twenty two seconds on average to determine if it's of use to them, before leaving. When they do stick around to read, they read only about eighteen percent before spotting the most promising blue hypertext and moving on. Everything is chopped up between notifications, refreshing news feeds, opening new tabs for later, etc.
"Learning" and, "multimedia" don't belong in the same sentence. Unless that sentence is, "Multimedia destroys a person's learning abilities."
Switching our focus like this incurs what are called "switching costs". Essentially, we lose the momentum of our focus, and it takes time to get it back.
Just as when someone loses their sight and the auditory centers of the brain annex the visual ones, the linear reading areas of our brain are being annexed by the non-linear crossword puzzle ones.
There's no resisting this, as far as I can tell. It's the direction the world is going in, thanks to the internet. It's the world I've been living in my whole life. I've been saying ADD is not a disorder since forever. It's only a disorder insofar as schools and certain institutions don't know how to cope with it. But now we're all learning to cope with it. Sweet, sweet vindication.
But maybe you want to keep those linear-focus circuits nice and sharp. Well, there's a bunch of options. The most obvious one is reading books, the old fashioned way. Less obvious is things like meditating, walking in nature, exercise, and generally making sure that you're having fun while learning.
Serotonin isn't just the best part about cocaine, it also plays a key role in learning and neuron growth. This all might explain why the only games I play if I'm listening to a book are ones rich with natural scenery, and zero dialogue.
So don't feel like a dumb-dumb. Everyone's attention is getting more shallow. Attention is not just some moral virtue, it's a sensitive balance going on in your brain's reward system, which can be altered by a number of surprising factors. The fact that humans became literate animals was weird enough already. This is just the next chapter humanity's never-ending weirdness.
Our capacity for abstract thought is going up though, in the meantime. Which is basically what IQ tests measure for. IQs are going up, attention span is going down. Like I said, "smart" is a puzzling concept.
⢠#5 Thinking, Fast And Slow by Daniel Kahneman â˘
Man, how the fuck am I supposed to sum this one up? This is a god damn jawbreaker of information.
This will now be the third time I've read it, and I would say I got three more reads to go before I'll ever claim to know how to draw this proverbial bike. There's always something new that stands out and finally sinks in.
But that's part of why it's considered a masterpiece. As thiccboi whizz-kid Nassim Taleb once tweeted:
1) Never read a book that can be adequately summarized
2) Never read a book you would not reread
3) No book that can be shortened survives
I love that quotation, because that means I can just phone these summaries in, and put all the onus on you to read them. I'm not summarizing, I'm propagandizing.
If you liked You Are Not So Smart and want more where that came from, or you read it and thought it was too basic, this is the book you're looking for. A huge chunk of David McRaney's work comes straight from this book right here. They share many sources.
Matter fact, this book prepares you to read nearly every single book in this series. After this chug, everything else feels like a sip.
First he lays out the general dynamic of "fast" vs "slow" thinking. For the sake of memorability, he personifies them as two characters in one story. Two different homunculi working simultaneously, piloting our actions.
Our fast mind ("System 1") is in charge of emotions, intuitions, instincts, sensations, things happening in the here and now. It's automatic, and often imperceptible. It follows the rule, "what you see is all there is." It doesn't problem-solve, it just reacts, and often has the first and last say in decisions we make.
Our slow mind ("System 2") is our beloved rational system. It crunches the numbers, handles logic and abstract info, manages memories, imagines the future and past, and weighs contradictory notions. It's cumbersome, energy intensive, and most importantly, LAZY.
For the longest time, economists followed the "homo economicus" model of human decision making. The idea was that humans are fundamentally rational beings, maximizing utility, and persuing wealth.
Now, Matthew Arnold puked all over that garbage in 1869, with his book Culture And Anarchy. He warned about that kind of mechanical, "Benthamistic", philistine gunk. But Arnold didn't have cognitive psychology to back him up. Just sass.
Not until the 1960s did we start to see what we now call "behavioral economics." Which is a fancy way of saying psychology caught up to all the bullshit coming out of the world of economic "science". If economists get a bad rap, it's due to the sins of its pre-psychology days, and the number of them that haven't yet caught up to 1960.
Cold, mathematical, rational decision making is the rarest kind. Your doctor, judge, professor, consultant, and every other type of expert you rely on, relies heavily on their emotions to decide things.
In fact, if I disabled your emotional responsiveness, you'd struggle to make even the simplest decisions. There are stories of people with that affliction, standing in the grocery store for an hour, staring at two different boxes of cereal, reading every last jot of writing on each box to decide which one to chose, including the numbers on the barcode, and making absolutely no progress. They just can't decide. Rationality is not what moves us to action, System 1 is.
Once the two systems are illustrated, then the book starts crunching on your brain, one chapter after another, applying this model to explain dozens of biases, illusions, and heuristics. It's not just a dorm room wall poster covered in logical fallacies to help you pwn noobs in a formal debate. It's the guide to checking oneself before wrecking oneself.
For everyone wishing Kâ12 schools would teach critical thinking classes, I've got terrible news: that's never going to happen. Dream of something more possible, like running an ice cream parlor on Venus, or catching a speeding bullet with a single pubic hair. But hypothetically, if that far-fetched fantasy class did ever exist, this would be one of its main text books.
Before this book came out, Kahneman was known as a guru figure to many of the greatest scientists and philosophers you know. Some, like Steven Pinker, call him the most influential psychologist alive today.
His point is not that humans are irrational. Just that they're not well described by the original rational agent model. We're unreliably intelligent, not reliably unintelligent. We can use our System 2 to refine and improve our System 1, but time is always of the essence, and we can always use more help making better decisions, and more accurate judgements. Most of our brain's shittyness is laziness and disorganized thinking.
I can't even poop on Humpty with this one. I mean Wednesday and I were always trying to explain this stuff to him. But it's all highly counterintuitive. It's stuff you really just need a bible about.
⢠End Bit â˘
Still stupid. Feeling even stupiderer this month. This put such a smoosh on my head I don't think I've spoken out loud to a friend all April.
Just tossing cheese curds into 2lb bags with a big scowl on my face, wondering how to arrange this wonky Venn diagram of information into five distinct summaries. Every one of these assholes quotes at least one other book in this entry, if not multiple, and tons of the same sources.
This was the month that really made me wonder how I managed to sign myself up for a year of this. Gotta be the wildest hair that ever found its way up my ass.
But I'm glad I did. Because as the Knowledge Illusion reminded me, it's easy to believe you can draw a bike, but can you actually draw it? It was easy to read dozens of books, but also easy to forget them and just say, "look, it's in my library." So this whole series, as well as being a petty act of spite, has been me going out of my way to shore up my explanatory depth.
Failing to have any impact on Humpty could just as easily reflect my lack of understanding of all these books. Which I can't abide. I've spent years now, proud of my library, and the first time I tried to pass on these ideas to someone else, absolutely nothing was gained.
I've already called Humpty a narcissist, a fake autist, a malingering Munchausen patient, and an empty shell. This month, lets just consider the fact that I'm an idiot. I'd feel worse about the way I speak about him if I thought I was a credible source.
But I don't have to be credible. I have 60 books to recommend, they have credibility. The ones I believe changed my life, and overhauled the way I look at the world. The idea that I had something good to share with Humpty brought real light into my life, and I hate him for not taking any of it seriously.
If my series convinces just one person to read just one of these books, the whole year of work was a success.
I was running around, with my head in the sand.
Looking for a pupil, in a new fan.
She told me before, baby do your own dance.
Stay off the highway. -- K-os, Born To Run
(This painting captured my imagination instantly, and its magic hasn't worn off. I liked it so much I bought an original copy of Amazing Stories so I could read the story behind the image. It wasn't as simple to find as I hoped, and I think that's a real shame. So here it is. A thing you can google:)
Arrogantly, they set out to destroy a planet for the good of Man â Man who is stuffed with straw where his heart and mind and soul should be.
Illustration by Virgil Finlay
On our abandoned Martian landing field there hangs a man's discarded spacesuit, suspended from the desensitized prongs of a Come-to-me tower. It is stuffed with straw filched, no doubt, from packing cases which brought out so many more delicate, sensitive, precision instruments than we take back.
None knows which of our departing crew hanged the spacesuit there, nor exactly what he meant in the act. A scarecrow to frighten all others away?
More likely a mere Kilroy-was-here symbol; defacing initials irresistibly carved into a priceless ancient work of art, saying, "I am too shoddy a specimen to create anything of worth, but I can deface. And this proves I, too, have been."
Or was it symbolic suicide; a sense of guilt so overpowering that man has hanged himself in effigy upon the scene of his crime?
Captain Leyton saw it there on the morning of final departure; saw it, and felt a sudden flush of his usual stern discipline surge within him; all but formed the harsh command to take that thing down at once: Find the one who hanged it there: Bring him to me!
The angerâthe command. Died together. Unspoken.
Something in the pose of the stuffed effigy hanging there must have got down through to the diminishing person inside the ever thickening rind of a commander. The forlorn sadness, the dejection; and yes, he too must have felt the shame, the guilt, which overwhelmed us all.
Whether the helmet had fallen forward of its own weight because the vandal had been careless in stuffing it with too little straw to hold its head erectâ vandals being characteristically futile even in their vandalismâ or whether, instead of a supposed vandal, this was the talent of a consumate artist moulding steel and rubber, plastic and straw into an expression of how we all felt: no matter, the result was there.
The Captain did not command the effigy be taken down. None others offered, nor asked if that might be his wishâ not even the ubiquitous Ensign perpetually bucking for approval.
So on an abandoned Martian landing field there hangs a discarded spacesuitâ the image of man stuffed with straw; with straw where heart, and mind, and soul was intended to be.
~~ 1 ~~
At the time it seemed a most logical solution to an almost impossible problem.
Dr. VanDam summed it up in his memorable speech before the United Nations. If he were visually conscious of the vault of face blurs in the hushed assembly, the lesser sight did not obscure his stronger vision of the greater vaulted mass of shining stars in the black of space.
He may not even have been conscious of political realities which ever obscure man's dreams. First, what he said would be weighed by each delegate in terms of personal advantage to be gained for his own status. Second, his words must be weighed again in terms of national interest. Third, what advantage could be squeezed out for their racial-religious-color bloc? At the fourth level of consideration, what advantage to the small nation bloc over the large; or how would it enhance the special privileges of the large over the small? Down to the fifth level, could it preserve the status quo, changing nothing so that those in power could remain in power, while at the same time, giving the illusion of progress to confound the ever clamoring liberals? At the deep sixth level, if one ever got down that far, one might give a small fleeting thought to what might be good for mankind.
If Dr. VanDam even knew that such political realities must ever take precedence over the dreams of science, he gave no sign of it. It was as if all his thought was upon the glory of the stars and the dream of man reaching out to them. It was with the goal of reaching the stars in mind that he spoke.
"We must sum up the problem," he was saying. "It is simply this. There is a limit to how far we can theorize in science without testing those theories to see if they will work. Sooner or later the theorist must submit himself to the hands of the engineer whose acid test of worth is simply this: 'does it work?'
"We have always known that the Roman candles we are using for our timid little space flights can take us only to the nearest planets; for there is that inexorable ratio of time to initial thrust; that unless thrust continues and continues, the Mayfly lifetime of man will expire many times over, before we could reach the nearest star. Nor will our limited resources fuel ion engines, and we must learn how to replenish with space dust gathered along the way.
"To have continuous velocity we must have continuous nuclear power. To have continuous nuclear power, we must have more nuclear tests. Now we believe we know how to take not special ores but ordinary matter, of any kind, and convert it into nuclear power. We believe we can control this. We have this in theory. But the engineer has not tested it with his question, 'does it work?'
"We cannot make these tests on Earth. For what if it does not work? We dare not use the Moon. Its lighter gravity makes it too valuable a piece of real estate in terms of future star journeys. It will be our busy landing stage; we dare not contaminate it nor risk destroying it.
"We have reached stalemate. On Earth and Moon we can go on no farther without testing. On Earth and Moon we dare not test. Some other testing area must be found.
~~ 2 ~~
"Our explorers have brought us conclusive proof that mars is a dead world. A useless world in terms of life. Useless, too, as a source of minerals, for our little roman candles can carry no commercial payload. A useless world for colonization, with air too tenuous for human lungs and water too scarce for growing food. Humans must be housed in sealed chambers, or constantly wear spacesuits. From all practical points of view, a worthless world.
"But invaluable for science. For there, without destroying anything of value to man, we can put our theories to test. We believe we can start a nuclear reaction in ordinary rock and dirt, and keep it under control to produce a continuous flow of power. We believe we can keep it from running wild out of control.
"If the innumerable tests we must run do contaminate the planet, or even destroy it slowly, our gain in knowledge will be greater than the loss of this worthless real estate."
There was a stir in the Assembly; something between a gasp of horror and admiration at the audacity of man's sacrificing a whole planet to his knowledge. They had not known we were so far along the way.
And then, on second thought, a settling back in satisfaction. It seemed a simple solution to an impossible problem. To take not only VanDam's tests away from Earth, but all nuclear testing of every kind! To quell the fears and still the clamoring of the humanists who would rather see man stagnate in ignorance than risk the future to learn. At every level of political reality this might turn to advantage. If there were any who still thought in such terms, it might even be good for mankind generally!
"I am not mystic minded," VanDam continued when the rustle and murmur had diminished. "But the convenience of this particular planet, located precisely where it is, far enough away that we must have made great progress in science to reach it, and close enough to be ready when we need it for further progress; this seems almost mystical in its coincidence."
(That for the ones who would have to go through the usual motions of obtaining Higher Power approval for doing that they fully intended doing all along.")
"My question: Shall the nations of Earth agree upon our use of this so convenient, and otherwise worthless, ready-at-hand stage placed right where we need itâwaiting for us down through all the ages until we should be ready to make use of it?"
~~ 3 ~~
Their ultimate response was favorable.
Dr. VanDam did not mention, and being only politicans unable to see beyond the next vote or appointment the did not ask:
True, we do have a theory of how to start and continue the slow burn nuclear conversion of ordinary rock and dirt to energy. What we do not have, as yet, is a way to stop it.
We think that eventually future man will probably find a way to stop the process. We think slow burn will not speed up and run out of control to consume an entire planet before we have found a way to stop it. We think that future science may even find a way to decontaminate the planet. We hope these things.
But we know that the science of nucleonics will be stillborn and stunted to grow no farther unless we go on testing. We convince ourselves that even if an entire planet is consumed, it is a worthless planet anyway, and will be worth it.
Yet there was the usual small minority who questioned our right to destroy one of the planets of our solar system. There is always such a minority, and as always, the rest of the world, intent on turning what it intended to do anyway into the Right-Thing-To-Do, was able to shout them down.
Anyway, the consequences were for future man to face. Or so we thought.
I say we, because I was one of the members of Project Slow Burn. Not that I'm the hero. There wasn't any hero. Mistaken or not, it was conceived this wasn't one of those television spectaculars cooked up to convert science into public emotionalism. There was no country-wide search for special photogenic hero-types to front the project.
The reporters, true to their writing tradition of trying to reduce even the most profound scientific achievement to the lowest common denominator of sloppy sentimentalism or avid sensationalism, tried to heroize Dr. VanDam as head of the science side of the project. But he wasn't having any.
"Don't you think, gentlemen," he answered them with scorn, "It is about time the public grew up enough to support the search for knowledge because we need it, rather than because they'd like to go to bed with some handsome, brainless kook you've built up into a hero?"
This response was not likely to further the cause of journalism.
They tried to lionize Captain Leyton, as head of the transport side of it; but his remarks were even more unprintable.
They never got down far enough through the echelons of status to reach me. I was Chief of Communications, which is just another way of saying I was a television repair man with headaches. Not that it would have done them any good.
There isn't one thing about me that fits the sentimental notions of what a hero should be. I'm not even a colorful character. If I'm expert in my job it's only because I learned early what any lazy man with an ounce of brains also learnsâ that life goes easier for the expert than for the ignorant. Which is not exactly a hero attitude the public likes to hear, but true all the same.
I did have an advantage which qualifies me to tell this tale.
~~ 4 ~~
Supervision, nowadays, sits on its duff in an office surrounded by television monitors showing them every phase of their responsibilities, and punches buttons when some guy tries to goof-off or starts lousing up the operation.
Somebody has to maintain the system and check the same monitors. I saw everything of importance that happened.
That's the only way I come into the yarn at all. I didn't start out a hero type. I didn't turn into one. I just watched what happened; and I got sick at my stomach along with everybody else. And now I slink away, sick and ashamed, and not understanding even that, along with the rest. Not heroesânoânone of us.
From the first this was intended and conducted as a genuine scientific project, a group effort, which each man's ego subdued and blended in to serve the needs of the whole. No special heroes emerging to show up the rest of the dopes. None of the usual stuff of romantic fiction was supposed to happenâthose unusual dangers, horrible accidents, sudden frightful emergencies so dear to the little sadistic hearts of readers and viewers.
So far as I know, nobody beat up anybody with their fists, nor gunned them down; which is the usual, almost the only, fictional way yet found among the humanists for coping with life problems.
We assembled the mastership on the Moon base from parts which were Roman candled up, a few pieces at a time, from too heavily gravitied Earth.
The yelps of pain from taxpayers reached almost as high. It was one thing to wash the hands of the vexing problem of nuclear testing by wanting it shifted out to Mars. It was something else to pay for having it.
Against the Moon's lighter gravity, we eventually were space-borne with no more than the usual fight between power thrust and inertia, both physical and psychological.
Without touching that precious reserve of fuel which we hoped would bring us back again, we were able to build up enough speed that it took us only a month to reach Mars. No point in showing, because nobody would care, how the two dozen of us were cramped in the tiny spaces left by the equipment and instruments we had to carry.
Construction and maintenance had done their job properly, and, for once, inspection had actually done its job, too. We were able to reverse properly at the right time, and soft cushion powered our way down into the Martian plain eastward of a low range of hills.
Surely everybody has watched the documentaries long enough to have some idea about the incredibly hostile surface of Mars; the too thin air, which lets some stars shine through even in day time; the waterless desert; the extremes of temperature; the desolation. . . .
Ah, the desolation! The terrifying desolation!
~~ 5 ~~
Moon surface is bad enough; but at least there is the great ball of Earth, seeming so near in that airless world that one has the illusion of being able to reach out and almost touch it, touch home, know home is still there, imagine he can almost see it.
"See that little tip of land there on the east coast of the North American continent? That's where I live!"
"Yeah," somebody answers. "And who is that guy walking through your front door without knocking while you're away?"
Sometimes it seems that close.
On Mars, Earth is just another bright spot in the black night sky; so far away that the first reaction is one of terrible despair, the overpowering conviction that in all that vast hostility a man will nevermore see home; nor know again the balmy twilight of soft, moist summer; nor feel the arms of love.
Explorers had not lied. Nothing, anywhere, could be more worthless to man than the planet Mars. Worthless, except for the unique purpose which had brought us there.
We dug in beneath the surface.
Now surely, again, everyone has seen enough of the documentaries that it is unecessary to show us digging out our living quarters and laboratories beneath that merciless plain. We used the displaced powdered rock to form a crude cement, not long lasting but adequate for the time we would be there. With it, we surfaced over our living area. This was not so much to provide a landing field, since most of our journeying would be in individual jet powered spacesuits; but to help insure against any leakage of air if our inner seals cracked.
To help seal out the killing radiation we intended to let looseâthat, too.
We erected Come-to-me towers at each elevator which would lower space-suited men to lower levels where they could go through locks to reach their quarters. One Come-to-me tower for each half dozen men, tuned to the power source of their suits, to bring each man safely back, as truly as a homing pigeon, to guarantee against becoming lost on that hostile planet; and in emergency, should one arise, to see that no panic mob ganged up at one lock and died waiting there for entrance to safety while other locks remained idleâthe human way of doing things under stress.
~~ 6 ~~
We had to finish all that in the first few weeks before any nuclear tests could be started. Anybody whose notions of science are derived from white-frocked actors in television commercials hasn't the vaguest idea of how much back breaking physical work at the common labor level a genuine scientist has to do.
There was some emotional relief once we had dug in and sealed out the awful desolation of an uncaring universe. (This is the hardest part of reconciling oneself to the science attitude. More comforting to believe even that the universe is hostile than to admit it simply doesn't care about man, one way or another.) In our sealed quarters we might briefly imagine ourselves working in an air conditioned laboratory back home.
It helped. It certainly helped.
Not that I seemed to find time for more than exhausted sleeping there. To see what would be going on at the various field sites where tests were to be run meant the cameras had to be installed at those spots. In spite of the purported rigid tests for expedition personnel, my two assistants must have been somebody's nephews. Somehow each installation seemed to require I be there.
Be there, and usually without some little piece of equipment which would have helped so much, but which had been deleted from the lists we submitted by clerks who were more concerned with making a big showing on how much weight they could eliminate than in helping us.
Somehow we managed.
But I have made a little list of guys I'm going to ferret out and poke in the nose once I get back to Earth. Maybe those Hollywood producers who think the only way to solve a problem is to beat up somebody or gun him down are onto something, after all. Right on top of that list, in big bold letters, is the spacesuit designer who thinks a man can handle the incredibly fine parts of miniaturized electronic equipment with those crude instruments they give us to screw into the arm ends of spacesuits.
Somehow we managed. Somehow, out of chaos, order came. Somehow tests got made. Sometimes, more often, there was only the human sigh, the gulp, the shrug, and back to the drawing board.
Big surprise at the end of the first three months. A supply ship landed. Mostly food and some champagne, yet! Stuff the folks back home thought they'd like to have if they were out there. Even some pin-up pictures, as if we weren't already having enough trouble without being reminded. But none of the equipment we'd radioed for in case the taxpayers could forego a drink and a cigarette apiece to raise money for sending it. The public couldn't understand our need for equipment, so they didn't send any. Miracles aren't supposed to need any equipment or effort; they just come into being because people want them.
The packages of home baked cookies were welcome enough after our diet of hydroponic algae, but I'd still rather have had a handful of miniature transistors.
Some of the guys said they'd have been willing to substitute their cookies for an equal weight of big, buxom blonde; but that's something the cookie bakers probably preferred not to think about.
The little three man crew of the supply ship, as they were taking off for their return journey, promised they'd tell 'em what we really wanted when they got back, but I doubt the message ever got broadcast over the home and family television sets. Anyway, scientists are supposed to be cold, unfeeling, inhuman creatures who wander around looking noble, wise, and above it all.
In the beginning I'd thought that once I got the heavy work of installation completed, I could do a little wandering around looking wise and noble, myself. No such luck. I'd no more than get set up to show one experiment than it was over; and I'd have to dismantle, move, and set up for another. We'd thought the lighter gravity of Mars, thirty-eight percent, would make the labor easy. But somehow there was still lifting, tugging, pulling, hauling, cursing.
But then, nobody wants to hear how the scientist has to work to get his miracle. The whole essence of the illusion that miracles can be had without work, that all one needs is to wish.
All right. So we'll get to the miracle.
~~ 7 ~~
Now we were finally ready to get down to the real test, the main reason for our coming out to MarsâProject Slow-Burn.
VanDam chose a little pocket at the center of that little cluster of hills to our Westâthat little cluster of hills everybody has seen in the pictures radioed back to Earth.
We didn't know at the time, but that little cluster of hills was causing quite an uproar among archeologists back home. No archeologist had been included in the expedition, and now they were beating their breasts that from the pictures those hills looked mighty artificial to them. There was too much of a hint that the hills might once have been pyramids, they said; incredibly ancient, perhaps weathered down eons ago when the planet was younger, before it had lost so much of its atmosphere, but maybe still containing something beneath them.
We didn't hear the uproar, of course. Administration deemed it unnecessary for us to bother our pretty little heads about such nonsense. In fact the uproar never got outside the academic cloister to reach the public at all. Administration should have listened. But then, when does man listen to what might interfere with his plans to spoil something?
We got all set to go in that little pocket at the center of the hills. The spot was ideal for us because the hill elevations gave us opportunity to place our cameras on their top to focus down into the crater we hoped would appear.
A whole ring of cameras was demanded; as if the physicists shared too much of the public's attitude, and all I needed to produce enough equipment was to wish for it. But by stripping the stuff from virtually every other project, I managed to balance the demands of the Slow-Burn crew against the outraged screams of the side issue scientists.
VanDam's theories worked.
At first it took the instruments to detect that here was any activity; but gradually, even crude human eyes could see there was a hole beginning to appear, deepen and spreadâprogressively.
It was out of my line, but the general idea seemed to be that only one molecular layer at a time was affected, and that it, in turn, activated the next beneath and to the side while its own electrons and protons gave their final energy.
The experiment did not work perfectly. The process should have been complete. There should have been no by-product of smoke and fire, no sign to human eyes of anything happening except a slowly deepening and spreading hole in the ground.
Instead there was some waste of improperly consumed molecules, resulting in an increasingly heavy, fire-laced smoke which arose sluggishly in thin air, borne aloft only by its heat, funneling briefly while it gave up that heat; then to settle down and contaminate everything it touched.
To compound my troubles, of course.
~~ 8 ~~
The physicists were griping their guts out because I didn't have the proper infrared equipment to penetrate the smoke; and somehow I wasn't smart enough to snap my fingers and â abracadabra â produce. Those damned cookie packages instead of equipment! Those damned clerks who had decided what we wouldn't need. My little list was getting longer.
Still, I guess I was able to get a feeble little snap from my fingers. I did manage to convert some stuff, never intended for that purpose, into infrared penetration. We managed to see down into that smoke- and fire -filled crater.
To see enough.
It was the middle of a morning (somebody who still cared claimed it would be a Tuesday back home) some three basic weeks after beginning the experiment. The hole was now some thirty feet across and equally deep, growing faster than VanDam's figures predicted it should, but still not running wild. and out of control. Even if it had been, we couldn't have stopped it. We didn't know how.
I was trying to work out a little cleaner fix on the South wall of the crater when that wall disappeared like the side of a soap bubble. My focus was sharp enough to see.
To see down and into that huge, vaulted room. To see the living Martians in that room shrivel, blacken, writhe and die. To see some priceless alien works of art writhe and blacken and curl; some burst into flame; some shatter into dust.
That was when the scientists, sitting there watching their monitors with horror-stricken eyes, felt jubilation replaced with terrible guilt.
I, too. For naturally I was watching the master monitors to see that the equipment kept working. I saw it all.
I saw those miniature people, yes people, whole and beautiful, in one brief instant blacken, writhe and die.
But out of the billions of gross people on Earth, once in a generation a tiny midget is born and matures into the adult of such perfection and proportion and surpassing beauty that the huge, coarse, normal person can only stare and marvelâand remember the delicate perfection of that miniature being, with nostalgic yearning for the rest of his life.
From such, perhaps, comes the legends common to all people in all ages, of the fairies. Or, eons ago, was there traffic between Earth and Mars? Or even original colonization from Mars to Earth, finally mutating into giants? They were people, miniature versions of ourselves.
I saw them there. Perhaps not more than a dozen in that room. But in other rooms? Perhaps in a lacework of underground rooms? A whole civilization which, like ourselves on Mars, had gone underground, sealed themselves in against the thinning atmosphere, the dying planet?
And we had begun the atomic destruction of their planet. We had begun it. We could not stop it. The corrosion keeps growing, spreading.
I saw them die. Somehow I felt their pain.
But I did not die of it.
I carry it with me. I shall always carry it with me.
~~ 9 ~~
That's all there is.
In years to come people on Earth, people who did not see what we saw, did not feel the pain and guilt we felt, will wonder at our behavior following that.
Oh there is much to wonder. If there is a civilization, where does their food come from? If they are able to convert rock to food, why are they not able to stop the atomic destruction of their planet we have started? If they are able to so fill us with their own grief for what we have done that we can think of nothing but to slink away, like whipped curs caught in vandalism; why didn't they do this before we started the fire we cannot stop?
Oh, there is so much unanswered. People will wonder that we simply abandoned most of our equipment, the very project itself; that for a sick hour we watched, then, with one accord, without anybody making the decision, we began to withdraw and start for home.
Like small boys, thinking only to vandalize a schoolhouse in their savage glee, discovering it is a shrine.
Or, perhaps in time, we can rationalize it all away. Perhaps so soon as during that long, journey back.
It wasn't our fault, we shall begin to say. They were as much to blame as we. Sure they were!
More to blame! They were more to blame than we!
Why didn't they come out of their holes and fight us? With their fists if they didn't have guns? Any red-bloodiedâer, red-bloodedâAmuriâwell, whatever they areâought to have enough guys to come out and fight, to defend home, flag and mother!
We'll probably get around to that. It's the normal attitude to take after vandalism. It's the human way.
But as of now, our only thought is to slink away.
~~ 10 ~~
On our abandoned Martian landing field there hangs a man's discarded spacesuit, suspended from the desensitized prongs of a Come-to-me tower. It is stuffed with straw filched no doubt, from packing cases which brought out so many more delicate, sensitive, precision instruments than we take back.
Although we have not been entirely irresponsible in our headlong flight back home.
We do bring back some of what we took out; the more valuable of the instruments. We have been most selective in this.
The only coarse, insensitive, unfinished instrument we bring backâis man.
⢠Humpty Dumpty Elegy 8 | five books on đŚPOWERđŚ â˘
When I was an eleven year old boy, a very wise squirrel said something I never forgot:
Insecurity is the one thing that never goes out of style. And I am proudly outdated
He's a good lord and master, that Foamy the Squirrel. Taught me an embarrassingly large number of good ideas. Embarrassing, mostly because it exposes my obvious fatherlessness.
But hey, I'm a man of many dads. I got OG Gaydad (plus a step-Gaydadmother + their fuccboi), Realdad the Deaddad, Stepdad the Notyetdeaddad, Trinidad Deaddad, Partially-lobotomized Mohawkdad, new Trinidad dad (alive), plus Doug Stanhope, Aesop Rock, and everyone's LORD AND MASTER Foamy (My mom hasn't banged the last three, yet). A real Papa Johns Buffet.
My mom's got a nice book for you, it's called, "The Ethical Slut" by Dossie Easton. Sounds cool. Wasn't cool hearing her and my Grandma discuss it at the dinner table. Yuck.
So what are we in for today? What's the topic du mois?
POWER
I knew this was coming, and even though Humpty's not actually reading any of this, I wanted to make sure I put books on being a solid person, before I recommend books on being a powerful one.
Readers definitely care more about power and influence, than ethics and morality, or god forbid, narcissism. Which I completely understand; who the fuck am I, anyway? But I'm playing with fire here, giving a wannabe serial/spree killer/rapist books on power.
But now, with all the medicinal shit out of the way, time for the delicious stuff. Topics that are way more fun, like psychedelics, stupidity, "monkey brains", the soul, etc. Should be mostly free of moralizing from now on.
Fuck it, say the rock can't hide you, the river's bleedin', and the sea's boilin'. Sinnerman, you're going to need power. Pa-ha-ha-hawah!
⢠#1 The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell â˘
Lets start off small. I say Humpty's something, if only an empty shell with room to fill. Humpty says he's nothing... period.
Pick something you find insignificant, and he'll diminish himself beyond that. A mote of dust? Too big. An atom? My, that's generous. Sub-atomic particle? Close, but still too energetic to be his match.
The self-hate is so cartoonish you have to wonder if he's just putting on a show. Even Wednesday, with his actual life of pain, at least sees the fact that he survived it all as some measure of greatness. But Humpty? Well we all know how he works at this point. It's a short script.
So lets humor him. He's itty fuckin bitty. Who cares? Who isn't? We're all ants, hoping a good hill will emerge from us. Thing is, hills don't emerge from one ant; ants are pretty pathetic specimens all alone. But as a group, they can eat an elephant, brain first, and elephants know it.
This book is like Atomic Habits, for hills and hives. No person of influence or significance ever made it to our awareness alone. They came crowdsurfing in on a swarm of apes, tossed about like a beloved beachball.
It's easy to get misled into thinking there's only one correct role to play in society, and that you just ain't it. Maybe you find that the most legendary people are the ones who can convince people of anything, or have a vast library of info in their head, or an expansive network of powerful acquaintances. Maybe you're daunted by the idea that you have to be all three at once to accomplish your dreams.
Pick the one that comes to you most naturally, nurture that side, then search for the other two, and befriend them. Geniuses occupy multiple categories. But hey, fuck being a genius, don't be a narcissist, move on. We is what we is. Intelligence has diminishing returns, and the vast majority of an individual's intelligence is stored in their peers, not their brains.
Malcolm calls these three "Salesmen, Mavens, and Connectors"
I used to get down on myself, for spending so much of my free time alone, hammering useless factoids into my head. It seems I prefer reading about humans over interacting with them. Meanwhile people like Wednesday and my brother hunger for new connections 10x harder than I do. I just siphon friends from them.
However, as much as I envy their drive to connect, they envy my ability to be comfortable alone, and the knowledge I've independently accumulated over the years. They've both referred to me as a major resource for information, that's given them an edge in their own life.
After reading this book, I finally recognized that I'm fine as-is, and so are they. In fact I've always had a pretty good thing going, despite my reclusiveness. I'm a maven, they're connectors. The only thing we're missing, is a salesman and a mission. Then we can finally start that cult we've been dreaming about. wat?
Now, Malcolm focusses on how these three combine to make HUGE things happen, and gives the slight impression that they're rare people. But that's not true. The scale doesn't matter, whether you're looking to put together the next Amazon, or just make a fond name for yourself in a little pissbunk town of eighty people. Humans all generally fall into these categories. If you're wondering what your calling is, it's good to start by asking yourself whether you're a connector, a maven, or a salesperson.
Greatness is not a highway with just one fast lane. It's a heavy ass carriage that needs three horses at a time. Figure out what kind you are, find the papers and scissors to your rock, harness up, and get pulling.
[p.s. Malcolm infamously promotes the "broken windows policy" in this, which has been debunked. Big cringe. But it plays a very small role in making his overall point. Don't let it distract you too much.]
⢠#2 The Square And The Tower by Niall Fergusson â˘
What does power mean to you? When do you feel that taint-tingling, goose-bumping, buckle-swashing feeling that you are in the presence of something truly powerful?
Me, I'm less spooked by kings and their coterie. Likely a form of stupidity on my part. But I always see hierarchs as the middle of the hierarchy. Because above, below, behind, and beyeet them, lie networks and conspiracies. It's networks that chill my bones. Like the neat little gang of psychics I spotted in New Orleans.
I've seen the power of them my whole life. My mother is a member of the largest conspiracy in the Great Lakes/New England region: Barbershop singers. She's got connections from Salem to Sault St. Marie. She even sang with one of my principals as a Sweet Adeline which got me way more mercy than my misbehaving ass ever deserved. One of her other friends even got me a job working at Camp Rock (aka Camp Kilcoo) for a summer, living in a cabin next to a lake, making bacon and eggs for some delightful little punkass kids. That place taught me to shake hands like a man.
I exaggerate, but really, a mere barbershop network is like hammerspace for human potential. Reach in, pull something out for free. Even weirder, my mom's known by hundreds of people by a single letter. I can say "You know X?" And people go "Oooooh! So YOU are X's son!!"
If you want to keep an eye on power, you have to know what you're looking at. Now, it's a mistake to put hierarchies and networks on a continuum of opposites. Power can coagulate, or it can dissolve. Any Satanists out there?
Networks can act as hierarchies, and hierarchies can network. The best analogy is in the name: Hierarchies are vertical like towers, networks are horizontal like the market square beneath them. Some shit is a bit diagonal.
Historians are absolutely terrible at piecing together networks throughout history, because they leave measly paper trails. Either they're non-existent, or so vast and full of noisy data as to be encrypted to history.
Niall first does a great job of drawing clear lines between how hierarchies and networks operate. Then for the rest of the book, he gives a variety of examples of both, throughout history.
I didn't realize till I reread these books, but this one pairs perfectly with The Tipping Point. Niall discusses network nodes, and the importance of a node's "centrality". It all becomes extremely familiar when he gets into the three different kinds of centrality:
"Degree centrality" = The number of edges radiating out of a node. Like how many doors a room has. A room with many doors has high degree centrality. With humans, it's a measure of sociability. Or as Gladwell might put it, the node is a "connector"
"Betweenness centrality" = The extent to which info and influence passes through a node. It could be a room with few doors, but those few doors are where huge amounts of traffic and data flows through. Not a high quantity of doors, but a high quality. These are the "maven" nodes.
"Closeness centrality" = The number of steps it takes for one node to reach another. The Kevin-Baconiness of a node. The fewer the average steps from one node to all others in the network, the higher the closeness centrality.
For anyone who has read You Are Not So Smart and were left wanting to learn more about Dunbar's Number, these first two books both cover the concept pretty well.
I could go on, this is a very dense book, packed with cool information. How do poor people and rich people network? What are the "7 great insights of network theory"? What makes weak ties so strong? How come the rich get richer? Davos Man? Illuminati? Technology? Jungle warfare? Would the world be better without hierarchy? When is it time to be a non-conformist, or to integrate?
I'm afraid you'll just have to read this big thicc bitch to find out.
⢠#3 On Grand Strategy by John Lewis Gaddis â˘
You used to have to join an Ivy League school to get what this book offers. How fancy.
If there's one thing I absolutely love, it's a book on harmony. Taking two powerful and compelling opposites, finding the hip that joins them, and exemplifying those who can harmonize both sides into one effective point of view.
What are you, a fox, or a hedgehog? A map, or a compass?
As the analogy goes, the fox searches for food everywhere, and everywhere finds a new challenge to overcome. Life is uncertain. The fox is willy, creative, and dynamic. Whereas the hedgehog sits in one bush, and waits for his food to skitter and wriggle right up to him. Threaten him, he just balls up and waits. The hedgehog lives a simple life of certainty and stasis.
It's maybe unsurprising that Sonic is the de facto mascot for autism. Even though he's super fast, he moves in straight lines, and instead of staying still, he absolutely never wants to stop. A real linear fella, with a roguish fox-like veneer.
Many people make the mistake of trying to adopt just one form. But you need both. The other great analogy Gaddis uses is the topographical map vs the compass. One needs both to properly navigate. The compass points you north with certainty and straightforwardness, but it won't warn you of the swamps and cliffs, like a good map will.
With the basic dynamic laid out, Gaddis then loads you up with some choice examples throughout history, of foxes and their hedgehog foils, as well as people who embodied both styles with great harmony and success.
There are some fascinating pairs to think about. Machiavelli and St Augustine, Queen Elizabeth and King Philip II, Tolstoy and Clausewitz, Lincoln and Douglas, Jackson and Hamilton, etc. the respective foxes and hedgehogs of their times.
"Grand Strategy", according to John, involves combining one's inner fox and hedgehog, adapting to incompatibilities, keeping your self rooted with your head out of the clouds where platitudes swarm, and making decisions that can overcome the constant changes in time, space, and scale.
⢠#4 The 48 Laws Of Power by Robert Greene â˘
This is the book that started the Humpty Dumpty Elegy, officially. Scoffing at You Are Not So Smart was Hump's biggest single insult. But this got me in motion. I never planned on sharing this one with anybody. It even says to keep plenty of your best knowledge secret. But power crystalized into a topic, and without this, there were only four out of five books. Well sheeit.
Looking at the reviews, just the existence of a book like this upsets people. In fact, I was guilty of a similar attitude. I only read it after letting it sit in my library for more than a year. I figured only creepy douchebags and prisoners would read something like this.
But thanks to Chrissy Chaos blabbin' about it everywhere he went, I decided to give it a shake. And I'm so glad I did.
Now I'm upset at whatever put that bullshit in my head. Anybody who tells you not to empower yourself is your enemy. There's nothing to gain from being weak. Nothing for you, that is.
And if you think tough men are dangerous, wait until you see what weak men eggs are capable of -- Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules For Life
I should have known better. Repressing your shadow is one of the most effective ways of turning yourself into a neurotic psycho. You oughta be out there, vice signaling.
There were a number of rules that pointed the finger at Humpty, saying, "get this bastard out of your life!" But the one that obviously sealed the deal was,
Law 10: Infection, avoid the unhappy and unlucky.
Now, "unhappy and unlucky" describes Wednesday to a T. So I cracked a joke at him saying, "Sorry dude, my book says ya gotta go. Time to giddy the fuck up on out ma life, beitch!" We laughed, but I worried he might actually be thinking that the creepy power book I'm reading is saying mean things about him behind his back.
So I thought about it, and wondered what I might say to make it clear that Mr. Greene wasn't referring to my powerful and inspiring friend Wednesday. In case Wednesday happened to catch real feelings about it.
"He wasn't talking about you, he was talking about Humpty Dumpty."
đ¤ŻâĄđĄ
When I said that in my head, a lightning bolt fired off in there, all these neurons waiting to connect finally did, and Humpty's scheme unraveled in my mind from beginning to end.
Now, I'd like to reiterate, I never advocated for kicking Humpty Dumpty out of our little group. I merely told them that I was 100% done with his crybaby bullshit, and that I was planning on doing things differently for my own peace of mind. But The Twelve Days Of Christmas began, without me needing a single power law to guide it. I just wanted to bore him, and ignore him.
But aaah well fuck him, he's not reading this. All this guilty conscience shit has got to be getting boring.
When the book wasn't describing Dump as cancer, it actually described him as a dude with remarkable control over his life already. It's just that he laments everything that makes him powerful:
His intentions are obscure; He always says less than necessary; He's got a great reputation, outside of the Discord; He effortlessly courts attention towards his fake pitifulness; He gets others to do work for him; He's can be disarmingly honest and generous; He knows to appeal to people's self-interest or self-image; He's never committed to anyone; He played a sucker to catch a sucker (Wednesday and I); He's the living embodiment of the "surrender tactic"; He played on our need to believe; He can control your options, dealing only the cards he wants you to play with; All grapes are sour grapes to him; He IS a compelling spectacle; And though he behaves like others, he thinks like nobody else.
The fun part of reading this book is finding what things you actually do quite well. We learn plenty of these laws naturally, as kids, and it's validating hearing them in a book like this. Humpty's not helpless, no matter how much he insists. After reading this, I just can't buy it from him.
It's not just validating, but overall refreshing and unique. Robert wrote this out of frustration, as he apparently writes all of his books. He found nobody was writing anything practical or honest about power. Everything else avoided delving into the human shadow, or just telling it like it is when it comes to the ego.
"Amoral" is a fair word for this book. It is not gonna help you find eudaimonia, or fulfillment. It has no advice on what to do with all your newfangled power. So keep that in mind. Try my other recommendations.
But are you an anxious person? Why? You don't just have anxiety. You are anxious, about something. It's not a cold, nobody just sneezed it into you. Everyone's anxiety is their own complex tangle of knots for themself to unravel. So what's got you anxious?
I'd be willing to bet one major thread in that ball of knots is a feeling of powerlessness. From times you held power, and knowingly let it go. To times where you didn't know you had it till it was gone. Maybe you're another person who feels guilty about your own will to power, so you concealed it, from everyone first, then yourself. Maybe you had power before you knew it could corrupt, and you misused it, and don't think it belongs to you anymore. Don't let "power" be something ineffable to you like the idea of "cool" or "success"; It's a thing with definite properties.
This book is considered an absolute lifesaver for people in exploitative, political environments. Known as "the most popular book in prison", it's best usage is in the hands of those subjected to power, not the ones wielding it over others. 99% of people using this book are doing so defensively, not offensively.
If there's one great way to describe Humpty Dumpty, it's as a former prisoner. He's got all the markers of an animal, broken by an institution. Like Camus says, if prison changes you, it doesn't change you into a philosopher, but a dimwit or a monster.
My #1 goal with this series is to empower people (at the expense of one douchebag). I feel like I've always had a headstart on that in life, thanks to my parents and their unique attitudes. I think the most destructive people I've ever known were exemplars of weakness, not strength.
These are not absolute laws. There's no sane reason to worry about following all 48 laws at once, 24/7. Unless you can stomach the solitude of a pimp, which nobody really can, not even pimps. My workplace, for example, is very low on exploitation and politics, so I save a lot of energy and don't worry much about these laws each day. But if you have a goal, there are 48 definite things you can do to ensure you reach it.
And remember, there ain't no rest for the wicked. If you're looking to make a better world to live in, you gotta beat the bad guys to it.
⢠#5 The Dichotomy Of Leadership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin â˘
Look at you, you powerful motherfucker. You did it. You're the boss now!
Alright now WAIT HURRY DON'T FUCK IT UP AAAH OH MY GOD WHHYYY!đĽâ đŚ´đâĄđĽâ
Ooooh way to go, you dick, everything's broken, people died, tisk tisk
Power and leadership ain't something to fuck around with. Nobody knows that better than our two Navy SEAL friends, Jocko and Leif.
I said I love books on harmony. This here is one of the best. Especially since these authors epitomize the idea of "skin in the game".
Not only did they successfully learn and apply these principles in war, they proved through their consulting company, Echelon Front, that they're applicable broadly, in all realms of leadership.
Jocko & Leif's first book, Extreme Ownership (or as my brother calls it Insane Responsibility) was a smash hit, and changed a lot of minds for the better. But that name, "extreme", broke many people's brains. So they followed it up with a book on balance: The Dichotomy Of Leadership.
Their goal was to empower through humility. But some bosses thought it all meant "micromanage with rabid zeal." And by doing so, they negated the ownership of everyone beneath them. People weren't allowed to make choices, so extreme ownership up and down the pecking order couldn't be achieved. Nobody was getting paid to think, and things would begin to get rigid, fragile, and collapse.
It was clear, that with responsibility out of the way, the next most important key to leadership is finding the healthy medians among the "countless dichotomies of leadership".
The ultimate dichotomy, to them, comes when a leader has to put their people's lives/livelihoods at risk, for the sake of the mission. But that's just the hardest one to stomach. Beyond that, they cover eleven more powerful dichotomies a leader must always keep in mind.
How do you own it all, while empowering others?
When does resolute become overbearing?
When do you mentor, and when do you fire?
Where's the line between training hard, and training smart?
How do you stay aggressive without being reckless?
How do you stay disciplined without being rigid?
How do you hold people accountable without holding their hands?
When should the leader follow?
You must plan, but when does it become overplanning?
Can you be humble without being passive?
How do you stay focused, but detached?
That's a whole bunch of shit, isn't it? Each one makes the hair holding Damocles' sword seem just that much thinner, and the sword that much sharper.
It's a whole lot more than just foxes & hedgehogs, maps & compasses, Hellenists & Hebraists, Squares & Towers, etc. All those seem adorably theoretical compared to everything in this book. This is Tolstoy, Clausewitz, AND Bonaparte, all in one. Plus enthralling stories of urban combat from the people stirring it up.
This book isn't just written for the bosses and supervisors of the world. Since only a tiny fraction of any group is in charge, and it probably won't be you. Their whole philosophy is about decentralized command, and instilling leadership qualities into every unit down the chain.
For me, since I haven't been in a leadership position since reading this, I have just been using it to size up bosses, and do my best to make myself immune from their misbehavior. I get my work done admirably, no complaints, no excuses, nobody ever cracks a whip at me; Nobody's gonna steal my table of knickknacks.
Growing up, I used to worry I'd be like my father, chronically quarrelling with my bosses. But with Jocko and Leif's gravelly voices in my head, I'm at the point in my life where I know my employers are lucky to have me, and I'm not afraid to remind them. Politely.
A huge factor in one's quality of life, is the quality of their workplace. These books can help you recognize, in a single week of work, whether you're in a place worth working in at all.
Judge your leaders on all this stuff. Do they take ownership of the mission, or blame others? Do they balance these dichotomies well? Do they waste precious leadership capitol by pulling rank? Are they afraid to fire carcinogenic coworkers? Do they prefer wishcasting over forecasting? Are they good teachers?
If they don't hold up, don't try to fix them, QUIT. High staff turnover is often the only leverage against a bad boss. I say the same thing every time a coworker tells me they handed in their two weeks:
"Congratulations!"
But if the mission matters to you, and quitting isn't an option, this book equips you with the knowhow to make the best of bad leadership. Ride out that high-turnover rate with grace, while your naughty boss capsizes. Or better yet, maybe it's time to start your own mission?
⢠End Bit â˘
Well, that was a pretty intense month of reading. I originally didn't read these books consecutively; these are some of my oldest and newest ones. But this month, I lined up the five most powerful ones I had, and snorted them right up my ass. It's been quite a rush.
In retrospect, I could have just as easily made the topic this month "harmony" because they all focus just as much on that. Which says a lot to me about the nature of power.
Even 48 Laws Of Power provides reversals to every rule, except for a critical handful which have no reversal (like there's NO benefit to ignorance of other people, PERIOD). With all the caveats and reversals, it's closer to 100 laws for you to ponder.
Ask yourself, who in your life would prefer that you didn't have power? I mean people that wince and cringe every time they spot you displaying strength. To some of you, that may sound paranoid and absurd. But I know people with peers that drag them down like crabs in a bucket; tall-poppy-types. Mostly women, if I'm being honest. One of the downsides of empathy and agreeability is how hard it makes getting rid of toxic "infectious" friends. Particularly ones who so casually throw around threats of self-harm.
If you keep an eye open though, you'll see there are a lot of people out there who don't want anyone to find strength or confidence. Their rationales vary from disgusting to pathetic, but the point is, some people are to strength as puritans are to joy. They find agency, efficacy, and potency to be egregious and profane. I fucking hate these people.
Their favorite targets are kids. There's something sacred to them about the insecurity we develop in puberty. They see the natural heroism and genius of children as evil, and seek to rid them of as much of it as possible.
When I was a kid, my favorite movie was Matilda. This scene set my whole brain on fire:
Uh oh! Here come the tears of anger!
I've met maybe a hundred adults like DeVito's character, in my life. I've always wondered if some people watch that scene, and envy the power Mr. Wormwood has, like "Aaah, yes, one day I'll have the privilege of belittling kids when they show good character. Mmmmmm."
Meanwhile, I still want to snap his finger off and do horrible things to him with it. I think part of me lives to spot people like Mr. Wormwood and Ms. Trunchbull, and try to make them feel small when they do this to others.
That voice does not belong in your head. You are not dumb, you are not little, you are not wrong. You can do incredible things with that human mind of yours, including imprisoning it within itself.
Maybe it's hack to reference the Allegory Of The Cave, but these are my top five cave-escapers. I saw Humpty as a man who needed help to escape the black hole of lies he grew up in, like I did. He played on some megalomaniacal Prometheus complex I didn't totally realize I had till I dealt with him.
There's a whole world out there of sweetness and light, begging for your enthusiasm, and I know a lot of people are missing it. It's easier to put the thought of it out of my mind, to get through the day. But when I stop and truly think about it, it breaks my heart and fills me with rage.
Come on out of that Chokey.
Unlearn helplessness!
See you next month! Five more books! What'll they be about?! When does it end?! I miss reading new things!
⢠Humpty Dumpty Elegy 7 | five books on đŚ¸ââď¸ETHICSđź â˘
Once upon a time, I was DARDLOX (not me, but close^)
Improving your charm and influence will upgrade your life. But it has diminishing returns. It's important for a human to be attractive to other humans, but after a certain quantity, the main priority becomes quality.
In the ninth grade, I had a problem: I made too many friends.
After moving, over and over and over again, my social skills naturally got sharper, and by the end of ninth grade, I chameleon'd my way into the good graces of seemingly every clique of my year. I wasn't an official member of any group, other than the misfit spillage around the special ed classes, but I had no sense of borders or limits to where I belonged.
It's also hard to tell the class clown to go away. He just makes fun of you. It's like in Irish mythology, where everyone fears the legendary warriors, meanwhile the warriors all fear the legendary satirists and poets.
Towards the end of the year, I started to realize many of the popular groups that seemed to be naturally friendly towards me were barbaric towards everyone else. I noticed I was only praised for the ways I was similar, not different. And I was shocked to see how my "friends" treated anyone or anything unorthodox.
They treated them similar to how chimps treat cute, delicious little monkeys.
Luckily (?) I was scheduled to move away at the end of grade nine, and I was presented with another rare opportunity to reinvent myself.
So I turned my long hair into dreadlocks, gave my wardrobe a tattered hobo reboot, tied a dirty black t-shirt around my head like a du rag, and spent the last three years of highschool, a proud, walking pleb filter.
I figured it's easier to avoid making shitty friends, than figuring out they're all shitty later on, and having to get rid of them. I didn't want orthodox little Ivan Ilyich bastards in my gang, wondering if their boring douchebag parents would like me. I wanted rebels, free thinkers, and misfits.
Grade ten was pretty lonely. I spent about 6 months on Runescape, mining coal, and when I sold it, I dropped the price by 7% on the Grand Exchange that winter. That's some fucking loneliness right there.
But one day, in world religion class, I saw Wednesday sitting up front with a boy named Bingo.
Wednesday, a swarthy Greek satyr with a crooked eye, a full beard and some disgusting splattery looking metal band t-shirt; and Bingo, with blond emo hair, neon pink cardigan, the skinniest lime green skinny jeans, a tiny Japanese girl's backpack, and the deepest voice in the room.
Some voice inside of me said, "them!". Fortune cleared the seat beside Wednesday, the teacher asked if anyone wanted to sit up front, and without a word I just got up, walked over, and sat beside them.
In retrospect, we became the nucleus of our school's freak clique. Our row in the cafeteria had a few dozen of the weirdest kids. We were in the center. Wednesday was usually humiliating people at all different card games. I knew not to play against him. Bingo is just some kind of shaman/druid, and he can draw Hentai, so he's our mysterious Carl Jung/Plato/Da Vinci type friend. He drew soft porn all over his notes, right up front in front of our teacher. And god bless her, she recognized we were her best students, and did nothing more than roll her eyes and smirk.
We got countless hateful looks from all angles, in the cafeteria. But when we saw people mugging at us, we would just smile, point at them and be like "Yo guys look, another one! Aaaaahaha! Aaaw he doesn't like us! đđ¤Ł"
Wednesday says Humpty was at our tables a handful of times. I swear to god I can't remember him. He skulked on the margins, and only talked to Wens privately in the hallways.
Every time I tried to ask Humpty about his highschool days, the conversation always diverged into talking about how his "sister" (who isn't his sister, or step sister, or half sister, or family in any way shape or form) spent all her time ignoring him, and not sharing her friends with him... I don't even... I just... fuckin'... I literally wonder if he was just a dream; A little goosebump-inducing Candle Cove moment on the discord.
He had an open invitation from King Wednesday himself, but it sounds like he spent the whole time alone in the dark forest of La-la-land.
My point is, the best thing I ever did, was create a friend filter. I don't want everyone to like me. I want ethical, individualistic, principled, twice-born, seekers of truth to like me.
The fewer there are who follow the way to perfection, the harder that way is to find -- Mathew Arnold, Culture And Anarchy
Fuck not being judgmental. Scrutinize people's ethics. Especially your own. Once you earnestly expect better of yourself, you become entitled to expect better from others in the same ways.
Plus, if I'm going to share five books on being influential, with a proto-surrealist, I had better follow it up with more books on how to not just have good charisma, but good character.
⢠#1 So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson â˘
C'mon Hump, I thought of everything; I got you covered.
The pillory is making a comeback. In new, flashy, cyberpunk ways. People want public displays of humiliation, dispossession, and scapegoating.
Humpty sees this, and it petrifies him. I can't blame him for being afraid, it's getting ugly out there. He worries anything he does with a woman will get him MeToo'd. He's also afraid his big foot will get stuck in his autistic mouth one day, and he'll be misunderstood, then branded as a bigot.
To be fair, he was right to worry all along. I haven't called him a bigot or a rapist. But boy, I've said a whole lot.
We don't live in a typical honor culture, where brutal shaming is balanced out with sincere opportunities for redemption. Nowadays, we've forgotten that if you want the ecstasy of breaking someone down, you bear the responsibility for showing them a way back up. Otherwise, you get rogue little time bombs, floating around in the system, waiting for some terroristic apoptosis.
People without shame are psychopaths. But we've taken the notion that shame is vital for a healthy society, and expanded it way too far. Now it seems like justice starts and ends with shame. There's nothing constructive about it; Just catharsis for self-righteous sadists.
When it's not sadists, it's just innocent people, perfectly aware of the rampant false-positive problem, who cherish the sight of a full pillory. Because full pillories leave no room for them and their loved ones. If only for the day.
The rest are just people that silently assume inside their heads, "We wouldn't shame an innocent person. This is a big mob for a good reason. History will vindicate us. Meanwhile I don't want to miss out on justice." (See: You Are Not So Smart's chapter on "The Just World Fallacy", also, "FOMO".)
For someone like Humpty, who thinks the world is just itching for another sacrifice, particularly one with a big smelly autistic forehead, a book like this is very hopeful and encouraging. Not because shaming is going anywhere (oh boy, it sure isn't). But because it's possible to weather those storms, psychologically.
The key is to know who you are, and to avoid being the kind of person that just automatically accepts external opinions from others. People online don't know you. Know that. Consider the source. Decide for yourself.
I said Humpty doesn't want to get better. I still do. Not that he can't, but that he absolutely fucking won't.
He could prove that external opinion wrong in two simple ways. Try, and fail. Or try, and succeed.
If he gave a real effort, and failed, I'd stop saying he won't, and say he can't. If he gave a real effort and succeeded, I'd stop saying he won't, and say he did. Or he can keep proving me right, and keep trying nothing. Just moan for pity, till homeless or dead.
Ooooor he can chop my head off. Whatever floats his boat.
If anything's going to egg him on, it's this series, and all its humiliating wonder. Most people, men and women, have fantasized about murdering another human. The most common reason is humiliation.
Knowing that, I actually used this book to be very careful with Humpty's real reputation. You're never going to know him. Not through me. I'll lose my anonymity eventually, but that won't help you find him.
Imagine if the worst thing that happened to Justine Sacco, was just a shelf of books, and some bitter forwards written by the curator. I think she'd be in way better shape.
Warriors fear poets like rocks fear paper. Paper can hide a rock, or ball itself up into a hollow and embarrassing imitation. Obliteration is mere paperwork, and a warrior is only as legendary as the stories told about them. Words are powerful motherfuckers.
⢠#2 Culture And Anarchy by Matthew Arnold â˘
Peeing, the morning after a cum
Speaking of which, I've been peepee dancing in anticipation of covering this one, since the beginning. Like I said in HDE3, this one fucking đĽđĽđĽbangsđĽđĽđĽ. Easily one of my top 3 favorite books.
Matthew Arnold was twenty-six years old when the Revolutions Of 1848 began in Sicily, and spread all over Europe for almost a year. About 17 riots, affecting 50 different countries. Monarchy took an incredible hit, and the populace showed the pigs that they can smash their balls into mashed potatoes. This is the world that shaped Matthew's views.
Feels like this book releases a pressure valve in my brain when I read it. When you follow the news, it's exhausting: piecing through the rhetoric, trends, what's old and new, the opportunistic politicization of random bullshit, how crudely people brand stuff "liberal" or "conservative", and celebrity mouthpieces trying to save face by saying absolutely anything.
Well, stop thinking so hard for a second, and get comfy with the vernacular of a foppish, high-minded, 19th century English gentleman.
Everything you see today in the news: barely new. Factions are all still in the same places, saying the same old shit, with the same Victorian era framework. The clear-headed, see-through-the-bullshit thinker we've all been waiting for, lived and died over a hundred years ago.
One caveat though: Matthew wrote all this before God died (although he knew full well God was dying). So political movements tended to be based around places of worship. Jacobinism, for example, a political movement that believes in violent revolution, grew out of a Dominican monastery. Instead of activists and protestors, it was bishops and their congregation.
I discovered this book while looking up the word "philistine". I found this quotation on the wikipedia article for philistinism.
Culture says: 'Consider these people, then, their way of life, their habits, their manners, the very tones of their voice; look at them attentively; observe the literature they read, the things which give them pleasure, the words which come forth out of their mouths, the thoughts which make the furniture of their minds; would any amount of wealth be worth having with the condition that one was to become just like these people by having it?â
đâ đâ
It reminded me of Aesop Rock's song, "Pigs"
If Noah had the benefit of hindsight on his ship, he coulda snatched two unicorns and left behind the motherfucking PIGS
He separates class from wealth in the cleverest way. Instead of judging people by their wealth, and putting them into the usual, upper-middle-lower class boxes, he judges by culture. Culturally, the classes are separated into barbarians, philistines, and populists, respectively.
For example: Trump was a barbarian, Biden was a philistine, and Bernie was a populist. Three units of upper class trash, but each a turd with its own stink.
He then, after making philistines sound like the most soulless humans on the planet, very generously offers himself up as an exemplar of the philistine world, knowing no other living person would cooperatively accept the label. It took one to know one.
His main aim is to define culture in a useful, non-pretentious, non-pedantic way, and to argue that it is king of everything. More than money, or weapons, or the church. You name it, it follows AFTER human culture.
"Culture" is NOT: "A smattering of Latin and Greek", that which is most profitable, a machine; something to be staunch or dogmatic about, "bookish and pedantic", or top-down.
Culture is, as he puts it, "the study of perfection". A people's culture is all the greatest things they've ever done. Their greatest answers to their worthiest questions.
Perfection is achieved when there's a balance of "Sweetness and light". Some cultural ideas are too heavy on the sweetness, and not enough on the light. Hedonism might be the most direct example of this. Meanwhile, some things are the inverse; all light and no sweetness. Like, say, Richard Dawkins. The balance of both is what the ancient Greeks meant by "eudaimonia"
Now, here's where he blew my mind, and got me to drop "liberal" and "conservative" from my vocabulary: Culture, for about as long as we've known, here in the West, has pivoted around just two major schools of thought: Hellenism, and Hebraism.
Aka "Athens vs Zion"; aka diversity generators vs conformity enforcers; aka West Anatolia vs South Anatolia; aka Greek Anxiety vs Jewish Anxiety; aka the two most powerful types of anxiety in the world. What'll it be, perfect thoughts? Or perfect behavior?
Like how Carl Jung compares Origen with Tertullian. Two major Christian figures. One who chopped his cock off to maintain his intellect. Another who forsook his intellect to get closer to his body and soul.
But "left and right" are all confused nowadays. You got diversity generators, generating a diversity of conformities to enforce. And you got conformity enforcers, enforcing absolute conformity to the great diversity of new things being generated. It's fucked, and confusing, and you gotta wonder if that's on purpose.
Are you amazed by the growing distrust in elites? Remember 1848? You wanna talk about distrust? We're back to those days.
Even down to the way schools are run. Something he knew a lot about, as a school inspector. His description of them then sounds exactly like schools now. At least for the kids labelled "mentally ill". Humpty would relate 1000%.
Ohh! I could go on! But that would be more thinking! And why think when Matthew Arnold has done a perfectly sufficient job for me already?
Just kidding; Not to make a Rabbi out of the man. He warns about that too. But suffice it to say, Matthew's thoughts are in everything I've written, and everything to come. I'm obsessed with philosophers of harmony, and he's one of the highest on my list of fav's.
⢠#3 Free Will by Sam Harris â˘
A small book demands only a small review.
In fact, Reggie Watts sums it up amazingly, off the top of his head:
(@ 9:50)
Do we have free will? Answer seems to be, "no".
Does that change anything about your life? Not in any practical sense. Unless you're a nihilist, looking to dig deeper into misery and moral license.
It matters in law, of course. We judge crimes based on the existence and use of free will. Without it, the notion of responsibility becomes moot. So does the concept of making moral decisions.
The Toronto van attack was a great example of this. An event that filled Humpty's black heart with inspiration. The murderer sought leniency on the grounds that his autistic brain was an uncontrollable bomb waiting to just go off.
If this worked, it would have stripped tens of thousands of autistic Canadians of moral agency, in the eyes of the law. Again, a meaningless change in the lives of most of them. But not among the black-hearted nihilists.
God knows what Hump would have done with that loophole...
When we say someone did something of their own "free will", we mean to say that they did something in line with their own self-image. When one's conscious and unconscious are congruent with each other.
If I was a committed, loving mother of three kids, but then one day I blacked out, and drove my kids into a lake, people would say I lost my free will. However, if I had a reputation for hating my kids, drove them into a lake, and apparently forgot about the whole ordeal, people would call me a 1st degree murderer with ADD.
We don't enforce laws for penance or recompense. We enforce laws because they demonstrate who has an unacceptably criminal mind.
I guess my point is, in Humpty's case, a lack of free will isn't any excuse for being a piece of shit. It makes people less deserving of hate, and more deserving of pity. But it doesn't mean misbehavior is a permanent, self-validating state of being.
The other point is, if you can't premeditate your own enlightenment, then it's even more important for people to try to wake others up. It's also crucial to try to stay open to others, trying to wake you up. For you're not as self-made as you think you are. Give the other chimps a chance to pick the bugs off you.
⢠#4 Skin In The Game by Nassim Taleb â˘
this guy fucking hates Sam Harris lol
What games do I not have skin in?
The economy of Argentina, ferry boat schedules, the naming of farm animals, spaghetti length, the saltiness of harmonicas, the rectangularity of pentagons, or tobogganing with random children. To name an infinitesimally small number of possible things.
What games do I have skin in?
Psychology, and fried chicken.
I talk a lot about frying chicken. It's time I show off my burnt hands. TRIGGER WARNING: pale Irish legs + ominous lighting (I normally demonstrate using my equally pale arms, but one of them had to hold the camera)
Every day is pain. I find it hilarious. I've never used a digital eye dropper tool to see the contrast until now, and holy shit the difference is bold:
I say I'm one of the only primates on earth with palms darker than the backs of my hands. It's true.
When I'm not burning them, I'm freezing them, handling fish or chicken wings. Not domestic freezer, ice cube temperatures; Deep freeze temperatures. Fish that glue themselves to your skin in less than a second, if there's even an atom of moisture on you. I can just stick my hand in a box of haddock, pull out a fillet on each finger tip, and then flip off my boss.
You ever see that episode of Mythbusters, where they tested pain thresholds? The method used was ice water. Today I just spent 50 minutes prying frozen chicken wings apart like a demonic game of carnal mahjong. And it hurt for 50 minutes straight.
That's after getting sprinkled with canola oil from sputtering chicken wings next to my flour table, feeling like hot needles. Or grabbing sizzling, 300 degree french fries from a bowl, seconds after pulling them from the fryer.
In the sautĂŠ section, people toss their frying pans in the window to cool. I grabbed one by the side, instead of the handle, assuming it had been cooling for minutes as usual, and started drumming on the bottom with my fingers to the music being played.
Biddly-bop-bop-biddly-bop-bop-bop-bop-biddly-biddly-bop-bop [throws pan into sink full of water]
đ§ KSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!đ¨đ¨
It felt only a bit warm. My dude put it in the window 20 seconds before I picked it up. Fresh off an open flame.
Skin in the game.
Now, with psychology, I have my soul in the game.
For as long as I can remember, my mom has made my brother and I swear to not let her lose her mind and become my grandmother.
That's a crazy thing to ask a ten year old. Especially considering my mom graduated university, studying child developmental psychology, autism, and sign language. I'm somehow supposed to be a clearer point of view. Although, for what it's worth, she's not evil yet. So bing bong, I guess. We must be out here.
My dad was a textbook case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy; He smashed his head at least once a month till he was 30. Drunk, transient, impulsive, violent. But also highly creative, loyal, earnest, and brave; A bully breed.
He drank himself to death, March 2020, after the lockdown ruined his career. Although if you ask my brother and I, it was far from his first suicide attempt. He had multiple overlapping suicidal atomic habits, let's just put it that way.
We found out he died on April Fools day. He would shit his pants laughing if he knew. If he was known for one thing, it was making people laugh.
(Also, we had to wait a long time for full confirmation that the dead fat guy in my dad's apartment was in fact my dad. So to make people's lives easier, my brother and I are getting tattoos. I'm getting Crime Pays But Botany Doesnt's 7 cm measuring stick on my middle finger. And my brother is getting "DISRESPECT MY CORPSE" on his leg. It's an excellent mothers' day gift, knowing she won't have to wait on dental records)
Every book I included in this series is based on games I have skin in. I only promote ideas I've spent time practicing in real life. Real trials, real errors; for every scoop of episteme, a story of techne. This is not philosophical entertainment. I'm not writing for nerdy experts, I'm writing for people like me.
Me, between now and grade 10. Me, if I had somehow missed these books, and let pretentious dorks ruin their appeal. I always fear that I might be Humpty Dumpty right now, if not for them.
What does this have to do with everyone else?
Skin In The Game is a book on ethics, in a series about uncertainty. How do you act ethically when uncertain? How do you determine who is a good actor, who's a liar, or who's a navel-gazing philistine? What determines "expertise" vs "rent-seeking sophism"?
People with skin in the game are more trustworthy, focused, and practical. Pilots don't get to just flatter themselves and LARP around as pilots, because they'll end up at the bottom of the ocean. However, a three-Michelin-star dish doesn't have to taste good, it just has to impress other rich experts with Michelin stars of their own.
The psychology industry has a skin in the game problem. Because psychiatrists, like the ones Humpty grew up with, did the mental equivalent of crashing him into the ocean, and they're still employed as "experts." God knows if those motherfuckers have fixed a SINGLE human being.
Don't be one of these idiots. Don't listen to these idiots. They're easily spotted. Here's how.
⢠#5 Lying by Sam Harris â˘
Another super short book from Sam Harris. Look how fancy we are, reading cute little treatises. Real pinky-up.
Here's the definitive book on why lying should be avoided as much as humanly possible. Not to abolish it, but to recognize it as a form of violence.
If you were hiding a Jewish family in your attic, and a Nazi officer asks if there are any Jews inside, lying to him would be just as justified as dragging him inside and killing him. Both would be violence, and sometimes that's okay.
But like violence, it's poisonous. It's not something you do to those you love, to yourself, or really anyone not consenting and aware. Lying is a sign of intelligence, but so is martial arts.
The first real rule included in this series is, "be impeccable with your word". I wasn't raised to tolerate lies from anyone, or to lie myself. The most humiliating thing you can do to me is convince me of a lie, and I'll hate you for it forever. Call me crazy.
If you're a liar, you may think the world is mostly forgiving of your lies. But you have no idea how many people caught you, and just disappeared from your life. Or worse, the number of people who dismiss your thoughts because they decided your words were cheap, if not worthless.
Wednesday never lies. To others, that is. The only time I've been deceived by him is after he fully deceived himself. Which to me is entirely more forgivable, and relatable.
It's actually extremely rare to find someone who holds themselves to this standard; to find someone 100% dedicated to their word. Convince yourself to be one of these people, and you join a club filled with the most solid humans on earth.
Or lie, just to get through life agreeably, like a sad, stupid, useless pussy.
⢠End Bit â˘
Here's a song about apples that makes me cry really hard when I'm on shrooms every time I watch it
Intelligence means nothing without courage. Courage means nothing without principles. None of it means anything alone.
Or even worse, surrounded by people, yet lonely. Lonely because the peers you attract are empty husks, or because you are.
Good character isn't about what you do, it's about what you don't do. Don't lie; don't dance around the blurry lines of free will just to deny responsibility, and exploit infinite moral license; don't define yourself purely from external sources; don't talk more than you act; don't differ risk onto others without skin in the game; don't be a mechanical philistine; don' make me come ova dere and give ya a smack; etc.
It seems strict. But the Don't list is a tenth as long as any Do lists out there. Plus it's 100x more efficient.
Morality is about getting to heaven. Ethics is about getting invited to dinner with heroes, or trusted with power.
⢠Humpty Dumpty Elegy 6 | five books on đŠINFLUENCEđ â˘
who does Malchrome Gladwell work for?
I have a boring life goal: Become a stone mason.
My far-fetched fantasy goal is to join a gang of psychic criminals in New Orleans. A chiseler either way, I guess.
What? Magical scofflaws, tip-toeing through cobblestone creeks of beerpiss? I seen it with my own eyes!
If you've been to Jackson Square on a busy day, you've seen them. By the paintings on the fence, across the park from the silver guy pop-locking around a hat, Jackson Square Allstars playing somewhere within earshot. Doreen Ketchens, a block upriver with a licorice stick. They're the people at the tables, with the umbrellas, between the benches.
They don't look like a gang of any sort. They range widely, in terms of hosts and dĂŠcor. Hosts vary from homeless looking, to Dr. John, to kindergarten teachers with glittery scarfs. Tables can be either wagoned-in backyard furniture with sturdy parasols, or a couple of milk crates with a beach towel thrown overtop. DĂŠcor is just an eye-spy cluster of magic knickknacks; pebbles, bones, geodes, pentacles, lacquered lockboxes, candles, feathers etc.
My brother and I were sitting under the sign in front of Pere Antoine alley, watching them grift. When suddenly, a tall slim man, with shark eyes, in a bespoke burgundy pinstripe suit, came out of the alley behind us, with two plainer looking men. The three closed in on a table that had been left unattended for only a couple seconds.
The psychics recognized Skinny, and exchanged knowing looks. Nobody looked threatened, but they knew he had a grave intentions. The three walked up to the table, gathered the four corners of the table cloth, bindled it all up, and walked away in front of at least a hundred people.
The psychic returned to her empty table, furious but unsurprised. Her neighbors just ghosted her. She didn't waste time pondering the fix, she started shouting over the horizon at everyone in the square. She wasn't just shouting for Skinny's sake, she was aiming at the anonymous eyes and ears that worked for him in the square. Screaming about the betrayal, cowardice, and evil among the tables.
"WELL, MERRY CHRISTMAS MOTHERFUCKERS! I GOT A STORAGE CONTAINER FULLA THAT SHIT ANYWAY!" She retched out, as she stormed down the alley behind us, sobbing.
Once she was out of sight, a new psychic came from the corner of Chartres and St Anne. He redecorated the table in minutes, sat down, and opened for business. The customers and neighbors didn't blink. It seemed the only people in the square to notice anything were my brother and I.
We learned in one quick instant that these people have a boss, this territory is protected, and that woman wasn't just being robbed, she was being fired. We felt the magnitude of a shadowy network around us. A psychic union.
It captured my imagination, and I've wanted inside this network for years now. But if I wanna be an underground Derren Brown, and not have my business bindled by a burgundy burglar, I better be binging beneficial books.
Humpty Dumpty shouldn't be too much of a punching bag this time. These are just tools, there's little to moralize about. Only my usual frustration, that he believes he's too autistic to grasp anything in these books. But we'll pick that apart as we go along.
Here are five outstanding books on influence. Whether you wanna be a psychic, or psychic-proof; On Skinny's good side, or Skinny himself; or whether you wanna just be friendly and earnest without being a stupid mark. These are some essentials.
⢠#1 Influence by Robert Cialdini â˘
Props to my brother for finding this one. He won friends and influenced all the way to a fancy job, as a slave, on top of a mountain, making omelets for rich helicopter-snowboarders.
He quickly started to sense the ways his workplace had employed influence traps, or straight up coercion to get backbreaking work out of people. So he looked for a book on the topic, and jumped straight into this baby right here.
He was able to break down, step by step, all the tricks used to punk and exploit him. His fancy job was a set of golden shackles. So he timed his plane ticket to come when his bosses needed him most, then that morning just casually climbed into an uber with his luggage, smiled and waved goodbye from a distance, to his coworkers on their way into work, and let them wrap their heads around the fact that he 86'd that bitch on their busiest day. They called, he ignored them, and rejoiced all the way home.
Now, my brother is a former school bully, and a real con artist. As kids, his favorite thing to do was lie to me to get me to perform whatever terrible idea he imagined. But eventually my lie-spotting skills caught up, and he had to start training on others. Since then I just watch him fuck with people now, highly amused.
Point is, even experienced con artists can be influenced into pitfalls. Influence techniques exploit automatic biological functions in our head. Functions that otherwise play extremely helpful roles, and make our life 100x more efficient. This book is similar to You Are Not So Smart in that it emphasizes the usefulness of things that also trip us up every day.
Cialdini writes from the point of view of a former all-day sucker. His goal is to free the reader from that automaticity. Certain stimuli can trigger us, like hitting play on a cassette tape. "Click, whirr" as he puts it. The key is to hear the clicks, and chose for yourself whether you let things whirr.
He also highlights many schemes in the world designed to exploit our whirrs. Most commonly, they're designed to get you to buy things. This pandemic, for example, has just been a food fight of people flinging influence techniques back and forth at one another, for a myriad of reasons. This was a tad mind-blowing to reread, after almost two years of this lockdown quagmire.
Humpty, as a recluse, is really only exposed to the influence of salespeople. Jesus fucking murphy have salespeople ever run a train on that egg. He thinks because he's not a hypebeast, that somehow means he's not a brainless consumer. Like all his escapism and dopamine fetishes are a reflection of refined taste, and none are a form of mental enslavement.
Keep in mind, I'm all for playtime. But remember, Humpty complains about how constantly bored and disappointed he is by the games and toys he buys. He considers every day wasted, on repetitive trash. Then describes in absolute terms how he must buy more. I lost track of how many remastered/rereleased games he was so excited to buy, only to get upset that it's basically the exact same game he owned already, just with negligibly better graphics. He's the stupidest fuck on the whole everywhere.
The info definitely can be used either way, offensively or defensively. But nothing about it is unfair or shady. No more than the average salesperson. Everyone has their own grasp of concepts like: reciprocity, social proof, authority, scarcity, etc. But for most people it's just an intuitive grasp. Which makes them vulnerable to people who have studied it deliberately.
Of course, Dump thinks he's off the hook, here. He says there's no way to sharpen his social skills. But like I discussed in my entry on The Science Of Evil, Humpty is just a systematizer, as opposed to an empathizer. Empathizers learn intuitively, face-to-face with peers. Whereas systematizers are better with an objective, structured, systematic approach, i.e. they learn from books.
⢠#2 The Like Switch by Jack Schafer and Marvin Karlins â˘
Humpty believes people are naturally biased against him. But I doubt he'd say he has it as hard as an FBI agent, trying to befriend a guilty criminal, that he's obviously hoping to throw in jail.
Honestly, I just thought FBI agents growled at you and pointed low hanging lamps in your face. I didn't know good rapport was something they had any conscious control of.
I think Humpty has been hoping his whole life that the charisma of TV, movie, and videogame characters would rub off on him. Sadly, research is starting to show that people who model their personalities based on modern popular media have the worst relationships and mental health. Most notably, people trying to learn romance from romance fiction, and action from action movies. It's disastrous, that shit is designed to be sensational and fun, not informative.
The books in this post, and much of this series, have one pesky habit, and that's how self-conscious they can make you after reading them. Which is discussed in this one. It's the "spotlight effect", where the more you know about psychology, the more self-aware you get, which can make you anxious in the moment, and awkward. You begin to worry that people are tracking your moves, and the intentions in your head, and that you'll be seen as manipulative for even knowing these techniques.
I find myself still succumbing to the spotlight effect. I wonder sometimes if I'm overusing people's names, like in hellos or goodbyes, and whether they'll recognize I'm a Dale Carnegie fan, and find that insincere or glib. But they just smile more. Some things are simply pleasant.
Nobody can read your mind, there's nothing wrong with putting forethought into your actions and other people's reactions, and at the end of the day the result of all this scheming is that people enjoy your company more. There's an aches-and-pains period in the beginning, as you put these ideas into practice, because the Dunning-Krueger effect applies as always.
The advice is similar to Atomic Habits, in that they're tiny improvements you can work into your life, that make you more pleasant in self-compounding ways.
I'm talking things as simple as letting yourself make trivial mistakes, so people can correct them, and give you the opportunity to graciously accept their criticism. Doing that just once can blow a person's mind, and improve rapport.
Negative self disclosure normally goes a long way too, but only up to a certain point. Admitting you're too dumb to hold a list in your head if it exceeds two items, or read an analogue clock, can be highly endearing. Repeating every 10-60 minutes that you want to kill yourself or others is not so productive.
A lot of it is about vulnerability and reciprocity. When dogs become friends, they bow, and show their bellies and necks. We do that in the form of being honest about our shadows.
Schaffer discusses the idea of a "friend-stranger-foe" continuum, between animals. A major part of Humpty's anxiety is from the fact that any time he's perceived as a stranger, he automatically thinks he's perceived as a foe. Since he puts in no effort to socialize with new people, he's perpetually a stranger.
But the stranger zone is a perfectly comfortable place to start from. And honestly, only assholes expect to be treated like friends immediately. Being likeable isn't fate, you can cultivate it. No matter how crazy you might think you are.
⢠#3 Pimp by Iceberg Slim â˘
Whoever told you this is a glorification of pimping, I want you to flick imaginary water from your hand in their face a bunch of times, so they blink wildly, and say, "get outta here, you fibber!" đđŚ
It only glorifies cocaine. But hey, who doesn't? Nothing misogynistic about good ol Lady Caine.
Full disclaimer, I didn't bother rereading this one. When I got it, after I heard Dave Chapelle talking about it, I made it almost half way through and put it down for more than a year. I think it was after he busted out a wire hanger. I just decided I wasn't having fun and fucked off for a sec.
Second time around I completed it, and got to enjoy the redemptive side of the book, where Slim explores his regrets, and discusses psychology. It's a one-of-a-kind book, and as time goes by, I think it'll become an increasingly sought-after piece of reading for future economic historians, criminologists, and linguists.
I'm not afraid of Humpty becoming a violent pimp or anything. He's not going from wet toilet paper, to a state-of-the-art plastic prison shank in one book. And it won't hurt his non-existent game. He's better off seeing dating as a matter of strategy, rather than seeing it as a swordfight against a fart. Though I'll stress, this is not a book on dating.
There's a great number of lessons about acting like you're someone of value, and what happens to those who don't. Lessons about standing up for yourself, and conditions you must NOT accept from others. It's a book about boundaries from a master of dissolving them.
This book instantly came in handy at work. My current job, where I've been since 2019, is so under control I finally started getting coworkers telling me they're jealous and impressed.
I've been throwing around pimp analogies from day one, talking about how, bitch, I give handjobs for a handjob wage. You ain't gonna sidle up next to me like "Psst, hey if you also gave blowjobs for the same fee, you'd be everyone's favorite ho." Motherfucker if you want a blowjob, you better peel me off some head scratch, UP FRONT.
In this case, I'm talking about how I'm a fry cook, and I won't cross train till they say the word "money". Which they won't. So while the other cooks on line get to spend the day pissed off and burnt out, trying to run 2-3 other stations, while the kitchen managers loiter in the office and ponder trivial emails, I'm by my fryers, making tendies and fries, like an angel. I could do it in my sleep. Meanwhile we all get paid the same handjob wage, except for the salaried pigs sitting up stairs, staying cool and unstained, pretending like they're the ones getting airtighted every day.
My fellow cooks are mystified by how little this workplace dicks with my free time. I'm now officially the least exploited human in the building. Not the richest guy, I'll admit. But I value my time more than my money. And I get my time. Plus consistency at one job makes holding a second one easier, should I suddenly value my money more than my time.
Fundamentally this is a general workplace manual. Whether you're the boss, the employees, or the customer; The pimp, the ho, or the trick. It may sound silly for a creamy white boy to break the world down into a glossary of Pimpanese, but what can I say, it's a clarifying lens. Marx broke down capitalism from inside factories. Slim breaks it down from Gropecunt Lane.
Courage, vulnerability, shame, and worthiness are the primary topics of all of Slim's work. He's just the pimp version of BrenĂŠ Brown.
Spotting a fellow reader of this book is exciting. Part of it is from how taboo it is, like you both read from the same spooky grimoire. Another part is from knowing it's not as evil as its reputation suggests. It's graphic, but not corrupt. I read more violent things in 6th grade.
One of my supervisors has read this, and he's the best supervisor I've ever had. I think he's just naturally a great guy, but he sees eye to eye with me on all this stuff, and I think Pimp has helped him be an anti-pimp. Where he treats people with an abundance of dignity, rather than a pure lack of it.
People have credited Iceberg Slim for having gotten young men involved in pimping. But I believe for every one pimp this book creates, it keeps at least a thousand people safe from pimps, and all other long-legged mackdaddies tryna georgia your square ass out of time and money.
If I wanna work for a guy like Skinny, I better keep my head on straight. But I mean what's the worst that can happen? It's just palm reading. Simple handiwork.
p.s. the whole ass book is free on audible, or YouTube. Enjoy!
⢠#4 How To Win Friends And Influence People by Dale Carnegie â˘
How could I not include this? The OG modern self-help book.
One day Dale was like "Jeez, a lot of these businessfolk working at this company are complete assholes. Lemme just grab a book on not being an asshole real qui-- wait nobody wrote a book on that yet? How? Why? Fuck? Shit."
So he wrote this. He beat everyone to the best points a book on personality could make, and wound up surpassing nearly all of his successors.
It's safe to say this series takes the exact opposite of Dale's approach, towards Humpty. The days of me using these tricks to leverage against Humpty's bullshit are over. He will not be sweettalked out of his mud puddle. Believe me I tried.
Here's how you know this book nails it, you just want to be Dale's friend by the end. Man sounds like an absolute sweetie pie. 11/10. I know Humpty would find Carnegie's words touching, knowing how inconsiderately he says everyone treats him.
It's full of advice you already knew was lovely, but maybe you never consciously made a rule out of it. Like never scold people, expect 99% of people to never self criticize, appeal to people's self importance, never get caught flattering like a sneaky pimp, treat people's names with great significance, ask tons of questions, admit your faults before people spot them, be like a dog, the list goes on. And most importantly they're all things any high functioning autist can master. I guarantee.
This book helped put an end to my internet arguing. That, and the fact that it's a pastime that can get you shamed off of the internet, if you have too much fun doing it. I still think there should be safe places on the internet for people to consensually let their memes mosh about violently. But knowing that it doesn't convince anyone, the fun kinda vanished.
I tried changing strangers through comment sections, nothing made a difference. Then I tried hunkering down and changing a friend, face to face, still no luck. Either I'm a shit teacher, or we can only teach ourselves.
I even tried the "make a suggestion, let them mull it over in their head, then let the seed grow till they think they came up with the idea themselves" trick. Problem was, Humpty never mulled over ideas, or repeated anything back to you, unless it was sarcastic.
These books also told me if I listen intensely to Humpty, he'll feel compelled to reciprocate and listen back.... nope.... just a fucking ne'er-do-well.
Now, Christopher Lasch in The Culture Of Narcissism partially blames books like these for our society's increasing narcissism. But I don't know if I can fully agree. The emphasis on giving a shit about other people in this book is enormous. The real magic happens when you care about your fellow man, not just pretend to. Granted, this book is a philistine masterpiece. It's not about being an ethical person per se, just a damn charming one, and a successful capitalist; Ivan Ilyich virtues.
As The Gift Of Fear puts it, "charming" is a verb, not an adjective. Charming is not something you are, but something you do. Doesn't make you good, just makes you lovely. It's compatible with any moral system you want, unless you think it's immoral to have charisma.
There's a lot of cool similarities between Carnegie's advice and ancient Egyptian religion. Like the idea that the most powerful thing a being has is its own ability to pay attention, and give things its awareness; the eye. And that your power over the gods depends on your ability to speak their name correctly. It's timeless wisdom.
⢠#5 The Prince by Nicolo Machiavelli â˘
This has been a very red topic. Influence is a red thing, I guess. Lets take a sec and enjoy some other colours:
nice
Machiavelli's got an unfairly bad reputation. "Machiavellian" is fancy booktalk for "a manipulative, amoral piece of shit." In psychology, it's known as a "dark triad" trait, alongside narcissism and psychopathy; a pathological will to power. In politics, it means cynicism, heartless realism, and the pursuit of power for power's sake.
But Machiavelli was a cool dude, and y'all better quit talkin shit. It's all catholic propaganda. Before him, political philosophers and theologians were the same thing. I'm talking baldy-headed monk looking dicks like Thomas Aquinas.
Then Nicolo came along, and told everyone that politics is in fact not informed by god, but by mundane humans, with mundane forms of power and influence. Always has been, always will be. No more mysterious or esoteric than a game of poker.
Odious thing to say, from the church's point of view. They were the Google of the renaissance, and wanted a monopoly on control over the creation and elimination of princes. They also, most importantly, wanted it all done in secret.
Nico's goal wasn't to blow the lid off of their scheme, his goal was to kiss one guy's ass, land a sweet gig in his court, and enjoy a wealthy life. Son of a lawyer, shooting for an advisor's position. What's new?
As Gladwell might put it, he wrote the first book on the political full-court press. Books on leadership back then just listed off moral ideals, and stories of virtue from history. Instead of flowery aikido poses and chakra alignment, Machiavelli gave instructions for making molotov cocktails and Millwall bricks.
It takes some deciphering, however. Everything he talks about requires a sense of analogy, since it's 500 years old, and he most definitely wasn't talking to you. Nobody's becoming a prince nowadays, so who gives a fuck? Well a "prince" is just a boss, and a "principality" is just a corporation of any kind; a body, a super organism. It's a book on group behavior. Skinny was the prince of the Jackson Square psychics.
Don't get me wrong, the more openly Machiavellian a leader is, the more terribly they seem to act. But I don't value this book as a wannabe prince. I wanna be prince-proof. And a book like this helps put you in the mind of the people in charge of you. They have weaknesses, and they're predictable. It's all poker, and Machiavelli irreversibly exposed cards in every boss's hand. And not just what's in their hand, but what their tells are. Should be considered a must-read by all political journalists who consider themselves "watchdogs".
He uses an analogy that I love: the idea that any painter knows, if he wants a good look at the plains, he should view from a mountain, and if he wants a good look at a mountain, he should view from the plains.
From the mountain side of the equation, where power lives, this book didn't fundamentally change much (unlike Nicolo's Discourses on Livy, which hugely influenced republicanism). Up there, they were always Machiavellian. But down here on the plains, it gave us telescopes, topographic maps, geological charts, and seismography.
You don't want Machiavelli in your leadership, you want him in your populace. Nicolo brought down fire from the gods, and he was punished by both parties. The gods for theft, and man for illuminating bad news. He was all light, without any sweetness.
Humpty is no idealist. And he's Machiavellian in only the colloquial sense; he's cynical, secular, and pessimistic. But he'd be way better off being so in the direct sense, in line with the man's actual sound advice. Because the real deal isn't nihilistic, it's empowering.
⢠End Bit â˘
Each of these books are spotlight-effect-inducing pieces of work. There's a fine line between conscientious and insecure. I hesitate to tell people how much I read about psychology, because I don't want Machiavelli's bad name to rub off on me. I constantly interrogate myself as to whether this journey is about truth, or manipulating others.
My brother and I have, since we were kids, recognized the manipulative power of comedy. How you could disarm, hypnotize, distract, or humiliate people. We wonder how much our sense of humor is a martial art we picked up along the way. As opposed to some beautiful generous impulse, from the muses. All I know is it has kept me out of fights with perfect reliability, despite how many ass beatings I truly deserved.
Humpty's pretty funny, by the way. When he's not Eeyore, and he forgets he's autistic, he's as witty as the best of them. Wednesday didn't only bring him into the group because he was pitiful. It's not like there's no prince in this frog, he just won't kiss back. The motherfucker.
It's hard to say exactly how much these books improved my personality or behavior. I know I learned a lot of these techniques independently, and I wonder how much I chose books just to hear my own thoughts reflected back at me. To feel vindicated, like "Aooh! I knew that was a good idea!"
But I also know when I started reading about this topic in the 10th grade, a therapist of mine had me written down as "extremely pessimistic, rudderless, and angry." By the 12th grade, though I was fully intent on dropping out of highschool, I seemed to have otherwise made a mental flip. Wednesday was 10x worse, and took longer to flip. But now he's actively working in a homeless shelter, becoming a therapist himself, filling his life with meaning, and helping people who actually need it.
All the shit I said in earlier entries, about morality and meaning, those are lovely, but they are slow goals; eulogy stuff. In the meantime, he can get his charisma under control in a fraction of the time. He's better off being scrumptiously unscrupulous, than scrupulously unscrumptious. He's not looking to get into heaven, just invited back to hang out.
⢠Humpty Dumpty Elegy 5 | five books on đREBELLIONđŠ â˘
dumpty thinking his yolk be like
If I had a nickel for every time I didn't gave a fuck, I'd be a... fuckin nickel machine or something.
Just a salvo of nickels. I've gotten so strong they come out at dangerous speeds, and I have to be considerate of what I'm pointed at. Because getting arrested is a waste of time, bitch.
It fucks up family dinners. They get all mad about the wet nickels flying across the table into food and drinks. I'm like "You know I do the shit with the nickels. Where's my nickel bowl anyway? You knew I was coming. What did you think I'd start giving a fuck this year? [P'TING!]"
It's not an enviable path I'm on. But I'm a god damn rebel. It's what it is.
Anyway, in this series, I'm still building my ex-friend's future prison library. A man, introduced to me by my best friend Wednesday. The one I call, "HĂźmpty DĂźmpty", who joined our discord group before batlung broke loose. He came to us explicitly asking for help and advice on how to behave like a human, as a patient in our amateur discord clinic.
Myself and everyone else did an input vs output analysis, and found that for everything we did to help him, he taught himself how to act worse. We pointed north, and south he went, giggling and pissing his pants the whole way.
So to hold up my end of an embarrassingly ambitious obligation, while otherwise forsaking the man and his made-up problems, here's more of what I naively thought I'd get a shit-flinging ape to read, to save his miserable existence from further doom.
This month, Humpty and I will share some non-humiliating qualities. These are flaws of his I find most endearing. Here, we celebrate the REBEL. We celebrate the kind of badass who says, "I don't give a SHIT that I'm an egg, I'm gonna climb that fucking wall, and maybe even fall off it too! FUCK OUT MA FACE! CAINT TELL ME NUH'IN!"
But not all rebels are alike. And they have no trouble opposing one another, despite sharing the same spirit. No era invented the rebel, it's a figure as old as history, and a fixture of human psychology. I never had any plans to expunge Humpty of his rebellious ways, just to, as with all things, encourage moderation, and introspection.
These are gonna be fun, self-affirming books for him. To teach him that this part of his character gives him power, style, and a stake in history; that conformity is no more enviable than rebellion; and most importantly, that nihilism is a thing that turns a rebellious heart into a black cancerous growth.
⢠# 1 The Rebel by Albert Camus â˘
This book may or may not affirm you as a rebel. But one way or another, reading it means you're a big ass nerd.
My mom's side of the family are a bunch of love-blind narcissist bobos; a spiritual crop failure. They were a collective of anti-models that taught her all the ways not to act towards others. My dad's side is the opposite. A joyful bunch of Newfies; good food, shouting and laughter, heavy drinking, bring your friends and their friends too, and act natural, whatever that means for you. Their old home on Blackfriar Ave, in Toronto, was a busy embassy for misfits and rebels.
As a wee punk, I met a distant relative at a funeral. One of the face cards in my father's family deck, a real big deal. He was ecstatic to see my dad again, and see his kids for the first time. The main question that was bursting out of him was, "So, which one of you boys is the most irreverent?"
My parents didn't spend much time teaching me how to consent. They spent that time teaching me to say "no". A quality that's becoming more and more rare in people. Although, who knows? The post-Zoomers are already looking a bit more disagreeable. I can't wait till they start calling us pussies, just like we do with Millennials.
So what is a rebel? Is it like the word "cool", where if you call yourself that, you're automatically not cool? No. It's more concrete than that. The question is less whether you qualify as a rebel, but which kind you qualify as.
Fundamentally, a rebel is someone who believes in their own absolute rights, and are unwilling to renounce their "no"s. They feel these rights constantly infringed, and have an uncompromising loyalty to themselves. They will do their THANG, and they'll invite you to kill them if you don't like it. All or nothing.
There's slave rebellions, where oppressed individuals fight their oppressors over their material conditions. And there's metaphysical rebellion, where one protests the state of human existence, and the condition of creation as a whole. Humpty frames himself as a slave, when in reality, he only enslaves himself. He's more in a battle against existence.
Camus breaks down rebels almost like a botanical family, made up of different species and genera. (Shoutout to Crime Pays But Botany Doesn't. This whole post should be read with a dirty Chicago accent. "Oh look ere, ya got yer basic Anarchist nice. Black leathery texture, silver thorns good fer a smack on the ass, molotav inflerescence, real banger") And he uses major figures from the 19th and 20th century to epitomize each species.
In fact, I'd strongly recommend browsing the wikipedia pages of each figure he mentions before reading. Because he jumps from name to name, expecting you to be familiar with all of them. Sort of like how a modern political text might drop "Kissinger" or "Dick Cheyney" without elaborating on all their greatest hits.
There's a broad range of ways to rebel. From asceticism to hedonism, pacifism to conquest, apathy to rage, suicide to homicide, etc. You got your sadists, fatalists, nihilists, surrealists, revolutionaries, dandies and more. Some forms take rebellion to a demonic extreme, others can be so degraded as to be almost the exact opposite of rebellion.
Humpty has a lot of sadism going on. Sade was a prisoner in Paris's Bastille before the revolution. A place synonymous with hell on earth. Prison, especially one as cruel as the Bastille, doesn't produce wisdom. Like Camus says, it only creates dimwits and monsters, with a philosophy of absolute dominance or absolute submission. When you hear the cynicism Humpty uses to describe the world, it's all fresh out of Sade's notes on politics.
When it comes to surrealism, well, I'll just leave this quote:
âThe purest surrealist act is walking into a crowd with a loaded gun and firing into it randomlyâ -- Andre Breton
Bet Humpty would be amused to know "surrealist" is one of his diagnoses. In fact, we've had a real surrealist problem since the 90s. Seems like an understatement though, like calling Hitler a "nincompoop." (Camus calls him a "psychopathic dandy")
I don't think a rebellious spirit goes away. The challenge is to keep an eye on it, and channel it into positive things. Camus believes a rebel must create for himself obligations. It's not enough to defend rights, and forever be an immovable object. A rebel can also be an unstoppable force for good. With their classic, "You'll have to kill me before I quit" attitude.
But as I've said, Humpty's a proud nihilist. It isn't that he just tends not to hope, love, or do good. It's that he explicitly disagrees with those concepts, through endless mental contrivances. The point is to despair.
This is far from any sort of self-help book, like most of the previous ones. It's dense on history and philosophy, and it's psychobabble free. But it's cathartic and mind-expanding. This book brings me back to when I first discovered counterculture, as a boi. It speaks to me in ways I mostly only feel, but don't say.
For better or for worse, a rebel ultimately wants one thing: Freedom. But remember, after you're free, the question changes. "Freedom from what?" becomes, "freedom for what?"
When they ask how you, feeling you, tell em you, feeling like, something important died screaming, you, tell em you, feeling like, something even more important arrived breathing, something you should probably try feeding,
When they ask how you, living you, tell em you, living like, something important died hissing, you, tell em you, living like, something even more important arrived giving, something you should probably try willing -- Aesop Rock, ZZZ Top
⢠# 2 David And Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell â˘
Trying to bully your teachers every day is a one-way ticket to the special ed class, or the front office. There, I always found a new crop of trashcocks to hang out with. It's a quick way to make friends if you're a new kid. The word "disorder" forms a sort of gravity well around it, whether it's behavioral, speech, learning, etc.
Ever since, I've only ever preferred the company of freaks, and the psychologically distressed. I consider myself one of them. They're funnier, more introspective, and the arc of their life seems far less certain.
William James has a great way of describing my kind of people: "the twice-born". First-born people seem naturally predisposed to being happy and buoyant. They don't get angry or afraid. Twice-born people feel like there's something fundamentally wrong with reality, that must be rectified. They don't derive happiness naturally by existing, but instead get it from searching.
Some are twice-born from day one. Others tragically fall there after a happy upbringing. First-borns definitely fit Humpty's definition of a "normie". Point is, I got no time for first-borns. Misfits and underdogs are my passion.
There's such thing as too much of an advantage. I mean, "spoiled" is pretty bang-on. But it's such a loaded term, I gotta dance around it. I always try to convince my friends that a perfectly stable upbringing can be a curse.
My worst failure with Dumpty was that I could never seem to convince him that his struggles were his greatest advantages. That his solitude gave him time to think and discover himself; that being kicked off of Normie Mountain is the greatest way to examine it and all its flaws; that being mentally disturbed landed him a group of interesting and colorful friends; that history makes little room for the first-borns, and that to search all your life for answers is a beautiful answer all on its own.
I couldn't pity Dumpty, no matter how hard he tried to make me. He said "shit", I saw "fertilizer", just like I always did with Wednesday, just like my parents always did with me. I'm not an optimist, I'm an ipsomist; I see shit like a worm does.
I thought about it, and I'm not certain whether Humpty's more David or Goliath. David, the one advantaged by his disadvantages, or Goliath, the one disadvantaged by his advantages. I think he's more Goliath. His privileged opportunity to be surrounded by doctors and experts, who only served to paralyze his life, through cumbersome analysis and strategy; his outrageously heavy suit of mental armor he can't move around in; and his naive expectation that his opponents will follow the rules. Humpty Dumpty is not an underdog, he's a fat smelly mudpig.
This was one of the first books I got, after You Are Not So Smart, and it was invigorating. As a constant special-ed candidate, nothing has made me feel more vindicated. I always felt like an underdog, and thought "Ah well, it is what it is. Runs in the family" But now it's something I'm proud of. It's much nicer to call myself "naturally disagreeable" than "a chronic asshole", like my dad.
But the last thing Humpty wants is pride, or confidence, or anything that'll blow his cloud of pity away. Like The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck, points out: blame, denial, and exceptionalism are pleasurable, narcissistic forms of escapism. Humpty wanted us to entertain those things in perpetuity, not help eliminate them.
⢠# 3 A Renegade History Of America by Thaddeus Russell â˘
Morality is at least half overrated. I love it and all (shoutout to David Brooks), but jesus lets just take a break from it for a moment and have fun. Honestly, most of my life's enjoyability has come from charisma, laziness, and sheer enthusiasm, with only a tiny dash of being a good person.
Humpty, you know what I'm talking about dude, you know all this has been coming from a real linty ball of crumbs. Hey, maybe that's why you never listened, fair. So considering that, let's just celebrate the fact that we're a couple of saucy little paupers. And that's the one thing I never wanted to change about you.
This book was soul food for my punk ass. It made me even prouder of my drunk, classless Irish family. And my affinity for societal dropouts and rejects. Proud of my country for lagging behind America's tyrannical puritan ethos; And emboldened in my belief that people should work to live, not live to work.
Puritanism is cool only in theory. The hypothetical puritan sounds like a nice person. Almost like the person I've been trying to get Humpty to be; Content, humble, productive, communal, unimpressed by hedonic treadmills, and dedicated to a higher purpose. But puritanism as a meme lives a vicious existence, it is bitter and extreme.
Like humility, it's only beautiful if you practice it on yourself. Asceticism is heroic as a personal goal, but to impose it one anyone else is violence. When puritans get their way, the world around them becomes quiet, humiliated, overworked, and deprived.
I never thought I was there to force Humpty to change, and I absolutely wasn't looking for him to self-flagellate any harder. He said he wanted help changing himself, like we did. Otherwise, I'm a real don't-tell-others-what-to-do type of guy.
The things we enjoy the most about our modern western existence: the freedom, individuality, self-expression, and most importantly, leisure, are not products of enlightened bourgeois philosophers, but rebels, whores, renegades, lazy shitbags, perverts, and criminals. Each are the true engineers of our culture.
See, democracy sounds like an ideology of freedom-loving, zoot-suit-wearing renegades, but its history is dominated by asceticism, and puritanism. The Founding Fathers didn't have any plan to eliminate tyranny. They just wanted to take tyranny from the hands of a single entity, and make every individual a tyrannical dictator towards themself.
Thankfully however, puritanism has been getting the shit kicked out of it for hundreds of years now. It never dies though, since it's carved into all our best monuments, and drilled into our heads as students. It's certainly the most productive and industrious ideology. Anybody fond of civilization should get a kick out of it. But it'll always be limited by the natural disgust it inspires in people, and how much god damn work it takes to impose on an allegedly "free" populace.
It's arguable that civilization never convinced its doubters on merit, but simply outbred them and kicked their ass.
Only the WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) were pushing that puritan bull. Everyone else recognized it as contrived and hypocritical. Problem is, WASPs had all the money and power. So slowly, the cultural divide mutated from "WASPs vs everybody else", to "whites vs coloreds". But the fact is, it's still that puritan spirit versus everybody else, to this day.
Now, a world purely run by renegades is hell. But I don't worry about that getting out of control. I'm more worried about the way we're all running ourselves. Paradoxically, despite being a fountain of vice, Humpty is extremely inhibited in ways puritans would adore. He hates that about himself, and so maybe I came off as just another dude with another bundle of restrictions to put on his life.
I hate those inhibitions just as much, I can feel them too. I'm passionately in favor of discipline, and working towards a higher good. But only insofar as it gives one's life structure and meaning. Puritans encourage their values well beyond that, for the sake of productivity, wealth, and empire building. They're evil philistines. Fuuuck them.
Boom town kid who was taught by the binge
That a man who expire with the most shit win
That's warpy American nonsense penned by the rich
Not a routine friend in a pinch -- Aesop Rock, Coffee
Humpty is a lazy, wrathful, unambitious, dopamine-addicted, selfish pervert. And without people like him, life would be bleak. I just wanted to help him be more content, and less rudderless.
⢠# 4 The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck by Mark Manson â˘
According to my brother, reading this turned me into an out-of-control douchebag for months. Snipey, impatient, grandiose, etc.
"Well he doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. I'm on some whole 'nother level, and I don't need ANYBODY'S approval!" I would have said, back then.
But during that time I wasn't high on Mark Manson's book, I was high on adderall, getting an average of 3 hours of sleep a night.
Slightly traumatized by my behavior, my brother hesitated for a long while before reading this. When he did, though, he was like "Oh yeah, you were just a shifty meth head. The book had nothing to do with it."
In fact, it called me out in a dozen different ways, and helped me recover from a bad relationship with my skip-bedtime pills. Way I see it, being a douchebag for months was a much better fate than being a douchebag for years.
(Fun fact, just to humiliate myself whenever I can: Although I got my adderall consumption way down, I'd still use it to occasionally abuse my sleep. One day, after just an hour of rest the night before, I was with my mom when I fell down some stairs. I didn't like her tone when I fell, so I decided to blow up on her in front of a stranger. Called her her mother's name, and made her cry for only the second time in my life. I vowed to never call her that, and I haven't reupped my prescription since. This is just me stressing the astronomical importance of sleep for one's mental health. A tired human is a creepy beast.)
If you ask Humpty whether he gives a fuck, he'll tell you absolutely not. Like I said, he fancies himself a carefree little nihilist. On the other hand, he'll lament that he's cripplingly insecure, crushed by obligations, and anxious. But only once he's certain you forgot about the earlier discussion of fuck budgeting.
He definitely gives a fuck about videogames and consumer products; The sort of energy you see people reserve for making firebrand political speeches, Humpty saves it up to fire at developers for botching the re-release of a 20-year-old game he always owned. He's an advertiser's wettest of dreams. It's truly his most religious devotion, and I fucking hate it more than anything. What a stupid mark.
It's not about how many fucks you give, but where you spend them. That's where the "subtle" part comes in. He cares more about being unique than finding sympathy and commonalities with others. He cares more about making his hedonic treadmill spin faster, rather than slowing it down or getting off. He cares more about identifying who made him struggle in the past, than he cares about choosing his next struggles for himself.
He's remarkably similar to Buddha, pre-nirvana. Buddha went from a coddled bitchbaby prince who gave ALL fucks, to an ascetic quasi-nihilistic punk who gave NO fucks. Humpty vacillates between his two inner dumb Buddhas.
This book is more post-nirvana Buddha. With a heap of Camus, some Frankl, a shoutout to James, some Willink, some stoics, maybe a bit of Lasch. It definitely influenced my decision to read a number of other books in this series.
⢠# 5 The Death Of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy â˘
Here's a story about a man who lived an absolutely perfect life. It's the scariest story ever told.
No jump scares, nothing spooky. Just the suffocating tyranny of bourgeois existence.
A list of books about rebels would be incomplete if it didn't include this. Ivan Ilyich is the finest example of an anti-rebel I have ever heard of. A man who yessed his way to the top of the pecking order, got everything he thought he dreamed of, and for that he died hateful, resented, and screaming bloody murder for three days straight.
Everything about Ivan is "comme il faut," meaning "as is necessary" in French. His true north is purely defined by etiquette standards and authority figures. He doesn't ask you, "How's it going?" to investigate, he says it to cross it off the polite to-do list in his thoughtless head.
Ivan's family sounds almost identical to Humpty Dumpty's, and my mom's. Just polite automatons, emotional stonewalls, philistines, staring at each other with hate. His wife, Praskovya, is a carbon copy of my grandma, which is why my mom cried when I called her that. If you ask Humpty to describe the average woman, to him, they're all Praskovyas to some extent.
Humpty seems to hate the Ivan Ilyiches of the world, but it's a bit of a mystery to me. Judgement comes from insecurity. The thing you judge either reminds you of yourself, or of a person you're afraid you might become. We should all fear being or becoming Mr. Ilyich. But that judgement shouldn't lead to hate, just pity.
Is Humpty a natural Ivan? Did he have an easy, decorous, and agreeable life waiting for him, only to have it stolen by fate and our cruel society? Or is he a natural rebel, who hates Ivans because he knows the meaninglessness of the lives they flaunt? Is it an extreme case of sour grapes? Or a healthy sense of what's good for him?
Well, even though Humpty isn't here to elaborate, I can always ask myself, "what would Elliot Rogers think?". In which case, Humpty clearly sees himself as the former. The egg thinks he's a fallen angel. He jealously rages against every reminder of the heavens that expelled him.
Going back over it, I felt sneaky pangs of guilt, as the narrator described the way Ivan's peers treated him, and the sickness that he knew was killing him. They thought if he's not faking it he's exacerbating it, that his moaning is just overindulgent attention seeking, and they wish he'd stop bringing it up and spoiling everyone's mood. Dauntingly familiar.
But lets keep an important thing in mind: Ivan has terminal organ failure, and Humpty has some pretty run-of-the-mill arrested development. His terminal illness is just being a petulant nerd. I know it's also a mental health issue, but lets not miss the forest for the trees, he's got the most common issues on earth. He is a moaning groaning little bitch. And one of the biggest things he hates about someone like Ivan, is Ivan is actually sick.
There's ambiguity about whether Ivan died from wang-bangling his kidney, or from living a grey meaningless existence, surrounded by people who don't love him. Like that story in Man's Search For Meaning, where Frankl described a man dying after pinning all his hope on April 1st, the day he was certain he'd be released. Once he realized his prophecy was a sham, he went catatonic and died of typhus in 3 days. I bet if you can die of a broken heart, you can die of an empty one too.
It's also up in the air how much Ivan's sickness came from burying himself in medical literature, and speaking to doctors whose only input was "yup, ur big sicc boii. rip. f in chat." Which is identical to the way Humpty spends a fifth of every day, browsing incel and autism forums to continuously reaffirm that he's sick and uniquely hopeless.
(Sidenote, I absolutely love how the peasant, Gerasim, is the only man in this story with a warm heart. Fuck yes, Tolstoy.)
The story ends with an almost psychedelic existential crisis. The kind I wish Humpty would hurry the fuck up and have already. Ivan is tortured by the mystery of how a "perfect life" could also be a continuous decrescendo of colour and joy, from the day he stepped forth from childhood, till the day he died.
Remember, it's always better to be Sisyphus than Atlas.
⢠End Bit â˘
I knew a man who got into Mensa by answering all the questions wrong. No shit. He knew all the answers correctly, but knowing they'd be personally reviewed, he wanted to test the reviewer back. So say if the answer was white, he wrote black; if it was 1440, he wrote 0441 or -1440; if there was đşđşđťđĽđ§đŠ on one side of the see-saw and đşđ´đĽđ§đ đť on the other side, he wrote... whatever the answer to that shit was, but x -1 (I'm not joining Mensa any time soon, the tests are just hieroglyphs to me) you get the point.
The reviewer was like, "for you to get these THIS wrong, means you had to know all the answers." So he got into Mensa with a thicc zero on his test. That's a real motherfucking genius.
Sadly he's dead. 80% chance it was just a regular stroke. 20% chance he was assassinated by the Trinidadian government on that fateful flight to Canada. Wednesday and I are 100% on the assassination side, just to increase the man's legendary status.
So what are you? What do you want to be? Bukowski? Buddha? A botanist? A big fish in a small pond, down the street from Le Salon? The Marquis De Sade? Are you a rebel or not?
Maybe not. That's cool too. It's just about striking a balance between Sade, and Ilyich. The benefits of rebellion and consent run along an inverted U curve, like Gladwell describes. In the middle, where there's balance, you get the most benefit, and towards the extreme ends all the benefits disappear. You have to understand the nature of both extremes.
Humpty is what you might call "chronically consensual" 95% of the time, with odious spurts of rebellion the other 5%. And those spurts were saved for his closest confidants. The only advice he was brazenly willing to defy, was our advice on how to be more defiant.
One of the last ongoing debates we had with Dumpty was over him being "forced" to go on vacation with his family. See, he had all the dough to go alone, maybe discover himself, and finally get laid. But... his family would be upset and harrumph about it if did. Because THEN he'd finally be a disappointment of a son in their eyes, after he makes ONE INDEPENDANT CHOICE.
We couldn't convince an almost 30-year-old man, with thousands of dollars in purely disposable income, to leave the country without his mommy and daddy. To fly with them like they planned, and just book himself into a different hotel, and make up his own itinerary, then fly back on schedule. Nope. Impossible. And we're all sitting there, furiously envying the easy fucking life he wastes. What we would do with his opportunities... I get so mad writing this end bit.
Camus says a gifted person is someone who can excel within the boundaries of a system, but a genius first draws their own boundaries for themselves. Not in a way that crosses other people's lines, but in a way that defines excellence independently of how others do.
We're not concerned with the community aloofness
Dude, we're animals, we just go where the most food is
Lower the toast, most formal etiquette is useless
Truth is you're equally expendable if spoon-fed
{Money money}
Money is cool, I'm only human
But they use it as a tool to make the workers feel excluded
Like the shinier the jewel the more exclusive the troop is
Bullets don't take bribes stupid, they shoot shit -- Aesop Rock, 39 Thieves
What's next?! We're not even halfway done. So much to talk about: We could dismantle Humpty's "monkey brain" incel propaganda; We could learn more about influence, teach an autist a little Machiavellianism; We can touch the third rail of psychology, the soul; Or discuss the produce of influence, power; we might even revel in stupidity, can't wait.
5 books a month. I wont say for how long, but once I run out, I'll convert to a lame ass current event blog. Then I can read new books again, and interpret the world through the lens of my library. I'm ultimately writing this so that when I die, my loved ones can still hear my voice, and if they want, choose to embody the aspects of my character that they miss. Much of my personality comes from my books, and I don't mind being immortalized by a bibliography under a gibberish name.
⢠Humpty Dumpty Elegy 4 | five books on đNARCISSISMđ â˘
Been Dumpty-free for over a month now. Wednesday and I had our long-awaited shroom trip. And we've been seeing more of our old friends coming around.
The worries about violence have left me. He hasn't been seen lurking around anyone, nor their families or partners. His closer peers were probably right, he's not a combative person, despite all similarities to Elliot Rogers.
I didn't intend to give each entry a specific theme, but they do all seem to have their own threads running through them. HDE 1 was introspection, HDE 2 was autism and self-control, HDE 3 was death.
This time, I have narcissism on my mind. Talking about the fear of death has an absolving effect. Terror is a sin each of us are guilty of. It spooks us all into the same rash convulsions and mischief. Meditating on it is kinda nice, it's humanizing.
But talking about narcissism has the exact opposite effect. Here is where Frick Nitzels's quote, âBeware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.â hits you right in the bones.
Narcissism is a vast and loaded concept: From an ancient myth, to a clinical diagnosis; A unique and personal euphemism that everyone has their own definition of; A pejorative; An infinite platonic form; And quite often a narcissist projecting their narcissism onto someone else, as if to say "stop being selfish and only think about meeee."
I thought death was a massive undertaking in one month, but death didn't get my hands nearly as dirty. Even after I realized I'm a worm, that eats, and will be eaten, by worms. I'm gonna have to re-read books that mostly informed me that I'm a poorly-behaved piece of shit, or a pretentious loser. I was happy to just silently take that advice, and work it into my life in private. But now, I gotta tell you about the sea of narcissism I swam through growing up, and the stains they left on my character.
I'm going to struggle to separate myself from one of my least favorite people on the planet, the two of us from my parents, Wednesday, and you the reader. In our secular world, if there's one vice still seen as unacceptable, it's narcissism. When we startle ourselves awake at night, thinking about the ways we trespassed against our peers, and soiled our reputations, most of the time we're reflecting on moments where narcissism got the better of us.
⢠#1 I Hate You Don't Leave Me by Jerold Kreisman and Hal Straus â˘
Wednesday was the origin of the Humpty Dumpty analogy. Years before meeting Hump, Wednesday took a sure-win, and dashed it off a rock like Smeagol with a juicy sweet fish.
It was a no-brainer, he had a good thing coming, all he had to do was not cancel it, then he could finally see a reward for all his hope. But he sabotaged it, and went back to wishing it worked out. Like there was nothing he could have done better. Just an unsurprised shrug out of him.
But I had no sympathy, I was pissed. For the first time I deeply pondered the idea that my friend was exaggerating his difficulties with his life, for people's attention. Which he's gotten a sizeable chunk of. I was brimming with contempt.
First, I decided to dig into info about Munchausen syndrome, and learn how that works before slinging it at Wens. Also known as, "factitious disorder imposed on self" (FDIS), it describes someone who fakes or exaggerates symptoms of an illness to achieve the role of a patient, indefinitely. There's an unfortunate stigma around it, which I myself held before learning more.
The causes of FDIS are largely unknown, but in many cases the person is trying to recreate events and arrangements from their childhood. In both stories, Wednesday's and Humpty's, each one started off life on this planet as patients. The overall point though, is that it's not like pathological lying, it's more like sleepwalking.
Got no god damn time for liars.
Wednesday was born with strabismus, and underwent atrociously painful eye surgery as a very young boy, which still didn't work. According to his parents, he was sad from day one. Although I believe he saw his mother's shadow early on, and knew she was mad, years before she officially lost her mind. He was serially raped by an older male relative from infancy. In elementary school, a girl falsely accused him of hiding a bomb in his locker. He was cuffed, searched, exonerated, but still held the reputation of a bomb-smuggling anarchist villain till highschool. He had a full beard like five years before his peers, adding to his eldritch lore. He was in a head-on bus crash where two busses sheered in half, exposing him to a small stadium bleacher of carnage, decapitated and dismembered people, alive, dying, and dead. His mom tried slashing his throat with a kitchen knife, and if his dad ran away with him and his sister, his mom could have used the family court system to jail their dad, and leave them alone with their mother. And that's not everything. Tricks and kicks, over treats and kisses for ya boy Wendy.
Wednesday, for the first half of his life, played the legit role of one being healed. His future was never a question of being great, but simply getting better, and becoming whole. But from whole, he had no intuitions on how to keep improving. Life was about putting fires out, not building a structured and ambitious life. All that is new to him. It's hard to look up, after you decide hope is a trap. Things must be unlearned first.
So, feeling more sympathetic, and knowing he's not just a pesky little scheming bitch, the next thing I dove into was something I overlooked. Something his shrink said he showed symptoms of: Borderline Personality Disorder. Narcissism's b-side.
Now, with BPD and NPD, the D, "disorder," is what matters most. This is a spectrum, where the closer to the middle you are, the better. Most people dominate one side more than another, but until it fucks with your life, and you get too far from the middle, it's just what we call your style. Like with autism. For example, someone towards the borderline side will probably express more imposter feelings, than notions of greatness. There's plenty of beautiful art from both perspectives.
Last I checked I was close to the middle, slightly on the borderline side. This whole series is sort of me granting myself a little bit of narcissism in my life. As opposed to being like "Eh, who needs to read this shit? Nobody asked for your opinion, Garble. Fuckin, IMPOSTERCOX. Booo!" Which is more typical of me, inside my head.
People who are extremely off-center often make it there from trauma, genetics, and a lack of empathy. In Wednesday's case, he actually scores very high on empathy and compassion towards others, but next to zero on self-compassion. Hence his capacity for self-sabotage.
I said I got no time for liars, but Wednesday lies all the time. Only he never lies to other people, just himself. Part of the game in being Wednesday's friend is catching him lying to himself in full earnest, and being like, "Hey Wednesday! Quit lying to my fucking friend Wednesday, YOU PUNK ASS JIVE ASS BITCH!" But externally, he doesn't have a deceptive bone in his body. Unlike Humpty.
Funny thing is that this book describes exactly how my relationship ended with Humpty. (And almost the same with Wednesday.) We were the angry therapists who felt played with, and gave up. Like wrestling with his issues was bringing out the worst in all of us. Borderlines occupy a shrink's office more often than bipolar and OCD combined. And they're the most likely to be forsaken by their therapist.
For a long time, psychologists thought borderlines were hopeless, and many strictly refused to treat them. But that's misguided. We're simply in the early years of understanding it as a disorder. Recent research and technology has painted a much clearer image of what BPD looks like.
If you have this disorder, you can expect it to go away eventually. Age seems to be the most reliable cure. But why wait till you're fifty, passively letting time and fatigue do all the work? Meanwhile, wasting a life of potential being a bored, insecure, psychotic punk.
Humpty Dumpty wants to believe he's unique. It would absolve him of all responsibility, and make the truth of his troubles opaque to every observer, except for him. However, he's not. We took him in because he sounded familiar; He seemed like us.
Knowing ain't half the battle, that's a bullshit quip written by some asshole. -- Aesop Rock, Get Out Of The Car
Get out the car, Egg.
This book is not an answer, it's a road ahead. Diagnosing yourself with BPD does exactly jack shit on its own. If you try to exploit it for sympathy and moral license, you're committing an atrocity. But knowing gives you choices. This tells you which choices help a borderline grow the fuck up with a bit more haste. Plus, it teaches one how to communicate with an angry borderline, whether or not the borderline is you.
⢠#2 Against Empathy by Paul Bloom â˘
I said Humpty had little or no empathy, was that harsh? No. In fact, it could be one of his assets, if he wasn't more focused on using that as an excuse to be a malignant shitball.
In his lazy research, Humpty learned that empathy is against his autistic nature, and thus treating people with love and compassion isn't an option for him. Even when he manages to, it was just a societal ambush of pressure and coercion. He's just pretending to be a human, because otherwise we'd smell is autism, figure him out, chop his head off, and ram it onto a pike. According to him.
But lacking it doesn't make you cruel, useless, or immoral. Like Simon Baron-Cohen (yeah, that's Borat's cousin, relax) said in The Science Of Evil, autists have no particular tendency towards any of those things, despite their deficit in both cognitive and emotional empathy.
Emotional empathy is when you directly mirror someone's physiological and emotional state within yourself. Cognitive empathy is when you mentally intuit how someone will feel or act, without mirroring them. Both are fast and intuitive, as opposed to a slow rationalizing process.
Humpty is perfectly good at cognitive empathy, whenever he needs it. Granted, the other portion of the time he's just fantasizing and projecting onto people. But when he's working inside the margins of reality he's as quick as anyone, and accurate.
Sweep empathy off the table. Say he's full-on Cluster A like he says, with Autism and OCD, or Cluster B like I do, with narcissism and psychopathy. It doesn't matter. He's not exempt from being a good person, or growing up.
Good deeds are best done slowly. Intuition is too quick to take time into consideration. It's myopic, tribal, and innumerate. Picture a child, crying and begging for a whole tub of ice cream before bed. The most empathetic response is to mirror the child's desperate desire, and give in to their request. But a compassionate response considers tomorrow, and the night-long indigestion marathon the kid'll be in for. It also weighs the habits that it could form, the other people that wanted to share the ice cream, and your overall responsibility to help a child make wise decisions.
Psychologists and doctors couldn't help anyone if they mirrored people with things like depression or mononucleosis. So they don't. It's not like psychopathy is something all helpers share, they're not just well-socialized daredevils. Lacking or limiting empathy is just a must when you're trying to help people in pain.
Most surprisingly, Buddhists agree. Brain scans have shown that meditation actually dims the empathetic activity inside your head. It helps you by turning it down. Buddhists believe there's two ways to empathize with humans, a good way and a bad way. The bad way to do it, is one human at a time, like a spotlight. The good way, is to aim that empathy broadly, at the whole of humanity.
I won't try making Bloom's whole argument. It's a controversial one, and he does the best job. But the thing I want to address is this school of thought, that empathy is the nucleus of all morality. That if only humans exhibited more of it, the more humanity would flourish. That people with empathy deficiencies are excluded from building utopia alongside the rest of us.
It's all untrue. And it's a lie that encourages moral decay. Frankly never thought I'd be someone railing against moral decay. But I've never seen a more effective way to do it. If levels of autism and personality disorders are on the rise, and empathy is going down, we have to avoid creating a massive slice of the pie that feels inherently excused from being morally responsible. That's too much nihilism for anyone's good.
⢠#3 Antifragile by Nassim Taleb â˘
Humpty Dumpty is a motherfucking egg. And I ate a piece of chewed bubblegum off the underside of an old moldy wooden bannister, on the ramp in front of a community shed at my housing co-op. It was soft, with a chalky greyish-blue patina. I made like three different visits to pick off more from the same piece. I didn't even realize it was gum till the second time. I don't know what I thought I was eating. I don't know what my motivation was, or what I seemed to like about it. It literally didn't taste like anything. Paper at most, probably from the moldy wood. And it just dissolved, it wasn't chewy at all. How disgusting.
That's my grossest story. I was like 4 or 5 years old. And I'm proud of it. Because that's some A++ immunity building. My mom always encouraged the consumption of germs. Literally told us to eat dirt. Would probably throw up if I told her, but she'd be very proud. Real high-five material. She may be reading this now. Sup, Q!
I also, around the same age, just hurled a brick up in the air, didn't watch it, and it landed square on my melon. I don't think that made me any stronger, but who knows. Does mithridatism work on stone? There's a real dent in my skull. So it did improve my ability to stack books on my head.
I don't have a fraction as much horror to speak of, from my upbringing. But I think I beat all of my friends in how chaotic and disorderly it was. A friend once said it sounds like I lived three or four simultaneous lives.
Starting in 2001, I moved to a new home every three years, till 2016. That year, nothing changed, until I felt an overwhelming desire to try psychedelics. That's when I realized the three year pattern. Then in 2019 I moved with my mom again, to where I am now. This cycle, It's my house; I'm in control of whether I move. I don't know how I'll feel in 2022.
On top of my home, my dad's home moved nearly as often (from rural motels, to a frat house for cabbies. I'll get to it eventually), and I wound up changing schools six times. I've made, and lost, and made, and lost, hundreds of real friends. I don't believe in stability. I think certainty is a childish indulgence. And I learned young that you can't measure risk, but you can measure your own fragility, and work on that.
Humpty, like all narcissists, is as fragile as they come. Cripplingly sensitive and inhibited. Knows twenty steps in advance how some normie will slight him, and sweats as he imagines how his shell's gonna craze.
"You mean, well, lemme understand this. Because aah, maybe it's me, I'm a little fucked up maybe. But, I'm funny how? I mean, 'funny' like an autist? I annoy you? I make you mad? I'm here to fucking annoy you? What do you mean, 'funny'? How, how am I funny?!" -- Humpty, screaming into his pillow while he goes over the day's staircase wit
Humpty needs a lot more slap, less tickle. More bannister gum, less Final Fantasy speed-run letsplays. And most importantly, more mortifying interactions with humans. He always scoffed at my people-advice like I was just naturally born this charismatic. Bitch, I had to embarrass my way up to this point. At his rate, he'll catch up to me in 600 years. This motherfucker thinks he knows the discomfort of human interaction. Pfffft, I say.
If you're gonna make a mistake, make it fast, and make it extravagant. You're doing it for everyone watching as well. Humpty is absolutely not a victim of trying and failing, he's a victim of being afraid to try. In part, because the school system, and a rising number of factors in our society are fragility-making nightmares.
He's like one of the monkeys in Harry Harlow's famous "hairy mamma monkey bonding (HMMB)" experiments, that got raised with a cold chickenwire mother to hug and nurse from. He came out too timid to explore or do free play with other monkeys. The system we grew up in is mostly staffed with wire mothers. And if you're a kid whose parents would rather let the government raise and indoctrinate you on their behalf, you gotta guard against the fragility this creates.
Most of my friends need to read this book. They tend to believe happiness comes from comfort and stability. When I describe pain and distress as productive, they often get flummoxed, and a little disgusted. As if I said sunlight makes things cold, or that bannister gum is delicious. Many of them see their youth as a constant struggle out of discomfort. To willingly re-expose oneself to it is completely retrograde and absurd to them. It's like I'm advocating for masochism.
In a way, they're making themselves allergic to pain, by trying to extirpate it from their life. Most of their suffering is fear of suffering, and a sort of emotional anaphylactic shock. Our anxiety is often just the dizziness of freedom, coupled with the impossibility of reading the future. We all do this here and there, myself included. But it's hard to fix it if you don't acknowledge that it can happen.
Antifragile is one book in Taleb's "Incerto" series. "Incerto" meaning "uncertain" in Latin, Nassim made one huge book, but then chopped it into five pieces. And they're all extremely worth reading. They're about how to make wise, confident choices in the face of life's inevitable uncertainties. If you want to become a smart-felling party-smants, these are the books to read.
Humpty despises uncertainty, like he does all grey areas. I wonder if this contributes to the way he vacillates between believing he's either the dumbest or smartest person on the planet. Smartest, when he's whipping up a corkboard in his head, with polaroids, red yarn, and thumb tacks. Then the dumbest, when he has to tear the whole thing down, and admit not a single bit of it paralleled reality. Later, to anesthetize himself from feeling stupid and helpless, he blames fate, or the malice of others.
He's got a fairly big brain. He's just wasting all his brainpower on making prophecies, rather than cultivating antifragility. "Antifragile" may be a neologism, but it's a quality humans have cherished for as long as we know.
Just a sidenote, I believe psychedelics and entheogens are an extremely powerful tool for teaching antifragility on an intuitive level. It's one of those things you can't articulate when you sober up, but you have a real sense of gnosis. Things like "creative destruction" get this seductive ring. Chaos earns its place in nature. You might start to ask yourself, "What would Dionysus do?"
⢠#4 War Of Art by Steven Presfeild â˘
If not for this book, I wouldn't be writing this.
When I was fourteen, a friend in Minecraft recommended this. Gazah was a thirty-year-old, kind, stoned, devout Joe Rogan fan. He said he got this absolutely amazing book on procrastination, and that I should get it. But also that he got it, read about a dozen pages, put it down, and never picked it back up.
I laughed like "Oh Gazah, you goofball." Got the book. Read about a dozen pages, and didn't finish the last 95% for another six years.
So, for best results, read further than 12 pages.
It's been six years since I finished it. I couldn't tell back then how much it changed me, but after re-reading it, it's arguably the most important book on the list. If you only read one book from this series, get this one. In fact if you read this first, my whole series will seem redundant. Though you'd lose all the fun cursing and psychobabble.
This book is what got me wondering about people's tendency to self-sabotage. Pressfield seems to see it as an ethereal force he calls "resistance."
The chapters look like a machine gun drum mag, with two main special ammunitions: RESISTANCE and PROFEESIONAL.
"RESISTANCE IS INVISIBLE, RESISTANCE IS INTERNAL, RESISTANCE IS INSIDIOUS, RESISTANCE IS IMPLACABLE, RESISTANCE IS IMPERONAL ..."
BAP BAP BAP BAP BAP 30-60 seconds a pop. It's something to re-read every year. Sweep that mental chimney.
"A PROFESSIONAL IS PATIENT, A PROFESSIONAL DEMYSTIFIES, A PROFESSIONAL ACTS IN THE FACE OF FEAR ..."
It may sound like some hyper-manic, Gary-V-style dogma. But it's actually distilled classical wisdom. Laconic mantras.
The big thing that influenced my decision in writing this series, was his idea that an amateur hides from analysis, while a professional embraces peer review. It's not enough to spend an ungodly number of hours, thinking about a guy I believe is a run-of-the-mill gigantic cunt. What does it matter if nobody has the opportunity to check your bullshit as you extrude it into the face of the universe?
My journals are perfectly sufficient for my prophecies, and venting about my less microcosmic peers. I write so that when I die, my loved ones still have my voice. In fact, I'd encourage all forms of amateur creativity. We all need something "autotelic" in our lives. Like drawing, dancing, exercising, asking people questions about themselves, etc.
But it's not sufficient to do this Humpty Dumpty shit in private. The muses have bound me to him. And if the muses call, you know where I'll be.
Now, Humpty didn't have a ton of creative passion, save for two things: Sadistic pornographic fantasies, involving people transforming into conscious pairs of pissed pants, invisibility, wizards, and the whole fucking nine. The other thing was photography. He bought a $4000 camera so he could take pictures of women out and about; They'd find it weird if he used his cellphone, but with a telescopic lens & DSLR, shit, he might work for National Geographic, so judge not! More pornographic fuckery.
Whatever your passions or goals, this book tells you when you're working towards them, and when you're being a time-wasting fuckboi. It told me when Humpty was being a bullshiter.
Regardless, it's a less-than three hour audiobook; It's one episode of the JRE. It's painless. And at the risk of sounding overly sensational, it's a life-changing book.
Why is this book in a clump of books, loosely bound together under the topic of narcissism? Because if you live by all of Steven's advice, it's impossible to remain as anything close to a pathological narcissist. Forget what psychologists say about you, wonder what this guy would say about you.
⢠#5 The Culture Of Narcissism by Christopher Lasch â˘
I said on The Body Keeps The Score that I've never had a panic attack. Well, I nearly had one while reading this. Had to pause it and get my breathing under control. Bravo!
This, I read after starting the Humpty Dumpty Elegy. Figured if I'm gonna accuse an alleged autist of being a sneaky narcissist, I had better read more about narcissism.
So I got this, and the abyss looked back at me like blue steel. When it didn't describe my foes, it described my heroes, it described my parents, Wednesday, Humpty, and myself.
I was reminded of the idea in Denial Of Death that all character is psychosis. Then, I tried to comfort myself by repeating it over and over in my head. "Narcissist" kept sticking to me like trying to pull a glue trap off my right hand, only to get it stuck to my left hand, then my foot, then I hopped around and fell in more traps.
When learning about any of the "Dark Triad" disorders: narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism, someone experienced will usually warn you about the confirmation bias it forms in your head. Like when you decide you want to buy, say, a silver Honda Civic, and suddenly for the next couple weeks it feels like every third car on the road is the car on your mind. Or when you learn a new word, and it goes from meaningless noise, to everyone's new favorite adjective.
It happened to me long ago with Jon Ronson's The Psychopath Test. Where I started scanning everyone for psychopathy, and had a wildly high false-positive rate. Just like with that book, and despite expert warnings, this one had me seeing ghouls everywhere. Only this time I was one of them. At least with psychopathy the adage goes, "If you're deeply worried that you might be a psychopath, you're not a psychopath."
During the second readthrough, I couldn't recall which part made me almost faint, but I can think of a few candidates. No panic this time, but plenty of lip-chewing and knee-bouncing.
The part about us all going from "spiritual-man," to, "psychological-man," definitely got my nerves going. I denigrate Humpty's warped upbringing in the psychotherapy system. Especially the way psychology gets used as a cudgel to punish unruly youths. Meanwhile my cure is to slap him around with books on psychology, sanctioned and approved of by the same system. But that wasn't the panic button; That part's too early in the book, as I recall. Plus, he gave a shoutout to self-help over constant expert supervision, which has been my ideal.
Throughout the book, there was plenty of relief, whenever Lasch joined me in whipping Dumpty: For his constant pleasure seeking, His non-belief in the future or the past, the emptiness of someone who sees humanity as empty, his longing for an apocalypse or millenarian upheaval, his vague indefinable complaints, his lack of play instincts or willingness to suspend disbelief, the way he's defined by others not himself, his disgust towards his own passions, and much, much, more.
But chopped up and sprinkled between every major lift, I'd fall right alongside Humpty. The way we both scoff at hierarchical structure and competition; our disdain for nostalgia and how pretentiously we dismiss tradition, sport, and ritual; our fascination with evolutionary psychology, like zoo animals fantasizing about the wild; our sense of uniqueness and desire to hang out with a worthy few; our pointless use of humor and vulgarity when discussing serious topics; the way we fancy ourselves a couple of rebels, yet we're the picture of competence and submission at work.
Plus, there were some things the imposter in me can't just dismiss off-hand, as I'm writing a series like this. Pseudo-insight into my own condition, and the condition of others? False confession? How much of my mind have I numbed through the infinite regress of ironic detachment? Shells on shells on shells... All the way down. Nothing more typical of a narcissist, than pointing fingers at others.
This is starting to feel like Fight Club, where we're one guy all along. Did always say we were similar.
Narcissism is not a vague concept, clinically. It's not self-love, it's self-hate. There's primary and secondary narcissism. Primary is like a baby, just screaming for baby stuff; No awareness of others, voracious consumer, nourishment is all external. Secondary is a revolt against one's internal baby, where all nourishment is sought internally, hyperindividualism and isolation develops, and instead of helpless, one becomes grandiose. Borderline personality is essentially secondary narcissism.
But it doesn't really matter whether one's A or B, because fundamentally they're two sides of the same coin. One that flips regularly within people. Think about how bullies and victims so easily swap positions. Primaries often think self-help involves just becoming a secondary, and vice-versa. It doesn't matter if you turn the knob left or right, if the deadbolt is still engaged.
It shouldn't be surprising to hear oneself described in this book, though. For a couple reasons. Like I said earlier with I Hate You Don't Leave Me, it's a spectrum. And until all this becomes pathological and destructive, it's just your style. The other reason is, narcissism is just becoming more rewarding in our society. Not only is it a style, it's one of the coolest. Lasch wrote this in 1979, and his words have only gotten more true.
Yeah Dump, you could have just been a cool normie all along.
In the early days of narcissism research, with Freud, society mostly produced primary narcissists. Secondaries being rare. Since then, it has almost entirely flipped, to everyone being a nebulous cloud of anxiety and dissonance. Identity crises are through the roof. To many of us, "unique" is the highest compliment. We're all more isolated and militantly individualistic.
We're all told to seek the top of every hierarchy we're in, or we're being subjugated and exploited. As if the world was made of only bosses and suckers.
In the 18th century, a well-lived life was simply one where you died without having to apologize to anyone for how you lived. You only had to be a helpful and buoyant person, whose company people cherish. And read a book from time to time.
In the 19th century, philistinism took over. The only virtues became resume virtues. And personal growth was measured by how much more money you started making. Personalities became works of art, and most importantly, self-advertisements. Even I have promoted books that make people better employees.
As a result, society has bureaucratized itself into a coma. The most lucrative state of mind is an institutional one. The kind you develop in school, the military, or prison. Our virtues are all industrial. We're performers, not producers. With bullshit jobs, or dehumanizing peonage.
I could go on forever about this book, but this whole series is already committed to elaborating on its points. And this is tumblr, so my post is 3000% too long as is.
The key point, at the end of the day, is that Mr. Dumpty, you are a narcissist my man. You know that whipping I talked about, the one I took half of with you. From constant pleasure-seeking, to shells on shells, you KNOW that's more accurate than your autism diagnosis.
Which is just: occasional stutter, OCD, threw tantrums as a wee boy, and you struggle to make friends.
Humpty, come read this mirror.
⢠End Bit â˘
I keep telling myself to stop writing this and delete everything. Writing this, and re-reading these books has been nothing but fun. But a voice persists, saying this is wrong, and that I'll regret it. But oh well, I got at least 40 more books left. Fuck you, voice! This is for a future prison inmate.
I know I said I was done with The Culture Of Narcissism, but I gotta address one thing. This isn't false confession, fiction, or pseudo-insight. I really do see Humpty Dumpty as a microcosm of something pervasive. I've grown up with people like him, including myself at one point, and a major part of my fascination with psychology comes from the mystery of his kind.
I forget if I mentioned yet, but I was threatened with special-ed, endlessly, till the 6th grade. That year, my mom was like "Test him. Get an expert, and if he says my kid's a dumb bitch, he's a dumb bitch." The test said, objectively: "Garblegox is not stupid, he's just a fucking asshole." So finally, the teachers eased up, and learned how to stop getting punked by cool little boys like me. I was a bully in school; I bullied my teachers.
But from then on, I continued through school, wherever I went, with some hardcore sped cred. 'Bout 60-80% of my friends were special ed, medicated, or just fucking top-shelf weirdos. My passion is, and always will be, misfits.
The best way to approach the problem of narcissism is to not approach it as a problem of narcissism. Approach it as a lack of compassion and empathy, as fragility, as resistance. Approach it with sympathy and awareness of your own narcissistic or borderline habits.
"Narcissist" is the other N-word you best be careful with. It's like calling somebody stupid, they just won't cooperate with you; the firewalls engage.
You may have picked up that I'm a sucker for a patient. It's not considered healthy to choose friends with the goal of healing them. As Nassim Taleb points out, chronic healers can be as toxic and spooky as sick folk. Humpty shouldn't be transferring the role of patient onto himself, and doctor onto his friends. And I shouldn't be accepting those roles from him, or any other friend. It's a codependent transference relationship that hurts and debases both parties.
Bet you thought eating that gum was the most embarrassing thing about me.
Here's how I invoke the muses:
I have been completely unable to maintain any semblance of relationship on any level
I have been a bastard to the people who have actively attempted to deliver me from peril
I have been acutely undeserving of the ear that listen up and lip that kissed me on the temple
I have been accustomed to a stubborn disposition that admits it wish its history disassembled
I have been a hypocrite in sermonizing tolerance while skimming for a ministry to pretzel
I have been unfairly resentful of those I wish had acted different when the bidding was essential
I have been a terrible communicator prone to isolation over sympathy for devils
I have been my own worst enemy since the very genesis of rebels -- Aesop Rock, Gopher Guts
SHOUT OUT TO MELPOMEEENE AAAAH uOOAAAAAHHHH!!!
NEXT MONTH IDK IF I'LL BE ABLE TO COBBLE TOGETHER A WHOLE TOPIC! WE'LL SEE! THE IMPORTANT THING IS JUST THAT I WRITE IT IN THE FIRST PLACEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!
⢠Humpty Dumpty Elegy 3 | five books on â DEATHđź â˘
The group held a vote on whether to kick Mr. Dumpty out for a year.
Yes won.
I wasn't in on the deliberation, behind the scenes. I'm not a big wig; didn't even get a vote. But I know three big things tipped the scales: Our safety, the perversion, and content violations in chat.
Once we had all taken off our pity goggles, we started to wonder why we overlooked all the murder-suicide commentary. We also thought, in horror, about the reactions of our loved ones, girlfriends, or wives, if we exposed them to Humpty's antics.
A few long-time regulars on the discord were becoming noticeably more absent since he joined. One said a year ago that he wouldn't tolerate Humpty Dumpty's bullshit. He meant it, and he made his point through his actions from the start.
We wanted our other friends back. Friends we'd known for many more years; who actually participate in games with the group; who are gregarious and entertaining; Friends that haven't designated the entire group to be their therapist.
Not everyone had bad memories of Humpty. Because some never logged on when he was in voice chat.
It's officially an elegy.
We all feel gross. Our admin, despite all the negative testimonies, including his own, felt that booting Dumpty was a bitter pill to swallow. He's only ever banned people for egregious, obvious, suicide-by-admin type behavior. But he also felt a bit ashamed for letting people in his group be exposed to such an individual.
In a way, we could hold ourselves responsible for not being more firm in enforcing our boundaries. Five "no"s, and one "yes", means "yes". Five "no"s, a "yes", and a "man, Humpty, you're really a piece of shit, you know that?" also means "yes" just the same. I know how to say "no". And with Humpty, I didn't do my best.
But again, we were never actual therapists, and Humpty rarely acted like a friend. What kind of friend makes you have to consult with books by FBI agents on establishing firm boundaries? Nutty fuckin douchebag friends. I did appreciate him buying me Doom, though. That felt genuinely nice before he cracked a whip at me about it.
This time, I'm gonna try to be far more respectful. He is a human. He is lonely. He does have a lot to learn. And I get no pleasure from his exile. Maybe relief, but no schadenfreude.
Before, I was writing from the perspective of someone at the end of their rope. After experimenting with every level of intensity, trying to get these points across, the only level I hadn't tried was the furious, "Okay fuckhead, you're dead to me. If you don't want to do it the easy way, we'll do it the humiliating way" level of intensity.
It's been fun. But my anger has only one thing left to do, and that's diminish. I got a lot of books for Humpty Dumpty to read, and it's going to be hard to keep the fire hot.
My overall goal is still to share books with people, and to learn from the finest anti-model I've ever met. I told Dump about what I was writing, the reason why, and the fact that I was trying to eviscerate him. He chuckled at me and never got around to reading it, which kind of emboldened me to crank up the spice.
Now that he's cut off, there's a far greater chance he revisits this series. I'll focus on making it actually readable for him too, and not a massive diarrhea cannon aimed at his face. I'll sound like how I spoke to him pre-Twelve Days of Christmas, when I was in investigation mode; When I had hope for him. I got into this mess via sympathy.
"I'm going to kill myself" was Hump's #1 catch phrase. I still reckon he stole it from Wednesday for attention, but whatever, lets just humor him. I don't want that to happen. And if he was ever tempted to really do it, it might be after getting swept off into the goatscape.
So, as we kick off our more namaste-like, Dumpty-free future, let's begin with my favorite books about DEATH. Books a suicidal cat might dig. I know I did.
⢠#1 Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl â˘
Cried like a silly bitch at work, the other day, thanks to this book. I re-listened to it on my phone, and you'd think I spent the whole shift slicing onions.
I'm blessed with coworkers whom I can joke about it with. In the kitchen, we have two types of conversations on line: peep-to-peep chatter; or shouting from one corner of the room to the other, as a sort of performance to make front of house laugh.
Our favorite hits include shouting about: Familial trauma or neglect, sleep disrupting insecurities, suicidal thoughts, political cynicism, nihilistic bile, and the last thing we had a good fuckin cry about. Like a half dozen Statlers and Waldorfs, heckling existence itself.
This one produced some rare tears, though. Tears of awe. This feels like one of those, "Read-every-few-years-for-the-rest-of-my-life" type books.
Known as "the third school of Viennese psychology," Viktor Frankl's "Logotherapy" was first put to the test when he survived three years, in four different Nazi concentration camps. From, "logos" meaning, "meaning" or "reason", logotherapy focusses on the existential meaning of a patient's existence.
Frankl would often ask patients, after they spilled out all their woes, "So, why haven't you killed yourself, yet?" It wasn't rhetorical, he wasn't just trying to be hilarious, the "why" was the point of his entire practice.
"One who has a why to live can bear almost any how" -- Friedrich Nietzsche (aka Frick Nitzels)
Viktor witnessed what happened to a person when their meaning was lost. A man, who lived to see March 31st, the day he prophesized would be his liberation, died two days later when it became clear his dream wouldn't come true. First, he went catatonic, then came typhus. Death by April Fools.
Meanwhile, another man, who prayed to god to transmute all of his suffering into protection for his loved ones in other camps, took every measure of sadism and misery with a steady return of hope. That's not masochism, that's alchemy.
I discussed with Humpty the importance of how he constructs a narrative around his life. That he cultivates nihilism at his own peril. That his big strong brain only has access to half of the truth, if he only focusses on the objective ones. Psychology has a reductionism problem, where mechanical focus on clinical diagnoses reduces people to barely animals.
For some people, their neurology is perfectly sound. Not an imbalance in sight. Their lives? Ship-shape & Bristol; Ivan Ilyich approved; all rites passed; A G R E E A B L E. But how do they feel to be alive? Like the biggest bag of worthless shit.
Why? What makes some people seemingly impervious to psychiatric intervention? Because not all psychiatrists think "the meaning of life" is a scientific topic, and therefore not their role to discuss. Which means you can spend a lot of time learning about psychology, and never learn a single subjective truth.
This is why self-diagnosis is so risky. Where is any of this bullshit I'm writing about on Web MD?
So start here. Evaluate self-help by more logotheraputic standards. Ask, "does this even acknowledge the importance of meaning in my life, or help me pursue it?"
This is my favorite shit to summon tears with. I'm not fully sure why. But if I need tears on queue: "I am here- I am here-..." and I'm away. Same at work, as while I write this now. Makes me wonder what madness even means.
⢠#2 The Road To Character by David Brooks â˘
What does Dumpty value?
Not dating fat or ugly women; Getting the negative attention of Japanese videogame developers on Twitter; Being seen as the brother of a girl who isn't his biological sister, or in his family at all; $750 Shadow The Hedgehog statues; Not being a "normie"; and many other purely worthless things.
He's where I started wondering if chronic depression might be a philosophical issue for some people, as opposed to a contextual or neurochemical one. The man will never improve till he wraps his head around the idea of intrinsic values.
There's zero hope of Humpty living a happy life without a moral compass. Sadly for him, he's not a real psychopath, who can easily find all the eudaimonia he wants, just at other people's expense, guilt free. He's a dull narcissist, whose fate is just a crescendo of greater and greater solitude; a deeper and more empty abyss, till annihilation.
This is a book I read early, in my journey to deconfuckulate my brain, and it played a major role in most of my Humpty-scolding, largely without me recognizing it. Upon re-reading, I was surprised to find it influenced my decision to read 4 other books over the years. Including Man's Search For Meaning, and Culture And Anarchy (BANGER) by Matthew Arnold.
Btw Matthew Arnold is the guy who gave us the modern usage of "philistine." I'll be writing more about him, because his book is as applicable today as it was seven generations ago. That book is 2 Yosemite Sam guns/2 Yosemite Sam guns, bang bang bang.
Maybe you're like me, and "moralist" sounds like an insult. Well, Brooks isn't here to scold anyone or be a nerdy little bitch. Don't let anyone fool you, this isn't religious or conservative propaganda, it's another contribution to logotherapy. Take it from a pathologically anti-authoritarian douchebag like myself.
He gives a couple handy binaries to help organize your priorities. "Adam I vs Adam II" virtues, or "Resume vs Eulogy" virtues.
The Adams refer to how in Genesis, Adam displayed two different sets of virtues at different times. Adam I is practical, marketable, flexible, conditional, and Hellenistic. While Adam II is spiritual, self-contained, disciplined, unconditional, and Hebraistic.
Adam I is a great object, but a vacuous subject. Adam II puts little value in the objective world, in favor of a richer subjective one. Not everyone is in a rush to hire Adam II for a job, but everyone's coming to his funeral to pay their respects. Spending time around Adam II is mind expanding, and spiritually enriching.
You see the orange of that cover? That's the yolk I've been trying to get into Humpty's empty fucking shell the whole time. But little did I know I'm just a stupid normie, trying to argue against the axiom that life is meaningless. Am I really that cruel for calling Humpty empty? He's the only motherfucker I know to be like "Yeah, sonder is bliss, but leave me out of it. I'm an ant, not a hill, in this useless head of mine."
We could hold modern psychology responsible for a lot of this. When people dropped faith, and abandoned priests, they created a vacuum in their hearts. I think you can fill it with a multitude of things, without going back to church. But to fill it with psychology exclusively is a disastrous mistake. If you want dogma, just go back to church. Way better chance of turning out friendly.
When Humpty asked for help, what did he have in mind? He claimed he was continuously improving, just by being in our presence. But I know "improve" has nothing to do with eulogy virtues, coming from him. It's why I became convinced he was just looking for attention. The sweetness of a spotlight.
Everyone in the group has got eulogy virtues, and the kind of worries that'd fill Adam II's heart with the warmest sympathy. Wednesday is someone who has exhausted all conventional strategies for fighting depression; all the neurochemical and contextual battlefronts have been braved by him. But the real victories have been existential; A change in philosophy. (Plus, our frontal lobes grew in. If you're under 25 look forward to that shit. It's nice. đđđđ)
There's no such thing as building character through osmosis. Brooks, like many others in this series, see it as a painful reconstruction project. Parts of you need to be dismantled, examined, and often thrown away. This is why this series is so heinously mean. Humpty is the only one that can humble himself; For me to do it is just humiliating. I tried to lead this horse to this water, and this horse stomped it into a mud puddle.
Another thicc scoop of logotherapy, with a stoic cherry on top. I said that it got me to read four other books, but really it's a bibliography of more than a dozen great authors we should all read before we die. From Mary Ann Evans to Montagne. He makes St Augustine sound like Iceberg Slim. Bestseller for a reason.
⢠#3 Denial Of Death by Ernest Becker â˘
Hey, I was just wondering if it'd be cool if I could just be immortal and unforgotten forever? At least for a few millennia. I'm thinking Giza pyramids level longevity. Should be easy. I like a good bite-sized goal.
A lot of people will tell you that the reason they, or anyone else, do anything is to get laid. That at the nucleus of all their heroism, striving, and anxiety, is sex. But why is sex so important? Because we're mortal. The real nucleus is death. The one bone our subconscious chews away on, day and night.
This is where "monkey brain" doesn't apply. Death anxiety is a unique byproduct of human intelligence. It's based on our ability to treat abstract symbols as if they were as concrete as the things they symbolize. A banknote, representing cold hard gold glows in the hand of its owner, like real precious metal; a man wearing a hat, that signifies his leadership over 50 armed men, can be as threatening alone with his hat as he is with his all his men in tow; And looking at the corpse of another human is a glimpse at one's own future. As if your death were mine too.
Every bit of psychological progress is just a wobbly house of cards if you built it before grappling with death. It's the "worm at the core of our pretentions to happiness."
We've all heard the story, someone reaches the tippity-tip-tap-top of the hippity-hip-hap-heap and what do they do? They stoop, put their chin to their fist, furrow their brow, and bum everyone the fuck out with an unsolicited existential crisis.
Because you ain't a pyramid you silly bitch. You a poopy worm.
This book though, in all seriousness, is all seriousness. When I read this I was like "FINALLY! Freudian psychology without all the awkward erections!" See, Freud was 95% right, but his dogmatic obsession with orgasms left his work in need of some decryption.
This book is where we all stop pretending we're any different from Humpty Dumpty. When we act out, we're lashing against our fear of death; fear of heroism; fear of success. When we reach to great heights, we're grasping at immortality.
Lets be straight up, Humpty's not stupid. He can give you a crystal clear description of objective facts, plus secondary and tertiary details. That brain of his is firing on all cinderblocks. The problem is, the neurotic are people who see things with perfect clarity, rather than confusion.
Humpty knows he's mortal. He knows heroism is just a reflex, to either uselessly distract yourself from death, or futilely attempt to negate it. He knows success will just leave him with one last thing to do: die, and be forgotten.
But he doesn't handle those facts, lets say, gracefully. His solipsism has him convinced he came up with all these notions himself. Anyone who appears to grasp them, AND put them towards a happy life, must not grasp them properly.
A little stupidity could do Dumpty some good. Or as Ernest calls it, "legitimate foolishness". The religious call it, "faith". His biggest fears are, making a fool of himself, and buying into comforting lies. He won't talk to women because of course they're going to reject him; He won't join a meatspace community because of course they don't want an autist, or an independent thinker; Of course he won't spend time on self-help, it's either redundant, or futile.
Maybe he's right, because you know, each "of course not" has a long flowchart of if-thens and either-ors behind it, that he spent DAYS ruminating on. Instead of one moment, where he tests his pessimistic hypotheses. Testing would be foolish, when you consider the prior arithmetic.
If Humpty looks even a little foolish, people instantly spot his autism and then he's DOOMED.
He's such a god that he can predict the future, but not withstand it. And such a worm that life is a joke, but too sacred to play with it.
You think "worm" is an insult. But most people don't even live up to a worm's standards; worms leave the world around them a better place. All they do is enrich. I bet if we didn't have worms, plants and fungi would officially cancel this "terrestrial animal" project they've been experimenting with for a while.
For want of a worm, the dirt was lost. For want of a dirt, the food was lost. For want a food, the poop was lost. For want of a poop, life was lost. For want of a life, the Earth was lost. For want of a Earth, God was lost. And all for the want of some shit little worms.
⢠#4 The Worm At The Core by Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski â˘
Giving myself only a month to discuss this was HUBRIS. Good fuckin JESUS god! Then again, the work has all been done, I'm just trying to waft some air from these books at people's noses. It's gloomy, but this is the bread isle for the existentially starving. Virgin Mary toast, by tha loaf.
All that stuff back there? Ernest Becker? Not a scientist, that guy. It was one of those dirty rotten philosophy books. Eew! If you ask any traditional scientist nowadays, what they think about the importance of philosophy, a heartbreaking percentage think it's obsolete. Which to me, means a heartbreaking percentage of scientists are arrogant brainless fuckin' tumors.
When Denial Of Death dropped in '73, it garnered a ton of hype. It inspired a lot of art. But the scientific community abandoned it like a mamma bird, ditching her nest of chicks because they carry a foreign smell. They felt a little cucked by Kierkegaard, the pre-Freudian post-Freudian. And they'll never be outshone by a theologian. Not willingly.
But there were still scientists looking to bring Becker's work into the realm of the empirical. People like our authors here. Data, studies, models of predictability, nice science shit. The result? TMT, or "Terror Management Theory." Sounds so metal.
It's a treatment lane. Some people are mentally ill due to life circumstances, genetics, physical sickness, etc. For which, there are drugs, CBT, and lifestyle adjustments. One illness can be the result of many different influences, and can thus be treated by many different things.
One drastically overlooked influence however is existential dread. Yes, it can kill you.
Drugs won't change your relationship with mortality. All they can do is take away the physical manifestations of our inner conflict. But they don't answer questions once and for all. With the exception to psychedelics, which I highly recommend. A psychedelic near-death experience is a good time. Try experiencing a little eternity, and tell me you long to live forever.
You're longing for the scariest thing IN THE UNIVERSE!
Cognitive behavioral therapy is great for misbehavior. But behaving like a content person, when you're not, doesn't make you a content person. It's painful, like bone tinnitus. It doesn't answer important subjective questions. Doesn't wipe away the oily film of the absurd.
Lifestyle adjustments are great, but again, it's all extrinsic. Perfect in the meantime, as you're working on coming to terms with your mortality. But your lifestyle will adjust itself anyway, as your fear of death diminishes. It's one way you know its coming along. However I'd never assume I'm over my fear, rather that I'm just artfully dancing around the topic in my head. Once again, an art, not a science.
Do I have a healthy relationship with death? I think I do. Sadly, I think it has a lot to do with my parents, a healthy dosage of dying pets and peers, and most importantly, 3 catastrophic nightmare psilocybin trips. Things I can't share with others; All non-fungible experiences.
The shroom inhibitions were another big reason I gave up on Humpty. You gotta be humbled, you gotta be scared, you need to practice your death before you die. You can't just manage death terror with sarcasm, and catatonic pessimism. He needed to see what the fuck a "monkey brain" can really do.
Our generation has made such a mockery of suicide. All the yapping about it is becoming profane. Whether we play that card for laughs, or just to hear another person beg us to keep on living, we play it as often as we can. Why? Why cry so much god damn wolf?
I think it's a "proximal defense" against terror. We construct what they call proximal and distal defenses against death's effect on our emotions.
Distal defenses are like a roof over your head, and mortal terror is like the rain. Distal defenses do most of the work, keeping subconscious thoughts under control, long before they emerge onto the surface. But when the rain gets through our roof, our proximal defenses play the role of a bucket, catching individual leaks.
Humpty's roof is rusty, corrugated swiss cheese. He thinks the scheme of things is all a sham. Group oriented values are the values of a sheep. He's abandoned all hope of having kids, and has sour-graped on the topic entirely. The rain gets in with full force.
His bucket? He turned it upside down, painted "suicide" on the side, and now wears it on his head. He's soaked up to the neck, shivering, and laughing from the dark. You won't fire him, he'll quit. Everything in his life has been pure fate, except for his death. That'll be his creation.
⢠#5 The Myth Of Sysyphus by Albert Camus â˘
Camus and I are perfect examples of the fact that being super handsome and cool doesn't make your life happy or more meaningful. Don't worry 'bout it. 'Sno big deal.
I'm barely smart enough to read shit like this. I re-read everything before I write about it, and I re-re-re-read this one. Felt like an Aesop Rock song, where I'm carried along by isolated little lines and phrases that blow my mind. And only after repeated exposure, do I start to get the thread from start to finish.
The point is, Sisyphus is a bad muthafucka. Don't pity the man, he's a hero. Life is an absurd Sisyphean bunch of goofishness. This book focusses on the question of suicide, in the face of this reality. The rock is going to roll back down hill. Why push it up?
I might be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure all four of the previous books have referenced sexy ass Albert Camus. That wasn't intentional, but it's pretty neat. If this book feels like it's really tearing your mental asshole open, try easing into it with the other ones. I'm still loosening up for Kierkegaard. The one guy all five books can't stop slobberin' on about.
One thing I liked about Humpty was that he recognized the absurd, and it consumed him too. We shared the same harrowing passion. I think he had a bitchboy response to the issue, but to be engaged with it at all was something I respected deeply within him.
In a way, a "normie" is someone who has either never grappled with absurdity, or lives to avoid it at all costs. We share a disdain for people like that. Especially the avoiders. Humpty wants what Camus calls "living without appeal"
That is, appeal to a god, an ideology, a fiction, or hope. Anything that would insult his genuine gift of lucidity. His atheism, individualism, rationalism, and cynicism are virtues of his. I got no books on abandoning any of those things. But they're a heavy ballast, and they can sink you if you're reckless. An issue that really only effects the smartest people, to toot all our horns. Hey you, give yourself a toot!
Honestly, I've probably spent more time telling Humpty he needs Jesus, than I've said he needs Camus. Because I think he's too Dunning-Kreuger to take him seriously. If something resembles a stupid movie, TV show, or game he likes, he'll consider himself already schooled on the topic. And there's plenty of flippant absurdist media out there to distract him from that good-good shit.
Albert gives 3 examples of living an "absurd life" without appeal. An actor, a seducer (Don Juan), or a conqueror. It should be noted that Humpty is quite deliberately none of these things, and Wednesday is dying to be all three at once. The act of wearing a mask in social settings is extremely degrading, in his opinion; he says women reject him, but he wouldn't dare approach them anyhow, for love is short-lived and exceptional; And he knows everything conquerable is re-conquerable. The point is, you ain't gonna make Humpty look stupid, by fooling him into carrying that rock anywhere.
He also discusses Dostoyevsky's character, Kirilov. A man who committed "logical suicide". After grappling with the absence of god, and his lack of spiritual purpose, Kirilov sought revolt, freedom, and passion through taking his own life. This is the character I think Humpty most resembles.
It's as if Dumpty has the myth backwards in his head. At the top of the hill is death, and at the bottom of the hill is life. Like death is the burden he shoulders, and life is the inevitable retrograde from all his hard work. He can kill himself, or millions of others, and the worms will eat, nutrients will flow. Life will flourish like nothing happened. Fed only sooner in his haste.
This book has drastically improved my attitude at work. Few jobs are more blatantly Sisyphean than cooking food and washing dishes. And I think few cooks handle it with as positive an outlook as me.
Granted, I can't wait to leave. It's also one of the few jobs where you just get burned every day. The palms of my hands are a permanent strawberry bubblegum colour, while the backs are a ghostly pale mick beige; I'll fucking destroy you in a game of hot potato. But in the meantime, I'm proud to carry my daily rock with dignity.
In fact, inspired by the masterpiece, Holes, I like to think of my work like Madam Zeroni's pig. When I'm carrying a 50lb flour bag down four flights of stairs twice a day, or dumping 180lbs of canola oil into their fryers to start the morning (240 if it's dump day), I hear her spooky ass voice in my head. I watch my body get stronger, and I feel some squaring of my debt to the universe. Whatever it takes to be Sisyphus with a smile.
I guess Humpty was looking to be my rock. I was hoping he'd find his own.
⢠End bit â˘
(Oops, this was late. Real dickfuck move from someone trying to give life advice. Although I get a free pass thanks to Atomic Habits, so long as I don't fuck up twice in a row. Considering the massive topic, the drastic change in direction, and waiting 15 days to start writing... well I don't have any valid excuses either way. Just gotta not do it again. Okay? Capeesh? Prick?)
It's amazing how quickly the worst memories began to fade the second I didn't have Humpty Dumpty around to resent. It helps that he's a pretty textbook case of himself, and there are countless other people like him to remind me of our time together.
You gotta wonder, "what kind of hyper-demanding asshole friend expects one to read this many books?" honestly I never expected that. I thought Humpty came to Wednesday and I, believing we had knowledge to share, and I spent close to two years, thoughtfully trying to inject lessons from our reading/life into conversations with Humpty. Not only did he breeze by them with zero feedback, he often chose to argue with us directly.
It's not like he's just never been exposed to these things, but would have loved to be. He's always been bent on disproving them.
This series had a different aim, just before I turned on Dumpty. I called it "Books My Dumbass Friends Need To Read." I used the same five books, with 5 different write-ups, posted it, and after all the fun of writing it, it felt completely wrong.
I've been teasing my other friends for a long time, that they all gotta read some of this shit, instead of just getting the sparknotes from me. These books have patched up issues for me that my friends continue to grapple with, and one of the only tools I know of to fix them is a nice book.
(and shrooms)
But my heart wasn't lashing out at them at all. For a number of big reasons. First, they all read books, unlike Humpty. It's what makes book recommendations possible in the first place, and why I don't need to blog at them. They're all bonafide seekers, who are finding happiness at respectable paces. I learn from them just as well. God bless em. Second, none of them use the group as an emotional barf bag. We all expect ourselves to bring something to the table to REWARD people for giving us attention.
I was furious with Humpty Dumpty. I was tired of wasting the group's time, interviewing him about his made up psychoses. Hours on this fucking piece of shit, who'd move the goalpost to a new fantasy dimension of cum and shit and sarcastic scoffs the second you got an eye on his shadow's true form. I needed to put this iceberg of wasted patience far from our boat.
I might replace my anti-model with a role-model. My boy Wednesday. Hump Day, not Humpty Dumpty. He got two different eyes, he seen so much death, and he knows the future. He's Odin. He's Moondog. The Witcher to my Dandelion. The warrior to my poet.
We'll see. I'm gonna be vague about him. Then again I've been super vague about Humpty.
Toning down the venom is a must, though. These aren't books for pieces of shit. They're books so robust even pieces of shit can put them to full use. Albeit, maybe with the help of a jail sentence. Humpty Dumpty is a nauseatingly relatable human being. He's not of a different form from us, but of a different scale.
Oh boy! Next month I bring you 5 more of these dirty little whores! You had better fucking like reading! Oooooh SHIT!
⢠Humpty Dumpty Elegy 2 | five books for a đŤFAKE AUTISTđ¤ â˘
Unravelling the mystery of Humpty Dumpty has been like one furious rendition of the Twelve Days Of Christmas. Where every gift is another crime he committed against the group.
"Yo Wednesday, Hump got me a partridge in a pear tree. I think he might be a great big piece of shit."
"DUDE! I swear to god, he got me two turtle doves as well. I can't believe he also got you a partridge in a pear tree, what the FUCK!"
A second friend pops into voice chat, we rattle off our gifts.
"You know, I thought I was the only one getting gifts from Humpty. I'm on my third French hen. But if you got two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree, something must be up!"
Every friend has been a brand new day of Christmas. And I'm about seven days in. Day one, I only had one story in my head. By day seven, I've heard or repeated them all at least 28 different times.
The Twelve Days of Christmas is a song that always fills me with panic and dread. Real Bill Murray, Groundhog Day shit. Opposite to how talking to a shrink makes your head feel lighter and shrunk, talking about Mr. Dumpty makes my skull feel like a 16lb bowling ball, dipped in hot moldy fondue.
⢠# 1 The Coddling Of The American Mind by Greg Lukianoff & Johnathan Haidt â˘
I was born in 1995. All throughout school, it felt like the kids in my grade were the last ones to have any fun.
Playgrounds got dismantled, piece by piece. The ground under them went from sand, to pebbles, to wood chips, to bouncy asphalt. Can't throw a giant rubber mat into someone's eyes.
There was a gentle, not even 15-degree-inclined hill behind one school I went to. We'd summersault down it, roll into each other's legs, toboggan on our coats, write in the snow with our footsteps, dozens of things silly kids do on a tiny hillside. When I hit the 6th grade, only 6th graders and above were allowed on it, and when I went to highschool, it was strictly prohibited. To everyone's knowledge, nobody in the history of the hill ever got hurt on it, but it was off-limits in the name of safety nonetheless.
Or as we little morons used to say, "Hill's outta bounce."
I remember when the phrase, "exclusion is a form of bullying, same as the others," was new. I remember it backfiring spectacularly. A group would form, and a kid that was disinvited from that group would end up furious. Instead of asking, "how do I get in?" He'd go full Randal Weems. First, angrily threatening to snitch. Next, pitifully sobbing, and running to the teacher to tell them the whole spiel. The teacher would then tell us if we want to make a group, absolutely everyone must be invited.
The kid would get his way, and treat his own presence like the greatest victory in the name of spite. We'd say something to the effect of, "Well, you got your own way. Now we get to hate you up close." This would last one to three days, a week at the most, and the group would voluntarily dissolve. At least in any in-school form. School turned the art of association into a bullying conspiracy; We learned to speak in symbols like Freemasons.
Humpty was a kid that got excluded a lot. For all his frustration, he got to watch these conspiracies from behind a veil of flattery, resentment, and placation. No, "improve X aspect of yourself, and you'll fit in" from his peers. Nothing constructive to reflect on. Just bitter kids, silently parting away from him like the Red Sea. That's why I wrote this. I believe we busted our asses off to be constructive, and I refuse to be accused of not doing my best at that.
Contact sports stopped using contact. Dodgeballs became these useless foam core sponges with the kinetic energy of ping pong balls. Track & field day legitimately started involving participation ribbons. So kids like me couldn't just blow the whole event off; we got to take home an official stack of loser-colored failure tokens. Me and the kids with spina bifida, and electric wheelchairs.
Humpty is only 3 years older than me. Plus, he was held back a grade. We went to school in the same province. We both saw the same circus. He's a young Millennial, I'm an old Zoomer.
Just a sidenote, I streetviewed my old school, with the hill out back. Between 2009 and now, every single climbable non-coniferous tree has been cut down. Not just on the property, but along every sidewalk leading to the school, all the way to the neighborhood I used to walk from. That just makes me so sad. We're fucking primates, man. This is that "abiosis" those oracles warned all us about.
I wanted Humpty to feel like I did, when I read this. Like it wasn't just me, and my particularly satanic schools. I wasn't being some curmudgeony ass Chicken Little, screaming, "THE BALLS ARE TOO SOFT!" That almost everyone our age, at least in most English countries, watched the same thing in their school as well.
It's almost a boring clichĂŠ, all the people saying, "School doesn't teach you to be smart, it teaches you to be compliant." But now, add to that, alongside "compliant": helpless, incurious, mechanical, snitch-happy, anti-competitive, hyperbehaviorized Skinner pigeons with brain AIDS. With 3 Grand Untruths to live by:
What doesn't kill you makes you weaker
Always trust your feelings
Life is a battle between good and evil
Or, as cognitive behavioral therapists would call it: The shittiest way to look at the world, ever; The most anxiety-inducing, narcissism-affirming, history-forgetting way to perceive one's own life. But why? Since when? And what does sane look like? You gotta read it, homie.
⢠# 2 The Science Of Evil by Simon Baron-Cohen â˘
Perhaps you think I'm pulling this whole, "fake autism" thing out of my ass.
Remember those haymakers I mentioned in the last one? I ran them by a different autistic friend. Emphasizing the part about seeing Humpty in a new light, and finding him dishonest and manipulative.
Our friend immediately recalled a story, where a girl he knew for a long time suddenly said to him, "I've rethought our relationship. I think you're dangerous, suspicious, and a liar. I don't want to spend any more time with you, leave me alone."
He said it made him panic instantly. He felt helpless, he started crying. He felt like autism done went and did it again, taking nice things away from him. He thought, "Why does this happen to me? What can I do?" And he rushed to rectify it with her, whatever way he could.
This is exactly what I expected Humpty to do. It's what I think I would do, and why I was fully prepared to ease up. I've thrown about five more elbow drops from the turnbuckle, right onto his balls, and nothing has made him flinch.
There are plenty of things you could say to offend him or make him defensive. None of these were it.
Friends have listened, and said they were shocked with how cruel I was able to be. Honestly, I am too. I can't believe we never noticed how little listens, and I'm still plumbing the depths of his selective hearing patterns.
Since writing this, Humpty has independently parroted my words back to me a few times, sarcastically.
Once, he guffawed, "So what are you saying, you think I have a dissociative mental illness, instead of autism?"
I said, "You took the words right outa my mouth."
Hump certainly does have one real, life-disrupting problem: zero empathy.
With empathy, a little goes a long way. There are multiple ways to reduce it to zero. By state or by trait.
States are hopeful. A bad state, that leads you to think and act unempathetically, can be improved, and the empathy will return to natural levels. But traits determine the natural levels. With 10 different brain regions involved in empathy, there are many ways to compensate for deficient traits in one or more.
Most of our effort has been focused around how he can improve his states. He has attempted a grand total of 0 suggestions. No matter how atomically small the change may be.
Now, getting Humpty to cooperate in any discussion of his states or traits is excruciatingly difficult and unproductive. He's unclear about his past and his present, always. Think about how Tommy Wiseau answers questions. Identical. Just an inscrutable quadruple pendulum of bullshit, till you tap out or lose your train of thought.
Zero empathy has two faces, "zero positive" and "zero negative". A good face and a bad face. "Systematizers vs Empathizers"
Zero positive is things like Asperger's and autism. Zero negative is borderline personality, psychopathy, and narcissism.
Asperger's and autism are thought of as positive, because in leu of empathy, their brains have an incredible capacity for memory, linear thinking, and systematizing. They're people you really want on a team.
They can learn empathetic ways of behaving, through a systematic approach. They still see people as objects, but they're 100% capable of systematically treating those objects with sweetness and light. Think of a collector, with everything in mint condition.
As Kahneman and Tverski show in their book Thinking Fast And Slow, we have two thinking "systems" at work, simultaneously: Fast intuitions, and slow reasons. Autists lack a fast empathic intuition, but can slowly make up for it using their strong reasoning abilities. As a kid, autism is a struggle. As an adult, autism is a style.
My other autistic friends are shining examples of this. The guy I mentioned earlier has more friends than anybody in the discord group, because he's a god damn lovely son of a bitch.
Again, it's just a matter of partici-fucking-pation. And believe me, I've lost count of how many ways I've tried to say this to Mr. Dumpty. I even gave him Baron-Cohen's bona fides. He said, "that's a nice theory, but I'm the one here who was in a mental institution as a kid." Not kidding. He's never quoted a single thing from his childhood psychiatrists. But the fact that he had them, makes him the expert.
Important side note, Wednesday's been in and out of psychiatric care his whole life. He's got an Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) score of 9 out of 10. Wednesday has shared all of these stories with him. The Egg is the only one in our gang who forgets about them somehow.
Humpty Dumpty a zero negative.
He's the only autist in the group who is just a simmering kettle of entitled rage. Every day, he claims a new person slighted him and condescended because they knew he was autistic and stupid.
He believes people can see autism in the bone structure of his face, and the way he smells. But he's absolutely deaf to the idea that what people really sense is a hostile sociopath.
We say "Maybe if you internally worked on how much you hate women, they'd find you more attractive." The imp replies: "They never know how much I hate them. They're perfectly unaware."
Every time one of us describes an act of generosity or humanity, he puts on this mocking derisive tone, and says, "Oooh it's the monkey brain instincts forcing men to act as a provider so people will find them attractive hmmMMmm" or some permutation of that Incel brand EvoPsych bullshit. Anything to diminish the role of empathy in people's behavior.
God forbid you're generous or humane towards women. He'll jeer and coo at you, like you're a fool sleepwalking into a siren's song. We can't seem to get him to stop calling people's girlfriends "holes". When people say, "Humpty, if you said that in front of me I'd be tempted to strangle you to fucking death." out come those giggles.
I won't be explicit. But suffice it to say, all of his fantasies, sexual or otherwise, seem to be centered around guile, coercion, humiliation, and schadenfreude. And his favorite way to break an awkward silence is grumble into his microphone, "I'm gonna kill myself/I'm gonna kill someone/I'm gonna kill myself and others"
To that I now just make fart noises into my mic. It's been way more fun.
Like I said about that benefit of the doubt shit. The second I decided to take his words seriously, and stop looking through pity-tinted glasses, I remembered I'm hanging with a monster.
Narcissists, psychopaths, and borderlines are not hopeless. They make up the majority of people seeking psychiatric care. However, a zero-negative, masquerading as a zero-positive, has no place to turn. It's possible to be both, but he'll only admit to half and get nowhere.
⢠# 3 Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber â˘
"Hrmmmmph! Off to my wage cage...*bu-boop*" -- Humpty Dumpty grumbling goodnight.
What kind of piece of shit thinks having a job is degrading or unfair? A guy who's almost 30, living in his parents' house, pretending to be autistic, raking in disability money, who spends 100% of that money on merch, and a new videogame every single day.
Most recently, that money went into buying a brand new 1.5-foot-tall, $750 Shadow the Hedgehog statue. That's sesquipedumbralievable. He complains about living with his oppressive parents. Then he spends a month's rent on garbage. As with everything, he blames his spending on "monkey brain."
He complains about being treated like a mentally disabled person at work. He vacillates between that, and claiming people are always surprised when he tells them he's been diagnosed with autism.
He has a college degree in administration. A higher education level than almost half the discord group.
He won't stop applying to temp agencies for the mentally disabled. Jobs that he always finds to be beneath his above-average intelligence.
He believes he has scientifically proven that handing out resumes doesn't work. How? He handed out 40 resumes. I said, "Yeah Humpty, businesses put out job offerings to keep everyone unemployed." He piped up, enthusiastically, "Well, actually that's true. They..." but the conversation was moving in a different direction. What a shame I didn't get to hear that theory.
Where does this book enter into this shell game?
All people need to believe their daily grind contributes to the wellbeing of society. R-worded or not. The absence of that is painful, and it creates a sense of nagging dissonance. People who have an innate sense of shame, at least.
I'm a fry cook. That's good karma. It doesn't pay big money, but I know I'm worth every dollar. I work lunches, so I'm a hangover nurse to boot. I don't have time to dick around on my phone or watch Netflix. I'm never just pretending to be busy or useful. Even all my bosses are respectably occupied with some cumbersome shit.
My job is a "shit job" not a "bullshit job". Shit jobs are a heavy duty grind, but an honest day's work, and a benefit to society. They also don't pay spectacularly well. Bullshit jobs are rent seeking, obsolete, wasteful charades. People waiting to be needed, and using the majority of their brainpower for appearing industrious. They pay the most.
This book made me much more content with my shit job. Second, it totally restructured my career goals with my soul in mind. Don't just value your money, don't just value your time, value your role in your community. Bullshit jobs pay the best because they drain the most from your meaningful and finite existence. Philistine money for a mechanical, philistine lifestyle.
"I'm a parasite, and a drain on society! đ" -- Humpty Dumpty the Triumphant, real quote.
I was hoping Hump maybe wanted to stop that, at some point. Maybe put that administration degree towards more than just office busywork for lobotomites? Maybe make use of his rigorous systematizing brain, for a project he believes in?
Nope. No thanks.
Since the agricultural revolution, humans looking to contribute to their tribe have been presented with two main lanes: Work hard, or sit down and use that big brain of yours for the benefit of the busy.
I don't believe there's such a thing as playing a valuable role in society, without it being done from one of those two lanes. I think the vast majority of people feel the same. Simply based on how rare it is to find anyone who will admit "My job contributes nothing to society, other than money in my pocket." Try to find one, even the boldest rogue. I bet they'll get screwfaced and defensive at the mere suggestion.
Even the shittiest, most shameless people I know, have died a little inside while working bullshit jobs. One of my uncles, a lifelong bully, a textbook narcissist, and someone I truly believed had no remorse, wound up with stress-induced epilepsy from selling medical/life insurance. He screwed the most desperate people out of their last hope, as often as he hooked them up with some nice insurance. Being a parasite was too much for a man whose sweetest joy is the sound of sobbing children, and the sight of rolling eyes.
Just like everyone else, Old Captain Humpsack McDump would also prefer, deep down, to play a real role in this society. A role he can expect real gratitude for. His own cubicle-farm version of cooking delicious fried chicken for pickled dickbags. And that's what this book is all about. That, and sour-graping on rich people with all their money.
Plus, if your job really is bullshit, there's a Sword of Damocles hanging above your head, every day. When you wake up, struggle to find a reason to get out of bed, then commute to a new space to get nothing done, you get the added spiritual joy of realizing that if your bosses knew any better, or maybe just had the balls, your ass would be without a job, and the world would be a better place.
Now, I won't be a fry cook forever. What's next? I haven't decided yet. But after reading this book, the list of potential careers has shrunk to a fifth of what it used to be. Money at the expense of my dignity will not do. I'd rather be a mediocre contributor, than an extravagant waste of air. I'm thinking maybe a stone mason. I'mma be Big Bad Wolf proof.
⢠# 4 The Gift Of Fear by Gavin De Becker â˘
I'm afraid of Humpty Dumpty.
My friends are not. I'm not sure why. He's got a long history as a doormat, so maybe they think that's a fixed quality; He's got no charisma, so maybe they think he couldn't talk us into a dangerous encounter; He's got no good reasons to want to hurt us, so maybe they think he has no bad reasons either.
My friends have not read this book. They like to think that, even though Humpty has a mountain of downsides, violence isn't one of them. That our judgement couldn't fail us that badly. Whatever makes them comfortable. God fuckin bless.
"What's so scary, Garble? Why you bein so melodramatic? You dislike a stinky egg so much you're gonna liken him to a murderer/mass murderer/stalker type fella? Sheesh H. Christ my dude, chill!" people exclaim.
At first, I only ever had gut feelings. I never consciously recalled this book, whenever it applied. Until Humpty invited himself to my house. Then the klaxon blared. Mom's fuckin spaghetti.
Humpty checks every last warning sign illustrated in this book. And again, I'll repeat, that's not typical of autism. From the case studies, to the hypotheticals, to the acronymous omen lists, Humpty Dumpty is described in this book from start to finish. Yuck.
My goal for Hump with this book was twofold: Stop looking like a mark, AND a crook.
Before realizing my fear of Humpty Dumpty, it was mostly all about mark-proofing him. Bad guys don't just pick on nice guys, they pick on the easiest target they can find. And he seems to think being a bullseye is stylish.
Post-fear, I completely switched focus to "stop looking like a crook" mode. Because if Dumptylocks can give me the heebie jeebies, god knows how he makes strangers feel.
Lets compare Humpty to one of De Becker's list of bad omens:
Forced teaming
Typecasting
Charm and niceness
TMI
Unsolicited promises
Loansharking
Discounts the word 'No'
Forced teaming was a latecomer addition to Humpty's dark history. What's forced teaming? The sudden and unjustified use of "us" to insinuate oneself into someone else's situation. It's one of the subtlest and most challenging manipulation tricks to overcome.
"Lemme get those bags for ya. We gotta get these to your front door." Said the stranger, outta nowhere.
What'd Humpty do? He us'd his way into a magic mushroom trip with Wednesday and I. One we had planned for a year already. Hump's been abundantly clear: Don't give me drugs, or I'll kill everyone. Woooo, spooky. So it's not a tricky decision, he was never invited, or welcome, at our mystery. We're not sober-sitting a quasi-murderous douchebag while sweating out glitter on shrooms. DUH!
Yet, suddenly, the story mutated into one involving Humpty. It became a "we" thing. That's when I realized, this book woke long ago, and has been wailing like a baby from some crib, deep in the cracks of my noggin. Crying, "Don't let this motherfucker sleep next to your knife rack!!"
The other omens were no-brainers, upon reflection: He typecasts everyone as either "Normies" or "Monkey Brains." His own brand of Caulfieldian phonies and prostitutes; He's the quintessential 'Niceguy' in terms of women, and he'll openly tell you when he's merely doing things to charm or placate you, which is always; I've mentioned the too-much-info (TMI) problem earlier, when I talked about the non-sequitur fountain. His Tommy Wiseau gimmicks involve a million answers to questions that absolutely nobody asked; His whole presence in the Discord group was an unsolicited promise; He bought me the most recent Doom game, without me ever asking or showing an interest, I enjoyed it, and fully planned to finish it, but after not playing it for 5 days straight, he angrily boomed at me, "PLAY MORE DOOM, GARBLE!" He wasn't kidding, he was annoyed, and convinced I wasted his highly-disposable money; And finally, most importantly, every which-way one could say "NO" to Dumpty means NOTHING. He's always just a liiiiiiiitle too autistic to get what you meant by "NO," or "DONT." And so much more.
When Dumpty was a friend of mine, these faux pas just seemed naive. We've all made these mistakes here and there, and we've probably always regretted them. And the reason why they're such regrettable behaviors, is that they put us in the same lot with psychopathic felons. Humpty's problem comes down to the attractiveness of his behavior, not his fairly attractive face and body. Bitch is 6-foot-something, broad shouldered, and has "predator eyes". His incel friends would be big jelly.
And my problem, now, is staying safe from a dude that scares me. Because, as The Dumpster might say, it's better to be wanted by the cops, than not wanted at all.
The other omen list goes by 'JACA':
Justification
Alternatives
Consequences
Ability
That list is used to judge the immediate danger of a sketchy person. Maybe they do it all, from typecasting to not taking "no" for an answer, but what are the odds they'll hurt you?
Humpty's justification for violence? Same as Elliot Rogers'; Alternatives? Humpty has one story, and he's sticking to it; Consequences? Martyrdom; Ability? None, until he invited himself to my god damn house for the night.
So, whether you are trying to avoid hanging out with creeps, getting supercreeped outta the blue (by like, rapists or murderers), or being a creep yourself: this is the textbook on creepy shit. You'll be the friend with the Spidey senses, who recognizes that muggers smile and act like a friend, not a mugger. Oprah used to fire hardcovers of this at her audience from a T-shirt gun, for a reason: THIS BOOK WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE.
Oh, and one last thing. Didn't really know how to work this in. Remember the Toronto van attack in 2018? The killer pleaded not criminally responsible, because his "autistic way of thinking was severely distorted in a way similar to psychosis."
Humpty was overjoyed at the precedent that would create. He said it was going to pave the way for an autism-woopsie-doo-dah killing spree of his own.
Thankfully, the killer didn't make his case, and got to go to regular shitbag jail. Part of me wants to believe that since Humpty is waiting for legal loopholes, he's not truly impulsive enough, or committed to any real crimes. But he could also just be a bog-standard crook, browsing for easier and easier marks. Or a typical-shmypical terrorist, looking for long fame with a short sentence.
I hang out with this guy. So wassup, RCMP! I know you're reading. This guy is not my guy, bud. He's a real Snidley friggin Whiplash gongshow type fuckin feller man, eh. Christ. Fuck. Oops. Sorry. Take it easy. ââ¤âŽđ
Alright I'm legally off the hook from the feds.
⢠# 5 Atomic Habits by James Clear â˘
He's like Jocko Willink and Leif Babin's nerd sidekick. Extreme Ownership was all about "if you know better, you're responsible for doing better." This book defines "better."
I hesitated for a long time, before reading this. I knew I was going to get called out on some punkass behavior. I'd either be forced to grow up, or just pretend I didn't read anything at all. But thankfully, the growing was painless. It felt like sharpening a knife, and learning to keep it sharp, rather than forging one from scratch.
Much of this advice is stuff you've probably seen or heard people practicing. But if you're like me, it's hard to tell what's signal vs noise. People try all sorts of different ways to hack their habits, for better or worse. Once one's scientifically sound life advice begins seeing results, they just prune the science from their sales pitch and go, "[shrug] works... look."
James has that fresh brain science; No old wives' tales, or my-daddy-saids. Just the leading know-whats on this noggin we all got. Because if I'm going to radically adjust my behavior, it's not just going to be based on scattered anecdotes.
It's not about your goal setting abilities. It's about the systems you build to reach those goals. It's better to have a well-refined system with no goal, than an extraordinary vision and no system to achieve it.
This origami dream is beautiful. But man those wings'll never leave the ground, without a feather and a lottery ticket, now settle down -- Aesop Rock, Daylight
This is the only thing I've read on habits that has made delaying gratification more gratifying. He calls them "atomic" because they're the absolute smallest changes you can make. Then, he encourages the art of stacking as many good habits on top of each other as you can.
The biggest revelation I got out of this book was this: stop waiting for a big surge of willpower and energy; you're an efficiency-minded, conditioning-driven animal who prefers the path of least resistance; good habits reduce friction, so you can take your lack of willpower for granted. Shit, there is never any need for Gary V levels of hypermania.
Should all be up Humpty's alley. It's got monkey brain facts; Typical of most books on psychology, it's full of references to our wild ancient past. And it's explicitly about taking a systematic approach to behavior.
But of course, I tried to reach him with it, even with the help of friends, who themselves have used these tricks, and it's all just silly to him. He doesn't have the signal vs noise issue. Multiple anecdotes at once, from non-strangers. And we'd fill him in on the science to boot. This one's so short and to the point I figured he'd never need to read it; we've covered the whole thing, scattered through different conversations. We figured, like us, he just needed reminders.
He'd need to appreciate the advice first, if there's ever to be reminders. He'd need to not be competitively dedicated to sucking ass. It's really all he needs for this one to work.
⢠END BIT â˘
My friends believe we created Humpty as a team. Because he's autistic and feral, he didn't know right from wrong, socially. His only technique was to mimic the group. When you look at our group, shit, it's plausible; We're an isle of misfit toys. Toys with asbestos stuffing, lead buttons, and radium paint. We're absolute rotten fucking trashballs.
If it'll get us put on an RCMP, FBI, EU, CCP, or Boko Haram watchlist, we're gonna loudly blurt it into one another's ears like morons. Basic, non-stop, juvenile, atrocious verbal horseplay. From suicide to genocide, all violent crime, all perversions, if we shouldn't joke about it, we will. It's a marvelous freaker's ball.
The theory is, Humpty went in, tabula rasa, and through misunderstanding the intentions behind our jokes, developed this hateful demonic pervert persona that we never laugh about.
We didn't chuckle him into being bitterly envious of people who have what he wants; or into hitting all of Gavin De Becker's red flags; or reading gaming news articles while we're talking to him; or grossly exaggerating his level of disability; or openly flouting the actionable advice he asked us to give him; or into comprehensively hating and dehumanizing women. Each of us had tons of experience disrupting all the fun just to say "Humpty, no. That's not acceptable."
Everyone in the group has their own shadow. Not a worthless statue, but a dark side. We fuck up our lives, sometimes in ways that make other friends grimace with contempt. We insult each other, and forget boundaries. We can be hypocritical, and waste everyone's time saying shit they know we don't believe. We've all taken turns being a headache.
But we don't transfer all our power and choices onto our friends, and make it their job to carry our lives forward. We don't tap dance constantly on a cliff's edge, to gauge our friends' passion about our existence. We don't pull the focus of every conversation to ourselves, and the problems we've explicitly abandoned the quest to solve. We hang out for FUN, remember?
None of us are therapists. Who were we to take on the mantle of solving Humpty Dumpty's problems? Even therapists gotta show some people the door sometimes.
Howard Bloom says, "Attention is the oxygen of the human soul." Never underestimate it as a primary motive. I think that's been Humpty's #1 goal. In a way, it was mine, too. For all my attention as one man, I wanted one man to pay attention back. Coulda been a humble little deal. But like some sucka ass bitch, I got georgia'd. Took me a year to realize I never copped my scratch. Cold.
And hey, I really do hope it was our fault. That'd mean the solution is that he just needs to hang out with different people, for his own good. Maybe he in fact is super autistic. Maybe irony is dangerous in his hands.
5 more books next month! I'll maybe be more humane towards my former friend. I have death in mind. đđđđđ
My friend Wednesday introduced me to Humpty Dumpty a few years back. He was hoping we could rehabilitate him into humanity. I've given up.
Humpty Dumpty went to highschool with us. Was held back a grade. Diagnosed with autism + a handful of other things. Sequestered off from the other students to the point where Wednesday said he had quasi-feral qualities. I don't remember seeing him anywhere. A fun sense of humor, and similar interests in entertainment, behind crippling anxiety. A virgin, and a bitterly resentful incel, but hey, more grist for the mental illness mill. A little help and patience oughta go a very long way.
I knew better than to pick friends based on some heroic attempt to re-invent them. That's hubris. But Hump and Wens had been discussing the idea for a while. All I was signing up for, was a new Discord friend. One with a caveat: 'He may at times be a bit baffling, awkward, and straight up unpleasant. But we can help him. We've all had similar struggles to him in our own ways, and we've overcome them. He's asking; he's vulnerable.'
I'll go further into why I find Humpty Dumpty so hopeless, as this series continues. But suffice it to say that he's not autistic; few if any of his problems are out of his control, and he's just a narcissist using pity for attention.
Over the years I listened to story after story from Mr. Dumpty. Sympathizing and empathizing with him as a protagonist. Trying to find parallels in his story that align with mine, as well as with friends in our group, and the things that've helped us so much.
The whole discord has showered him with advice, primarily based on our experiences: Job skills, establishing boundaries, communicating, ruminating, introspection tips, analogies, family dynamics, inspiring fucking allegories and historical legends, whole nine. Anything that ever nourished one of our god damn souls.
It all comes back at us with an assured, almost amused, "Naah, that won't work either."
"Yeah but it worked for me and two-three other dudes here." We'd insist.
"Hmmmm, I know, but autism/OCD/trauma/anxiety/horny/nihilism, so... ya know..."
"The dudes we're talking about have some or all of those issues and it still worked reliably. You have to try something before you say it can't help you."
"Yes, but none of you are as crazy as meee."
"You can't even hold a candle to Wednesday, dude, you know this. Why do you keep saying that?"
On and on it goes. A shell game of pity, advice, and excuses. For years now. Time wasted, and an uncharismatic sociopath stays the center of attention, indefinitely. To the alienation of other friends, who feel way less patience towards him. Whom we see less and less of, as time goes by.
My grand strategy was to vomit books all over him. It's all I've got to give. I'm a Machiavellian Gladwellian maven. In the tenth grade, Wednesday and I took a psychology class, and it's the only phase of mine that never ended. I've been reading books on psychology for eleven years. Just straight gargling them, loudly. And Wednesday is on his way to becoming a bonafide therapist. The idea of healing the mentally ill means a tremendous amount to Wednesday and I. We were conned by the better angels of our nature.
However, once I stopped giving him the benefit of the doubt, it all unraveled in my head, in a day.
So this series is all the books I deeply hoped would slowly change Humpty Dumpty's life, like they did mine. I put a lot of time and thought into which books would make the greatest impact on a troubled young adult's life.
Finally, I felt like I really committed to something bigger than myself, and intrinsically valuable, only to be mocked. This list will be here as a resource for Humpty Dumpty to browse. And my debt will be squared. My goal is still constructive. I've just lost the soft touch of a friend. Now he's a foil for us to learn from.
He's got all the time in the world, so long as he doesn't kill himself, or someone else. Although since the latter is far more likely, here are all the books he'll have time to read in prison:
⢠#1 You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney â˘
If I freeze diarrhea solid, is it still diarrhea? Just trying to hold your attention, lets keep moving. I already know the answer, donât worry about it.
I recently told Humpty I planned to give him my copy of this, when we meet face-to-face. Said this is the book that started my journey up from rock bottom. That it changed my life, and for the first time, made me feel like my feet were planted firmly on the ground. This one light read means so much to me.
I said, "While I can't force you to read a word, I can force you to take it home with you."
He gleefully laughed and said "I'll just hold onto it till I see you again, and give it back, unread"
He meant it.
He died to me that day. The whole project ended there. Nobody else would have offended me by that comment. Because nobody else has ever begged me for guidance.
His take on the story, after the fact, is that he said he won't read it because he plans to get it on audiobook. He's been saying he'll get his Audible account started for as long as I've known him.
He spends his time replaying games upwards of six times for achievements, and watching speed runs on twitch.
My non-autistic narcissist step dad watched Looney Toons and spaghetti westerns every day. It's called being boring. Hump literally complains to us about how boring his entertainment is. But he can't pencil in one second for a best-seller or two.
I gave this to a local book box. It's in curious hands, once again.
46 digestible little psychological decryption keys. This felt like a bestiary, mixed with a book of spell-countering-spells. Wednesday read it in highschool too. We both see this as a must-read.
Granted, for readers with a solid understanding of psychology and critical thinking, you may prefer to spend your money on Thinking Fast and Slow or The Laws Of Human Nature.
Obviously, the book isnât condescending or demeaning, as the name might suggest. Itâs deeply empowering. That gap between how smart we think we are, and how smart we really are, is a source of constant distress for us.
Most of these delusions are evolutionary adaptations we should all be grateful for. But this fact comes with a big BUT: none of this information means anything, if youâre just going to be a thoughtless determinist about it. They may be your nature, but theyâre not your fate.
Nobody loves determinism more than ol' Dumpity Doo-Dah. That way, he never has to change. Fate is his first trump card against sound advice.
If he did read this, he might: stop self-handicapping; stop forming self-fulfilling prophesies; stop confirming his nihilistic biases; recognize when he's confabulating in the face of ignorance; account for the Dunning-Kruger effect; drop his expensive brand loyalties; distrust supernormal releasers; be careful where he finds catharsis; or combat learned helplessness; etc. etc. etc. to name his biggest and most correctable flaws.
All of the above, he'd just call textbook autism or OCD. Too arcane for us to understand fully. Whatever it takes to keep his flaws firmly in place. His greatest strength, is his illusion of weakness.
Hereâs David McRaney's blog/podcast. If you think this series apes his work, wait till you see what I got planned next. Oh baby, Iâm gonna invent my own psychology all by myself. I might call it, âYou Are Not Convincedâ Iâll test fan-submitted fried chicken recipes on my podcast and everything.
I developed more confidence, patience, and humility after reading this. Confidence, knowing my shortcomings arenât unique to me. I donât err cause Iâm an error, I err cause Iâm an ape. Patience, knowing nobody is really on the ball, and weâre lucky anything actually works at all. And humility, I rarely claim to be certain; certainty is a childish indulgence. Iâll tell you I have these flaws long before you see one acted out, if you ever even do.
Itâs definitely still diarrhea.
⢠#2 The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz â˘
Funkadelic Toltec knowledge from OUTER SPACE. Four simple agreements, pinky swears at the ready! Lets go:
Be impeccable with your word
Take nothing personally
Donât assume
Do your best
If my secular home had a holy book, it was this one. My mom read this when I was four, and did everything in her power to adopt these agreements into practice. I'm a lucky son of an alien.
It helped her reverse the narcissistic gaslighting my grandma raised her with. This was where my mom learned to stop being emotionally manipulated. A problem Humpty has complained too much about.
My mom's practically a guru, among her friends. Because she's always there to remind them of these agreements.
This keeps her on that constant Bruce Lee, 'be like water' shit. Her words are honest, clear and settled. Insults pass through her like a vapour. She flows without the friction of assumptions. She crashes into goals with all her potential. And some people think she's ice cold, but she just a solid pimp, sucka.
I read this in 2017, and until then, this was all just 'Gangster Mom Wisdom.' Now it's 'Ancient Toltec Wisdom'. Far more credible. If I want people to buy my amazing advice, it needs to be more than plain old mamma's-boy-ism.
The rules have vulnerabilities and caveats, on their own. But as a quartet, they make up for any of each othersâ shortcomings. They're more complex than a point-form list. They create a whole ecology of good behaviors in your life. Don Miguel Ruiz does a fantastic job of illustrating how a regular human can effortlessly live these agreements every day.
The more you conform to these ideals, the more brave, optimistic, relaxed, and reliable you become. Itâs a powerful thing, being able to look someone in the eye and say âWhen was the last time I misled or lied to you?â Iâm a hit with all my bosses, because these, and some other rules, are my first priority at work.
Youâd think, at this point, that people would get sick of hearing me say âI dunno, Iâd have to assume. So [shrug]â But they havenât yet. I literally gave up on making stupid wild guesses to others, and it made me look 12% smarter.
Humpty does nothing BUT take things personally, assume, and half-ass. The lies, I'm only starting to fully uncover. His whole life story is a tangled ball of non-sequiturs and red herrings. Reading this would put some responsibility on him to know better, and to act better. Hence why it's holy water to his vampire ass.
He'd once again claim an autist can't fix these problems. We're gonna hear that a whole lot.
⢠#3 The Practicing Stoic by Ward Farnsworth â˘
The cub on the right... I hope thatâs just his leg.
No philosophy produces cooler people than stoicism. No other ââismâ comes close. From Keanu Reeves, to Clint Eastwood, to Yoda.
âStoicâ comes from the Greek, âstoaâ which means, âporchâ. As in, the kind of wisdom you get from an old person, chilling on their porch. What are old people thinking on their porches? Theyâre thinking, âIâm right about everything, and Iâm not chasing your silly ass down to tell you.â
So unless youâve been cordially invited to porch class, to play dominoes with your local sages and crones, you better read this book. Otherwise the only way to get it, is wait about 50-80 years. Or you could fight in a war. Itâs also known as the philosophy of the veterans.
Nassim Taleb got me hyped about the idea of PTG (Post Traumatic Growth), in his book, Antifragile. A lot of the discussion around PTSD involves a gravity well of pity and hopelessness, that just sucks you deeper and deeper. Some people take a PTSD diagnosis, like theyâve been informed they have Alzheimer's. Instead of attempting to treat it, they just start searching for hospice caretakers and adult diapers.
PTG is a concept older than written language, but in the history of trauma research, itâs still very young (90â˛s baby club yass). And the aircraft carrier of PTSD treatment is still turning very slowly in its direction. So in the meantime, how bout a philosophy adjustment? PTG is stoicismâs bread and butter.
Lifeâs just one big plate of steaming shit after another, and you just gotta eat it without complaining. â My dad. Not a practicing stoic.
Speaking of other ââisms,â stoicism is an Axial-age philosophy.
Look at those old mustard-colored Boomer religions. Stinky!
Ever look at all the major religions and think, "seems like theyâre all kinda gettinâ at the same thing"? Well, they were all attached to the same ancient trade network, the one that crystalized into the Silk Road. All these nerds were sharing ideas for centuries. A number of large figures from each team could have met face-to-face. Coulda gave one another blowjobs, who knows.
If stoicism ever gives you Buddhist vibes, itâs because in Greeceâs Macedonian days, they parked their borders right up next to the Hindu Kush, made like a tree, and stayed there for a couple centuries.
Although, come to think of it, canât remember the last time Iâve heard anyone say, âWant to be less anxious? Think more like a Greek.â
⢠#4 The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk â˘
This is what got me wondering if trauma was the nucleus of Humpty Dumpty's woes. Rather than autism. His most pronounced symptom, as a kid, was screaming/crying fits. That's mostly it. The rest of his autism-cred comes from merely being institutionalized over his early fits.
The only thing I won't doubt or denigrate about Humpty's life story, is that he was traumatized as a young man, by his family, by institutions, and by peers. Although getting him to specify where it maybe came from leads to babble. The non-sequitur fountain starts back up.
What I've pieced together from these tales, is that whatever Humpty did as a kid, got him scooped up by the Ontario school mental health system, labelled defective in every measurable way, prescribed every treatment available, robbed of any internal locus of control, then mentally vivisected and left unzipped. No identity, no agency, no guidance, and most importantly, shockingly little time spent socializing with peers.
But anyway, more about the book:
PTSD manifests in two ways: Overstimulation, or numbness; Panic attacks, or dissociation.
Never had a panic attack in my life. Iâm Snowcone Jones, not... Volcano Alfredo. When everyone around me is wide-eyed and terrified, I enjoy a guilty moment of bliss. I float around in a little endorphin bubble, and everything moves just slow enough to handle.
The coping mechanism in his L-M-N-O-Pâs went from healthy, to unhealthy, to a hell he never leaves â Aesop Rock, Lazy Eye
Psychologists say the cut-off age for adolescence keeps extending. To how old, thus far? 25, and climbing. Weâre going to need a new Catcher In The Rye for this century, with a 30-year-old Holden Caulfield.
Adolescence isnât biological, itâs cultural. It comes down to material things like attending school, living with your parents, etc. But also, mental aspects. Like sociopathy, and having an uncompromising sense of uniqueness.
We all need a sense of uniqueness, in order to create a sense of being an individual. But taken too far, it creates a frightening state of isolation. Trauma, while always deeply personal, is rarely unique.
This book shatters the feeling of lonely uniqueness that trauma can generate. I can connect with people in catatonic states, similar to my own. And more importantly, I can see overstimulated people, whom I used to refer to as âspazzesâ, and recognize that thereâs someone very similar to me, reacting to their pain with plan A, rather than B.
One of traumaâs secret ingredients is a lack of agency. That locus of control I was referring to is vitally important to your wellbeing. Besselâs book focuses heavily on how trauma victims can inject some agency into their past, present, and future selves.
Trauma can be a Horse and Stag sorta deal. The stag is a traumatic event, and our physiological reaction is like the hunter with the saddle. We accept the hunterâs help, and it makes inspirationally quick work of the stag. But when we invite the hunter to kindly piss off, he says âHey, thanks for the horseâ and there you are, stuck in a stable. A stoicâs worst nightmare.
Bessel sees the way out of the stable. If you can lose the Stag, and the saddle, thatâs post traumatic growth.
If youâve watched The Sinner on Netflix, itâs basically this book in cop drama form. I love it.
You gotta grit your teeth and flex all your neck muscles when you grumble the name of this book.
So much to love: Doing your best, checking your delusions, philosophy from sexy veterans, and vast agency-expanding wisdom.
The absolute last thing Humpty Dumpty will ever read. If I wanted to improve him with this book, my odds would be better if I just hurled it at his head like a baseball, and prayed for acquired savant powers. Which I won't do, because I got the audiobook. And because he's an egg.
I mentioned being a hit with my bosses. This is the cherry on top.
Corporations hire Jocko to come in when a team is failing to meet its goals. Jocko shows up and says, with his navy SEAL stage whisper, âwhatâs the problem?â And the leaders say, âeverything but us.â And he squints like, âbiiitch... pleaseâ  then he sinks back into the water with a Bowie knife in his teeth.
No bad teams, only bad leaders.
Responsibility isnât a question of guilt or shame, when things go south. Itâs a question of awareness and control. e.g. Did you have what you needed? No. Did you know youâd need it? No. Could you have checked beforehand to know you would need it? Yes. Then at some point, success was under your control, and you made the wrong choice. You share a portion of responsibility, own it.
We're most often the victim of circumstance only once, and the rest of the time thereafter, a participant. If you know better, then you're responsible for acting better, period.
Thereâs a big caveat, though. One can have a pathologically internal locus of control. Jocko alludes to this fact a lot in Extreme Ownership, but people struggle with the idea so much in practice, he wrote The Dichotomy Of Leadership and made a 2-part series of it all. A book on leading, and a book on following.
I, for example, have to stop acting like Dumpty is under my control. I want to believe I did something wrong to fail this quest to save his mind. I feel this urge to take ownership of his choices. That's extremely unhealthy. It's time for some malicious compliance; it's time to let him own his choice to languish.
Itâs daunting, the practice of dropping the flattering excuses, and just owning your shit. For about a week, it feels like all youâre doing is masochistically barbequing your ego. But once the spiciness wears off, youâre left fortified. Or, dare I say, matured.
We all need help leading others, leading ourselves, and being led. Itâs a delicate process. Few things are worse than a bad leader. Authority is not a trivial thing.
I've never once witnessed Humpty take ownership of his choices. Every decision of his was made by someone or something else. This book is the most counter-Humpty-Dumpty book I've ever read.
⢠End bit â˘
I'm still hanging with Humpty. I just don't reward his pity gimmicks with attention. The most malicious thing I plan to do is bore him.
No more explaining, cajoling, demanding, pleading, bargaining, or Socratic back-and-forth. No more time alone, ruminating over his endlessly complex life puzzles, or fantasizing about how much potential he has under all his self-sabotage. No more positive attention for being a dedicatedly permanent loser. No more making excuses for his disgusting misogyny. Not after this series is done.
In the event that I'm wrong in my judgement, and I'm just pooping on a harmless victim of fate, these books will always be here. Here, waiting for Humpty to simply take recovery into his own hands.
Honestly, if he just read a single one of these books, I'd see him in a hopeful light again. But he won't.
If you're wondering what he'll think about this, I have a pretty good guess:
Nothing
I promise, everything stated in this series has been said to him multiple times, by multiple people, in every variety of mitigated language. Mostly loud and pleadingly. As a matter of fact, while writing this, I decided to put a couple verbal haymakers together, and fire them at him next time he inevitably did more of his exaggerated Negative Nancy spiel.
I went in as accusatory as possible, brutal, no humor, expected defensiveness, and was ready to dial things back, the moment I got his attention:
I said he collects self-diagnoses for pure vanity's sake, and that they give him endless moral license to wallow in a pity puddle for attention. That he's consciously and deliberately working to never improve, so he can get attention forever. That he's a faker.
He didn't skip a beat. Rattled off some inaccurate OCD trivia to something said earlier in the conversation and moved on.
I said he has some form of Munchhausen disorder, explained it, and repeated that he's actively committed to never getting better, and nearly all his sickness is a bullshit contrivance exhausting people's attention and energy. And we're all fully losing interest in his recovery.
Another instant and effortless non-sequitur, so disconnected from the conversation I can't remember who he addressed it to. But we advanced like I said nothing.
Then after hearing him describe another person supposedly reading his mind, and thinking evil thoughts about him, I said all he does is project his shadow onto random people. Did the whole Carl Jung elevator pitch right then and there, and reminded him, "You know, like that game you love, Persona."
He told me the latest news on Persona 6. And we kept on rolling.
In one ear, out the other. Nothing disturbed him, because he still had everything he wanted in that moment: My attention.
The story of Humpty Dumpty, to me, is about Munchhausen disorder. I know that isn't even close to canon, but I think it's why it has held in our imagination.
Humpty Dumpty was an empty egg, with nothing growing deep inside him. An egg, first of all, knows how fragile it is, and knows it doesn't belong on top of a fucking wall. Yet in the face of an impotent existence, he reckoned his greatest strength was his weakness, and he shattered himself to pieces. Pieces, which spent their last moments lovingly tended to, by the skilled hands of the King and his horsemen.
I wash my hands of this brimstone-scented shell salad. He can smash himself into pigment for all I care. It's always been his choice. I suspended a lot of valuable and accurate judgements for long enough. There are better marks for him to con. Endless wells of sympathy. Marks that don't know a fraction as much as we do about psychology.
But YOU, lovely reader, have merely ONE thing to do to avoid being a devilish HUMPTY DUMPTY (fuckin booooo):
Participate in your own recovery.
Don't drown all your lifeguards. Shit, at the very least, when the lifeguards throw you a floatation device, don't catch it and mischievously hurl it as far away as you can. If you ask someone to spoon-feed you help, don't blow it off the spoon and laugh in their face.
Nobody can pump and swing your limbs around and make you burn fat, you gotta move them yourself. Nobody can integrate your shadow into your conscious self, that's for you to investigate personally. You can't humble others, only yourself; People call humbling others, "humiliating". And nobody can cure your addiction to self-pity till you alone decide you want to.
See you all next month, with another 5 books, an Aesop Rock quote, and more lessons from one of fastest growing character archetypes in our generation: the Humpty Dumpty.
We gon talk about autism! We gon talk about all this suicide shit! Ooow we gon talk about work! Humpty gon come to my house and kill my life! I'm excited! hahahahaha yisssss!
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