People like me are relics of a bygone era. What we believed in and how we lived don’t exist in the present day. We are a shadow presence in a new world made up of people who believe in and exist in a different reality from what we had.
Now we can be angry about that but that does not change the facts on the ground. The new world has taken hold and will have to play out over the next generation before any meaningful reaction to the status quo takes hold. The only question is what we will do. Some folks have just given up and withdrawn into their memories and mark time until their time is up. Other people rage against the reality on the ground and make a bunch of noise. Well, those are both understandable reactions. The present situation is depressing and pathetic.
What I’ve been puzzling about for the last ten years or so is how to exist in this regime but still do the things I like and live the way I want. And that is not a simple exercise. I can’t claim to have cracked the code and found the golden way that bypasses the toxic problems that surround us, especially folks like myself who live basically in the belly of the blue state beast. Now granted it’s not quite as bad as California where the insanity is reaching 1984-like repression but it’s bad enough.
As best I can guess the correct path is to form a network of people like myself and do everything humanly possible to avoid the crazies both in my internal and external lives. Other than some family who qualify as the Left I avoid any personal relationships with the insane. Some people enjoy baiting these people and arguing about their crazy ideas. I get exactly zero pleasure from such activities. My idea of fun is talking and interacting with non-crazy people.
As far as the outside world, that’s a lot more difficult. Professionally and publicly, I am surrounded by some of the craziest leftists you could hope to imagine. This is extremely trying. Some of these people are looking to push their world view on anyone whom they bump into. My general rule is silence. I don’t agree or disagree with their statements. I maintain an impassive expression and wait for them to finish their tirade. If they make a point of asking my opinion, I just say I have nothing to say. So, there are plenty of crazies that become agitated by that tactic but for the most part they eventually wander away sullenly. So that sort of works for me.
But this isn’t a robust strategy. What it lacks is a “congregating” methodology. We are always just a small fringe at the edges of society and we never form a larger society. Sure, on line we have friends and acquaintances but these are distant groups and they lack the opportunities for local activities that make life interesting. That’s the part of this situation I haven’t managed to “fix.” I used to kid about starting the “he-man woman hater’s club” and open a chapter in every town in America. And I think that is the answer. And the club definitely needs a women’s auxiliary to make us sandwiches that we can bring with us to the clubhouse where they’re not allowed to go.
And I kid about this but this is what we need. Clubs for men are exactly what is missing from life for those of us who have no use for the feminist world that has taken over from the world we knew.
