Throughout my life, I have been accused of two things pretty much since childhood, both are absolutely false accusations.
The first is that I think too much.
And since I was a child, my standard response to that is that it is not me that thinks too much, but you (the accuser) that doesn’t think pretty much at all. As a child I thought it and didn’t say it, but as soon as I hit my teens I did. Now, after the global depopulation efforts known as Covid, we have undeniable proof that I was right. In fact, the vast majority of people don’t think at all.
I didn’t need that confirmation by the way, I have known that for decades. The proof is for you, gentle reader. Go ahead and read my past entries as far back as you like, and while you will see a definite evolution of me as a person, you will also see that I called out a lot of the bullshit that surrounds us very early on. And keep in mind a blog is merely a tiny fraction of what happens in my head or I share with others.
The second unfounded accusation is that I have “unrealistic” plans/expectations.
My plans and expectations are not at all unrealistic. The problem, obviously, (if you can reason at all it should be already obvious) is that since everyone else doesn’t think enough, and then on top of it doesn’t move their ass enough either, and even less so because since they can’t imagine enough, due to their lacklustre thinking, they have no motivation to get off their ass. So, in general, my plans have been “unrealistic” only when they required the efforts of others beside myself. Having learnt early on that most people are idiots, and then lazy idiots at that, I have tried, as much as possible, to avoid having to have other people involved in my projects.
Necessarily this has limited the size and type of projects I took on, since, not having come from money, I couldn’t finance the bigger ones and my temperament being rather impatient, I didn’t want to spend my life working my soul off for a few decades in order to amass wealth for grandiose projects I may not ultimately want to dedicate my life to.
I do tend to do things obsessively when I decide on a project of some sort. Because I am curious and interested. Which is not to say that one thing will hold my interest throughout life, other than two:
The search for truth, which ultimately means God, and getting as close to Him as possible, and the hope that I can do right by my children, to the best of my ability.
Ethics, which for me are rooted in Truth, Justice and Honour, are pivotal to my search for the highest truth I can find, and that was always the case, whether it was in my DNA or formed by my upbringing, or, as I suspect, a mixture of both.
If you didn’t know that was my core, you could be forgiven for thinking my 30 plus years with karate-do was a raison d’etre of its own accord. But it would have been an error to think so. Karate was just the best way to face, understand and deal with reality I could find at the time. And when I found Systema and realised hey, these Russians can kick my ass like I could a child, and I can kick most people’s ass, I dropped Karate in a day. And started to do Systema. And when I achieved a certain level of proficiency of it, and other things in life that mattered more to me became more prominent —-because they too were explorations of truth, justice and honour, if from a completely different perspective—- I stopped teaching it and devoted myself more to those other efforts; them being my family.
Martial arts, in some form, will always be part of my path, or rather, to be more precise, the study of war-things, of strategy, and tactics, and mindset, and peripherally, yes, weapons too, because they are the least relevant aspect of war-things. Mindset being the most important, then tactics or strategy depending on your perspective. Having always been an individualist, for the reasons already identified above, I necessarily focussed on tactics above strategy. I didn’t have a war to win. Just the battle of today. I could then leave the field entirely if need be.
At least I could until I had children. Then it becomes different, so now I focus on strategy instead, and here, now, comes the old problem again. Strategy, where it is an application, rather than a theoretical study, necessarily involves other human beings. Not just the enemy or enemies, who are, in fact, the least troublesome aspect of the whole situation. But your allies. Or supposed allies. Or friends. Or supposed friends. In short: your side.
Your side is where all the problems lie.
Especially if you have focussed for a lifetime on Truth, Justice and Honour, however imperfectly, but to the best of your ability.
How then, can you have a strategy that wins, that obtains effective results, without compromising Truth, Justice and Honour?
You could. If you had 300 Spartans, like Leonidas.
But such men are like Dodo teeth now.
War-things necessarily includes deception, not just towards the enemy, but often, towards your own side. Not for nefarious or selfish reasons, but for good reasons. Reasons that increase not just your chances of success, but also of benefiting the most number of people on your side.
So, to win now means to be able to influence as many as possible in the correct way. So that those able to can rise to the position where they effectively become like one of the 300. They understand the purpose and the reason and are self-motivated to act upon it yet disciplined enough to not try to do it “their” way, but rather follow the lead of the man that went, and remains, before them. In time, in effort, in essence, their leader by virtue of the simple fact that he started it. Whatever it is or happens to be. Whether a project or an actual war, and are willing and able to do so even in the face of a high risk of becoming a casualty.
That answers to the tiny fraction that can become Spartans. And to the rest?
To the rest you must do the best you can to give them the opportunity to be of use. To help. To produce results. Results that, whether they see it or not, believe it or not, know it or not, are ultimately for their own and their children’s own good.
And these things take time and are imperfect.
But the most frustrating thing is the time. We all have a finite quantity of it, and it is frustrating to know that a lot, really a lot, gets wasted on having to cajole, re-direct, reassure, re-align, re-demonstrate, again, and again, and again, and again, to those who lack the imagination and the will and the spine to see how you can achieve X.
If only they would all see that target, and how within reach it is, how absolutely possible it is, not because of wishful thinking, but because of math, and logic, and physics, and engineering, and biology, and truth, and justice, and honour, and beauty.
But they usually can’t. Or if they do it’s fleeting, like an evaporating dream when you wake up.
And so, you may find yourself, past the half century mark, decided on building an enclave of Sedevacantist zealots, because you have concluded after long study, hard life experience forged in fire, and truth and beauty that you have seen and lived through that surpasses that of most men, that it is the absolutely best chance you have of safeguarding an actual future worth having for your children and theirs after them and the ones after those, and so on.
And if you do, you may realise how “unrealistic” this plan seems to most. And how it may be labelled as too “difficult” or “paranoid” or “crazy” or “impracticable” or, or, or, by the teeming masses.
And yet, you already begin to see the beginnings of results. The Sede Churches around you have gently and constant increasing attendance. You find and meet one or two of the 300 types. Others plan to move next to you, and so on.
And here now is half of the crux of what the title of this post is about.
Am I a contrarian? Not really. I am only a contrarian in the sense that most people are complete idiots with the inability to predict where the sun will rise tomorrow. So, in that sense, when I say “It will rise in the East.” The morons screech and shout, or try to laugh at me or stone me for being a warlock that can know the mysteries of the sun through evil magiks! You get the idea.
And when you’re accused and treated as being a contrarian (at best) because you simply see things other people don’t see at all, it would be very, very, easy to become bitter and hateful towards the damnable monkeys pretending to be humans you find yourself surrounded by.
Especially so, when the accusations levelled at you are, in fact, not just completely baseless, but actually a projection from the very accuser/s that is based on their malfunctioning personalities. Let me give you an example: Do you know what they discovered was the real reason people who advocate for gun control do so? They do it because they know that they would be irresponsible with a loaded gun (and admitted in anonymous information gathering). So because they are emotionally incontinent idiots, they blame you as being what they are. With zero evidence against you and in fact tons of evidence for your case.
Now imagine a veneer of that throughout your life by pretty much everyone around you. Usually in a form that is not even conscious.
Well, no one I know flies a plane, or owns one, so your wanting to build one and fly it is of course absurd. Of course. So it’s not even considered and really, there is no point in bringing it up. They wouldn’t understand. In fairness, they probably honestly can’t understand.
And now, for the final part. So you’re not actually a contrarian, and their accusations are unfounded, and it would be easy to be bitter and angry at them all.
So what do you do?
Why, it’s obvious.
Be happy instead. Ignore their accusations. Avoid explaining things to people who can’t grasp them anyway, and if you do and notice only too late they can’t, then avoid that topic later on as best you can, and when you can’t, just shrug it off as simply and as directly as possible.
“Yup. Still building the spaceship to travel to Mars. Ha ha. (Smile) Anyway, how was your fishing trip?”
Because that’s all you can do given the situation. And carry on building whatever it is you’re wanting to create. In time those who can see it will come. And those who will never see it will leave or you will gently push them away.
There is not enough energy, time, or need left for those who have chosen the path of inevitable long term failure. You may make it or you may not, but those guys… they’re not going anywhere. Not consciously anyway.
So dust your sandals off, as Jesus said (though in a spiritual context, but it is equally true in a material one) and be on your way. Happily.
The importance of being a happy contrarian
Throughout my life, I have been accused of two things pretty much since childhood, both are absolutely false accusations.
The first is that I think too much.
And since I was a child, my standard response to that is that it is not me that thinks too much, but you (the accuser) that doesn’t think pretty much at all. As a child I thought it and didn’t say it, but as soon as I hit my teens I did. Now, after the global depopulation efforts known as Covid, we have undeniable proof that I was right. In fact, the vast majority of people don’t think at all.
I didn’t need that confirmation by the way, I have known that for decades. The proof is for you, gentle reader. Go ahead and read my past entries as far back as you like, and while you will see a definite evolution of me as a person, you will also see that I called out a lot of the bullshit that surrounds us very early on. And keep in mind a blog is merely a tiny fraction of what happens in my head or I share with others.
The second unfounded accusation is that I have “unrealistic” plans/expectations.
My plans and expectations are not at all unrealistic. The problem, obviously, (if you can reason at all it should be already obvious) is that since everyone else doesn’t think enough, and then on top of it doesn’t move their ass enough either, and even less so because since they can’t imagine enough, due to their lacklustre thinking, they have no motivation to get off their ass. So, in general, my plans have been “unrealistic” only when they required the efforts of others beside myself. Having learnt early on that most people are idiots, and then lazy idiots at that, I have tried, as much as possible, to avoid having to have other people involved in my projects.
Necessarily this has limited the size and type of projects I took on, since, not having come from money, I couldn’t finance the bigger ones and my temperament being rather impatient, I didn’t want to spend my life working my soul off for a few decades in order to amass wealth for grandiose projects I may not ultimately want to dedicate my life to.
I do tend to do things obsessively when I decide on a project of some sort. Because I am curious and interested. Which is not to say that one thing will hold my interest throughout life, other than two:
The search for truth, which ultimately means God, and getting as close to Him as possible, and the hope that I can do right by my children, to the best of my ability.
Ethics, which for me are rooted in Truth, Justice and Honour, are pivotal to my search for the highest truth I can find, and that was always the case, whether it was in my DNA or formed by my upbringing, or, as I suspect, a mixture of both.
If you didn’t know that was my core, you could be forgiven for thinking my 30 plus years with karate-do was a raison d’etre of its own accord. But it would have been an error to think so. Karate was just the best way to face, understand and deal with reality I could find at the time. And when I found Systema and realised hey, these Russians can kick my ass like I could a child, and I can kick most people’s ass, I dropped Karate in a day. And started to do Systema. And when I achieved a certain level of proficiency of it, and other things in life that mattered more to me became more prominent —-because they too were explorations of truth, justice and honour, if from a completely different perspective—- I stopped teaching it and devoted myself more to those other efforts; them being my family.
Martial arts, in some form, will always be part of my path, or rather, to be more precise, the study of war-things, of strategy, and tactics, and mindset, and peripherally, yes, weapons too, because they are the least relevant aspect of war-things. Mindset being the most important, then tactics or strategy depending on your perspective. Having always been an individualist, for the reasons already identified above, I necessarily focussed on tactics above strategy. I didn’t have a war to win. Just the battle of today. I could then leave the field entirely if need be.
At least I could until I had children. Then it becomes different, so now I focus on strategy instead, and here, now, comes the old problem again. Strategy, where it is an application, rather than a theoretical study, necessarily involves other human beings. Not just the enemy or enemies, who are, in fact, the least troublesome aspect of the whole situation. But your allies. Or supposed allies. Or friends. Or supposed friends. In short: your side.
Your side is where all the problems lie.
Especially if you have focussed for a lifetime on Truth, Justice and Honour, however imperfectly, but to the best of your ability.
How then, can you have a strategy that wins, that obtains effective results, without compromising Truth, Justice and Honour?
You could. If you had 300 Spartans, like Leonidas.
But such men are like Dodo teeth now.
War-things necessarily includes deception, not just towards the enemy, but often, towards your own side. Not for nefarious or selfish reasons, but for good reasons. Reasons that increase not just your chances of success, but also of benefiting the most number of people on your side.
So, to win now means to be able to influence as many as possible in the correct way. So that those able to can rise to the position where they effectively become like one of the 300. They understand the purpose and the reason and are self-motivated to act upon it yet disciplined enough to not try to do it “their” way, but rather follow the lead of the man that went, and remains, before them. In time, in effort, in essence, their leader by virtue of the simple fact that he started it. Whatever it is or happens to be. Whether a project or an actual war, and are willing and able to do so even in the face of a high risk of becoming a casualty.
That answers to the tiny fraction that can become Spartans. And to the rest?
To the rest you must do the best you can to give them the opportunity to be of use. To help. To produce results. Results that, whether they see it or not, believe it or not, know it or not, are ultimately for their own and their children’s own good.
And these things take time and are imperfect.
But the most frustrating thing is the time. We all have a finite quantity of it, and it is frustrating to know that a lot, really a lot, gets wasted on having to cajole, re-direct, reassure, re-align, re-demonstrate, again, and again, and again, and again, to those who lack the imagination and the will and the spine to see how you can achieve X.
If only they would all see that target, and how within reach it is, how absolutely possible it is, not because of wishful thinking, but because of math, and logic, and physics, and engineering, and biology, and truth, and justice, and honour, and beauty.
But they usually can’t. Or if they do it’s fleeting, like an evaporating dream when you wake up.
And so, you may find yourself, past the half century mark, decided on building an enclave of Sedevacantist zealots, because you have concluded after long study, hard life experience forged in fire, and truth and beauty that you have seen and lived through that surpasses that of most men, that it is the absolutely best chance you have of safeguarding an actual future worth having for your children and theirs after them and the ones after those, and so on.
And if you do, you may realise how “unrealistic” this plan seems to most. And how it may be labelled as too “difficult” or “paranoid” or “crazy” or “impracticable” or, or, or, by the teeming masses.
And yet, you already begin to see the beginnings of results. The Sede Churches around you have gently and constant increasing attendance. You find and meet one or two of the 300 types. Others plan to move next to you, and so on.
And here now is half of the crux of what the title of this post is about.
Am I a contrarian? Not really. I am only a contrarian in the sense that most people are complete idiots with the inability to predict where the sun will rise tomorrow. So, in that sense, when I say “It will rise in the East.” The morons screech and shout, or try to laugh at me or stone me for being a warlock that can know the mysteries of the sun through evil magiks! You get the idea.
And when you’re accused and treated as being a contrarian (at best) because you simply see things other people don’t see at all, it would be very, very, easy to become bitter and hateful towards the damnable monkeys pretending to be humans you find yourself surrounded by.
Especially so, when the accusations levelled at you are, in fact, not just completely baseless, but actually a projection from the very accuser/s that is based on their malfunctioning personalities. Let me give you an example: Do you know what they discovered was the real reason people who advocate for gun control do so? They do it because they know that they would be irresponsible with a loaded gun (and admitted in anonymous information gathering). So because they are emotionally incontinent idiots, they blame you as being what they are. With zero evidence against you and in fact tons of evidence for your case.
Now imagine a veneer of that throughout your life by pretty much everyone around you. Usually in a form that is not even conscious.
Well, no one I know flies a plane, or owns one, so your wanting to build one and fly it is of course absurd. Of course. So it’s not even considered and really, there is no point in bringing it up. They wouldn’t understand. In fairness, they probably honestly can’t understand.
And now, for the final part. So you’re not actually a contrarian, and their accusations are unfounded, and it would be easy to be bitter and angry at them all.
So what do you do?
Why, it’s obvious.
Be happy instead. Ignore their accusations. Avoid explaining things to people who can’t grasp them anyway, and if you do and notice only too late they can’t, then avoid that topic later on as best you can, and when you can’t, just shrug it off as simply and as directly as possible.
“Yup. Still building the spaceship to travel to Mars. Ha ha. (Smile) Anyway, how was your fishing trip?”
Because that’s all you can do given the situation. And carry on building whatever it is you’re wanting to create. In time those who can see it will come. And those who will never see it will leave or you will gently push them away.
There is not enough energy, time, or need left for those who have chosen the path of inevitable long term failure. You may make it or you may not, but those guys… they’re not going anywhere. Not consciously anyway.
So dust your sandals off, as Jesus said (though in a spiritual context, but it is equally true in a material one) and be on your way. Happily.
As joyfully as possible.
This is the strategy.
This is the Way.
Oh, and if it still feels “lonely”, well:
1. Welcome to being a man
2. Your faith in God is weak
Good luck, Spartan.
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