During lockdowns many families are struggling with having their children at home all day every day. I’ve found that I can earn a pretty penny or two helping out with their home learning. It’s often awkward for me to watch children learn maths methods that seem insanely convoluted. When I can solve problems like 19 x 40 in my head faster than a child can type it into a calculator I am reminded that the purpose of school these days isn’t to educate the youth but to sabotage them. Many don’t know their times tables much less the techniques used in speed mathematics to quickly solve large number equations in their head. If I were to teach children these techniques their teachers would have to fail them for insubordination. It’s all about obedience to authority, not learning. O dear… that’s depressing… *sigh* Truth be told… I was feeling down today and I did not sleep well last night
I was up late angry about something, something that seems small now, and I knew last night that after a sleep and the distraction of work, my problem would be quite small by evening today and completely not worth me being angry about. Yet my best efforts at mindfulness and meditation were insufficient and it wasn’t until around 3am that I finally fell asleep. These angry moods bother me purely from the perspective of neuroscience. Long periods of anger cause damage to the cells linking the two hemispheres of the brain – the corpus collosum. Damage to these cells causes permanent changes in personality; the dreaded “grumpy old man” syndrome. Last week, before lockdown 6 started, I was feeling deeply relaxed and at peace. I could meditate to myself, and sometimes I would have this feeling of deep connectedness with the universe as though I was part of something and problems of mortality seemed somehow distant and unimportant. However, since the lockdown my anxiety levels have been elevated and it feels like a lifetime ago that I could relax that much. I don’t even fear the virus anymore, part of me wishes I would just get SARS-CoV-2 so I could either deal with it or die. But this endless delaying of the inevitable is more exhausting. A life lived in fear is a life never lived.
One of my peculiar pleasures is looking at buildings. Like yesterday how I was looking at the public housing buildings. These buildings were built in Australia during the 1960s and 1970s yet they are identical to many examples of Soviet architecture. I think it’s scandalous how communist architecture was promoted in the West during the Cold War by the government. Fighting the Cold War with bullets and bombs was always going to be counter productive, fighting it economically would have been wiser, but wiser still is fighting it culturally. We used to build such beautiful buildings, parks, and artwork. Considering how drab, depressing, and demoralising modern architecture is these days I can see why so many people want civilisation to fall. People don’t want to be Australian anymore, they don’t want to have children and celebrate their culture. They think everything about them is sinful and disgusting. They think it would be a good thing to see the country destroyed or at least broken up into pieces. This is the spiritual disease of demoralising.
This is the spiritual disease I struggle with during lockdown and when the people around me are hysterical with fear and rage. People under stress aren’t very pretty. But I need to stay focused on what’s good around me and within me. The battle is 99% spiritual. They wouldn’t be trying to convince us we’re ugly and worthless unless we weren’t ugly and useless at all. The only reason why we’re a threat to them is because we are more beautiful and useful than they every will be. They are parasites. Communists can’t survive without a host to latch onto and suck dry.
One day, there will be new schools and new beautiful buildings. These schools won’t be teaching social justice or that Stalin and Mao were strong and inspirational leaders who had the courage to murder millions of people for the “greater good”. One day people will wear nice sophisticated clothes again. People will use manners and speak with excellent elocution. The old divisions will be gone, and we will have a faith that is ours, and a clear sense of our will to be glorious. We were not meant to be cattle lead to the slaughter by a Judas goat. We were meant to reach for the stars and to one day see the face of God. Dark as these times may be, they are merely the wheeling of the cycles of death and rebirth, these times may be painful, but we can control how painful they are. With a disciplined mind, a clear conscience, and a pure heart we can pass through this trial stronger than ever before.
Sophisticated Nonsense 