Making Pablo Great Again
I’m sitting in a Starbucks after getting my nose viciously violated by a plastic swab at a medical clinic. I was there to get a COVID test which I need for my flight tomorrow to Brasil.
The doctor seemed all-business, which was fine, but then he told me to tilt my head back to fully grant access to my nasal passage and that’s when the weirdness started.
I’m pretty sure I have brain damage.
One person who definitely has brain damage is Justin Trudeau and the Canadian government, who’ve now shut down the country to prevent people from leaving or entering if they’re unvaccinated.
This ruins my ability to see my mom and increases my disgust with the illogical COVID regime now running the show. It seems fairly obvious to me that they’re doing it to set us up for the social credit system and their future utopia of complete control and a destroyed working class.
The numbers get worse by the week for the fully vaccinated in terms of the amount of the virus they’re catching and spreading, not to mention those who are fully vaccinated and very ill despite their supposed protection. Whatever’s actually in these vaccines, it could do a hell of a lot better job stopping the actual virus.
It often feels like being in a sub-par movie that’s a cross between absurdism, horror and some sort of modern iteration of Kafka. The incredible thing is the amount of people who actually still believe something along the lines of the official narrative (whatever the hell that currently is as of this writing).
I found the below video about mass formation interesting and insightful (thanks to my friend and yoga teacher John Ehrlich for the link). The questions of meaning and group solidarity brought up by Professor Mattias Desmet of Ghent University also relate closely to issues I’m tackling in my upcoming book Cultworld, which is nearing completion.
Desmet talks about how the erosion of community and meaning leads people to be ripe for the picking to adopt ever more bizarre ritualistic beliefs that they believe give the access to a solidarity network.
That initial erosion of meaning has a lot to do with liberalism, in my view, by which I mean both the “left” and “right” wing versions of liberalism.
As Matthew Rose writes in his excellent new book A World after Liberalism: Philosophers of the Radical Right:
“Liberalism aspired to order society around a vision of human beings, abstracted from all attachments, whose fundamental needs are for prosperity, peace, and pleasure. It imagined human beings as rights-bearing individuals who could pursue their own understanding of the good life. If liberalism is in crisis, it is because this picture of human life has proven to be impoverished”
Absolute bingo by Rose right there.
Regarding Desmet’s remarks, they also reminded me of the concept of preference falsification and preference cascades.
Life Update
The past week I’ve been traveling with a friend here in Costa Rica, which was great and now I’m preparing for the next step.
Why Brasil? I upheld the time-honored tradition of choosing the losing option on my Twitter poll… (Yes, I am known to be something of a contrarian…)
So early this morning I got nasally violated for ₡45,000 (about $71 USD, $89 CAD) and tomorrow I’m flying to Brasil from Costa Rica via Fort Lauderdale.
I can’t really return to Canada without the vaccine. I could fly to USA and enter Canada again by land with a negative test, possibly, but since the border from Canada to the US is closed indefinitely (at least until Oct. 21 and likely longer) that would also not be an option. I’d be behind the virtual Berlin Wall, maybe forever…
And as beautiful as Canada is, and as much as I love my mom and enjoy the natural beauty around home, that’s just not where the compass rose is pointing right now…
Another interesting thing that happened to me on the way from the nose rape clinic to the Starbucks was that my driver told me about the annual Virgen de los Angeles Day on August 2. This special pilgrimage sees endless thousands of Ticos and Ticas travel the 25 kilometers or so from the capital of San Jose to the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Los Ángeles in Cartago.
Built in 1639, this is one of the most sacred sites for Costa Ricans since the Virgen de Los Ángeles was recognized as the nation’s patron saint in 1824. My driver Carolina was a lovely lady who told me about the pilgrimage and how many miracles have been witnessed at it. In her own experience she says she’s seen visions of the Blessed Virgin after praying at church, although she hasn’t done the two-day pilgrimage (where people mostly walk at night due to the high temperatures in daytime) since she was a child.
It’s so touching to me to see traditions like this maintained, and it’s horrifying to think how the pandemic is cutting into the religious fabric of nations and undermining group solidarity.
Traditions and belief like this stands in sharp contrast to the horrors of liquid modernity, modern architecture and urban development, which are rushing to cover and destroy all the glories and memories of the past. I’m brought to mind of the hotel I’ve been staying at in a suburb of Office Depots and faceless shopping malls that could be anywhere in the world…
Despite being vaccinated, Carolina said that she is also suspicious of the COVID rules and believes that the pandemic’s main purpose has been to help the rich get richer and harm and limit the working class and ordinary citizens. She lamented - as did I - that the pilgrimage has been cancelled the past two years.
We both expressed hope it will take place next year…
Writing Update
10 reasons sex isn’t as important as you think
12 reasons people are so negative these days (and how to not let it affect you)
What does Slavoj Žižek think about universal basic income?
16 reasons family is the most important thing in life
13 signs someone is secretly jealous of your looks (and what to do about it)
11 signs someone secretly admires you
25 resilient people who overcame failure to achieve huge success
22 things money can’t buy no matter how rich you are
Up soon: review of Jonathan Franzen’s new book Crossroads. This book was intense and I give it the assessment it deserves!
Postscript
When it’s not busy laundering money and advancing criminal networks and corporations, HSBC wants you to know that gender’s a construct.
Remember the stupidity and evil we face, but also keep your sense of humor!
Until next week.
Paul, Pablo, Paulo