One mans trash is another man’s duckstack
We've received word from our lunar base1 that there's been a vandalism problem. Someone came and left scorch marks all over the lunar surface, danced, and planted a flag of all things, in blatant violation of the old scout rule to leave no trace.
As you well know, this is in violation of lunar code 27 L.S.C. § 1342, which we recite every day to avoid war. So now we have to go to war.
As we speak2, Duckstacks are enroute to email inboxes all over earth as part of a hostile takeover. Soon mankind will be shellshocked, living in constant terror of a new bombardment, every Tuesday night, providing entertainment and commentary at affordable prices3. Run. Hide. Tremble.
Therapy brain
One of the strangest
I heard an analogy once where women if they get a nail through their forehead will complain that men will try to remove the nail4. This goes to show that women want validation and when men try to fix problems its not seeking to address their needs and truly care about them because its not going about helping in the way the other party wants or whatever. And I suspect this is bogus.
Fixing problems the wrong way is a real thing5 but in my experience women actually want problems fixed. As long as the problem actually gets fixed, women in my life have always seemed to really value that sort of go-get-them attitude. Conversely boys are way more prone to just want to be listened to and petted and such. It is men who want to come home with problems and be treated to a constant stream of affection and validation. Because simply fixing the problem would be emasculating. Men instead draw energy from “validation”, so called, which then enables them to solve their own problems or, if the man is neurotic, pretend the problems don't exist6. Even writing this is emasculating to men, I think.
Historically transmitting tips and tricks to “shield mens delicate egos” from generation to generation was the strict domain of women, but with the rise of feminism pandering to men is seen as whatever the word for emasculation but for women is7, and so knowledge about how to do so is no longer passed from grandmother or mother to daughter . This dynamic has probably led to the breakdown of a non-negligible number of marriages where the man got married and a few years in feels like he isn't getting any of the things he wanted from marriage out of it. The marriage can then enter a dangerous a spiral where the man becomes a deadbeat, if his honor isn't enough to motivate him to do the regular relationship sustain things. Because men get married because they want to be liked. So then the woman feels that the man is defecting (because he is), and starts treating him like a child (because he is) and the man is left with no self esteem to fuel the hope necessary for him to act. Unless one party musters to arbitrarily break the cycle, then the marriage often collapses8.
On the other side, who “just wants the stupid problem fixed?” Who just wants the nail removed? The number one complaint of women in marriages is that the man is not pulling his weight. “try changing a diaper sometime” or “never does dishes” type complaints. Does this seem like a woman just looking for emotional support and an ear for their problems? And yet therapy is almost entirely targeted at women.
I believe this is also a pride thing. I suspect a lot of women get into this therapy stuff because admitting they are practical types who like practical things could damage their self image. It probably also helps them evade that some problems are outside their control, or for a smaller and nastier subset, evade that some problems are inside their control. Either way they're going in order to be given a toolset, which is pragmatic in its own way, I suppose.
Men will do a lot of things instead of going to therapy but I would propose this isn’t because therapy is bad9, but because if you can’t therapize a man without emasculating him, there can be no lasting impact. And all men sense, by instinct, that going to therapy is paying someone to reprogram you at best. You don’t want some cold professional relationship to do that. You want that to be someone you care about. That’s the ideal anyway.
More often though is just that therapy is on a sort of definitional level incompatible with being powerful or in control. Even if a man is in reality powerless and out of control, admitting that usually will lead to behaving as though nothing he does matters- in other words increasing powerlessness and chaos. You have to have faith in order to order things and move forward. Men’s stubbornness is a function of their character as builders. This is the form masculine idealism takes10. They have to remove the nail themselves- its the only way to become all that they can be.
Falsifying Fortunes
The lucky have had it good for too long
For a very long people have been studying how to increase their bad luck, and have come up with many diverse techniques to making one's outcomes worse. In luckology, little things can have big impact through the butterfly effect. So a little bad luck can go a long way towards righting the tide11.
Black Cat: Black cats aren’t unlucky in themselves, but if they cross your path, that can give you bad luck. Do you see the problem here? That’s right, cats do whatever they freaking feel like. So here’s the workaround: purchase and release thousands of black cats. This increases their chances of crossing you pretty dramatically, especially if you keep it all to an enclosed area, like a gymnasium. You should be raking in the bad luck in no time.
Walk Under A Ladder: Walking under a ladder is a classic bad luck harbringer, because if you bump it it could fall on you killing you. However, in our experiments, walking under a ladder just once provided a negligible decrease in luck, and circling back and walking under it again actually reversed the process, undoing all your hard bad work. So again, you will need to purchase just thousands of ladders and form a little tent hallway in New York for yourself and everyone else to walk under. You could also do this over one of those moving sidewalks in airports, to help keep people from going through a second time and undoing it.
Break A Mirror: As the saying that I just made up goes, break a mirror, break your fortune. Mirrors provide a great bad luck boost, and breaking them is extraordinarily satisfying. Lots of mirrors are hard to come by, so our solution is just to rip out the catcher at the mirror factory so they just kind of spill one by one onto the floor. The bonus point to this method is it will be very hard for vampires to attack you while you are decreasing your luck, so you’ll be safe until you’ve accumulated enough bad luck to kill vampires.
Opening an Umbrella Indoors: Umbrellas have a static cling that bad luck gets stuck on when you’re outside, so if you open it inside the house you fling bad luck everywhere. But again, you can’t repeat this, and its less feasible to form some sort of umbrella assembly line, because this sort of thing really needs to be done in your house. Our solution is to make house sized umbrellas, which can accumulate a truly extraordinary amount of bad lucky from carrying it around town.
Friday the 13th: This unlucky day gives a force multiplier to bad luck gains12 And also brings a little bit with it. Unfortunately we don’t have time control to repeat or multiply this day, and we also can’t move the earth closer to the sun or something wild like that. Unfortunately, you will just have to live with the amount of bad luck that Friday the 13th brings. How Unfortunate. What truly rotten luck.
History
Toddlers can bathe in water, but they can also bathe in dirt, leaves, flour. All sorts of things.
Grandpa told the toddler “when you’re a little older Grandpa will teach you how to play chess” and the toddler told him “nope I’m big”
We caught the toddler walking around chewing on something, rarely a good sign. “What are you eating?” “My ear.” What13
Told the toddler “Time for socks!”, which triggered his instinct to flip upside down and wave his feet in the air.
Found the fridge open and apples everywhere, with a single bite out of every one, as is his custom.
Don’t want to forget that right now the toddler calls my mother in law “grandma <lastname> <my last name> because I think he just figures everyone has his last name,
Ducksnax
Steed
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It took a while for the message to get here because we only use messenger pigeons
metaphorically speaking.
But for some, the cost is priceless.
Because they're not dead, apparently.
Not a fake thing, not fake fixing problems the wrong way for pretend, but for real
Dont knock it till you try it
Actually emasculation might be the right word here
I'm advocating for blatant ego stoking and flattery here- and I don't want to imply that it will fix all your problems, but its important to understand the mechanics.
In pragmatic terms something that I've heard helps this to “click” with many women is to say “well, do you know how to be a good girlfriend? Then do that.”
The number one wish of men in marriages is “more sex”.
therapy is, of course, incredibly bad. But that’s a different post.
I’d propose feminine idealism correlates more with giving the benefit of the doubt re: most leftist political policy, but thats another post
Or lefting it, I suppose. Which way do magnets face?
good luck losses(?)
He then continued walking, grabbing more ear and pretending to put it in his mouth, munching away
What you write about Therapy Brain makes a lot of sense. No wonder in many times and places in history men needed elaborate rites of passage and “validating” rituals which allowed them to get to the point where they could “pull the nail out”, when women grow up by doing lots of practical things.
“Therapy Brain” section makes me feel even more justified in my divorce 🤣