Nothing is indescribable: Resiliency, love, empathy, greatness, and other matters

Friday 1/30/26

Not everything can be known, but nothing is indescribable.

That people would rather ascribe the qualities of a group to themselves than have their own individual qualities is something that is so strange to me. It shouldn't be that hard to be you. To have a you. You want to sit at the table as you, not a conglomerated representative.

Views tend to be held collectively rather than individually. People don't even know they're doing it. They think they're thinking their own thing, but what they're really doing is being influenced by what those around them think--a group. And by influenced, I don't mean shown some form of light, but rather taking their mental marching orders from.

This they then conflate with conviction, a belief system, an attitude, a personality, a persona. It becomes the source of their talking points. But none of it is real, and they become not real. In order for someone to think they think something, they usually need to feel that many other people think that thing as well. That's why you have "hot takes," which are always uninteresting, insincere, unthought out thoughts, that are "protected" by the hot take label, that signifier which passive aggressively and duplicitously doubles as disclaimer.

If you give something a label indicative of its "otherness" in advance, the belief is that it doesn't reflect negatively back on you as your true and "regular" self. It's a side trip, not the normal activity at the regular place of business, if you will. This speaks to cowardice as much as it does to stupidity. The ignorant craven's need for attention because they are a substance-less being. Life lived as an extended, unceasing attempt to scam, usually by making enough noise and deflecting without being "caught" and called out for what that person really is, and all that they aren't. These people know next to nothing, but they know this on some level. That they are an imposter trying to get away with something, hating and fearing anyone who might see and know the truth, and hating themselves, too, as they should.

They're just there, occupying space unproductively. Trying to get away with something, which is abetted by no one really caring about them, what they create or do, group think as we just discussed it, wanting to be seen as one of the good ones, the idea of the commodity over what the actual thing is and making use of the thing (for example: People don't buy an Amanda Gorman book to ever read an Amanda Gorman book; they buy it to own it, to say that they have it, for someone to see it displayed copiously on the coffee table in their home).

In our world, this can make you a fortune, allowing that "other things," as we've spoken of them, are in place and made a factor. The other things (money, connections, mediocrity, cronyism, nepotism, how non-threatening they are because of how unintelligent and achievable they are, identity politics grift, sexuality/nationality/skin color boxes checked, etc.) are always the deciding factor for these people, because it isn't talent, given that they don't have any, and it isn't what they offer to the good, given that no one is rewarded now on that score and such people have never offered anyone a single truly good thing in their lives anyway.

Then you can be Stephen A. Smith, or Roxane Gay, or Dave Portnoy, or David Brooks, or name whomever you wish. People need to be able to look at someone else and think that person isn't above them. Isn't smarter, isn't better. We're not secure enough to be able to admire someone who is and act positively towards them, or wish to celebrate them, because we compare ourselves to them, and we feel inadequate, or worse. We can't just let that person be separate.

Steve Kerr, the basketball player, for instance, wasn't threatened by Michael Jordan the basketball player, as teammates on the Chicago Bulls. He understood that they were on completely different levels, and comparisons were irrelevant. Steve Kerr was also his own thing. He knew what that was, and could say, "I've carved out a nice career for myself. I'm a contributor to a team's success. I know my role, and I'm good at it and there's value in it. Michael is otherworldly. I love watching him."

But we are not like this out in the world in this world. We need to look at someone else we "revere" and think we could be them if X, Y, and Z occurred or if we really wanted to. That we couldn't not be them because we weren't smart enough or good enough. It takes a very secure person now to admire and openly celebrate a great person. As a result of a hellish, reverse Darwinism, true greatness is being effaced from the world. Life, too, as a great person who can do great things and create great works, isn't a livable life, and is something way past horrible to even try and endure. Endurance isn't a life either. It's just pain, hurting, and strength against all hope, without much, if any hope.

The cost of greatness is eveything now. Who is going to be great? It won't exist at all. That's what you're seeing. The person who might have been great living a life if they were alive in 1823 won't be great living a life in 2026, because they'd only be met with resistance, hardship, and a lack of support, encouragement, commendation, or even any kind words, over the course of their life in more recent times. A person needs those things, or their course will change. It's j ust a reality of being human. A person can only take so much and keep going...alone. The greatness wouldn't happen, because that person would have gone in other directions and become something else, and lesser.

Ours is a world now in which very few people can choose resiliency. Elect to be resilient, I mean, and stay the course and fight through--or keep trying, anyway--when it's an option not to. People can be resilient, but that's usually only when they have no choice. If they can punt or tap out, they will.

The people who have things in publishing had those things handed to them. That's how the system works. In no way it is it a system in which great work is done, recognized, rewarded, with that person then be advanced--moved up, as it were--because of their work.

None of these people are resilient or would persevere. It had to be easy for them, they had to be given that which they didn't deserve or earn. That is how it works, without exception. So when you see someone hyped, or awarded, whatever the case may be, know that this was a hook-up, charity on the scale of a career. An unearned handout. As of right now, there's no other way to be hyped, awarded, whatever the case may be. You don't earn opportunities here. They're given. For bad reasons.

These are weak people who know nothing about earning even as a concept and never have. Nowhere in their lives have they earned. Going back to when they were kids. Never even earned anything on a ball field, because they never played, and have never known or welcomed a level playing field--speaking metaphorically now--in their lives.

A Scott Stossel, for instance, came out of the birth canal immediately en route to The Atlantic. Where he then hooked up his sister. Because it's all like that at present, and will be until it's made not to be, if it ever is. It won't just happen. It won't occur because "things are cyclical" or whatever. Things get worse now. They keep getting worse. They don't go down then up then down then up. We're going down--hard and continuously. This would have to be made not to be. Forced. Actively. And hard.

Often I will see someone say they tried this thing that's a good thing. Taking a chance, putting themselves out there, approaching someone, being the first to call. These are small things, but they can lead to bigger and consequential things. Things that can enhance a life, or even transform one. And when it doesn't go as they wish it to--it doesn't pay out, as it were--they say they'll never do that again. I think that's a very common mindset now.

Romance scarcely exists now, along with wonder, joy, and empathy. I'll think about the people I know who are married, and what they would do if they lost their spouse. They would be trying to find someone else so that they could re-pair that same week. So what does that say about what they're doing right now? How real is that? Most people are together because they didn't want to be alone, not because they love each other. They tell themselves they do, but I don't believe many people have an inkling what love is and requires. We often say we love because if we don't, our life has no purpose, because there aren't other things. Lives often come down to love as identity badge. Which is often a matter of procreation. Biology. And "What else was I going to do?" life-wise.

Then, one makes do. By thinking certain ways. Regardless of truth, understanding, validity, or practice. As a bonus, it's easy in these matters to do the "How dare you!" thing (or be conscious of it in the back pocket as this thing to whip out) to elevate, self-venerate, justify, buttress, inflate, legitimize. To set something up as verboten and unquestionable--or make use of the notion that something is--is a great tactic for shitty people to shout down or dissuade anyone who would suggest or think as much. They reverse the field position. It's not them, it's you, on account of the "How dare you!" principle, which you just violated, or even dared to approach without a huge smile and open arms and a ballot you can't wait to cast on that person's behalf.

But if there's so much love, and so much sanctity in these matters through and through, top to bottom, and unquestionable motives of the most honorable intentions and purity of purpose, why are so many people such horrible parents? The good parent is the exception, not the norm. But almost every parent thinks they're a good one. Because they need to. Especially if they are nothing else. This other thing has to be...all. Or very nearly all. Otherwise, they'd be admitting something to themselves that they couldn't handle knowing, and wouldn't be strong enough to address and do anything about if they did know. It would kill them, in essence, while leaving them technically alive. Which is usually the case anyway, but they're able to call it something else, and that, for most people, makes all the difference in the world. You have a thesis statement. And regardless of how wrong it is and how easily it is to invalidate it, you live to it, you stick with it, you ride it, and then you die. You made it to the end, and you never went back and started over on a new essay whose thesis was closer to the truth.

Love always requires empathy, so there's a considerable sticking point. Empathy requires imagination. Empathy isn't sympathy. The latter is theory-based. It's dry. We assess a situation that someone else is in, and we know to say that we have sympathy for them. It's like math. 2 + 2 = 4. Sally is going through this means I say I'm so sorry to hear that. You know to say it. That doesn't mean you feel something, and it doesn't mean you feel anything like what Sally feels. Sympathy has a theoretical aspect. It's textbook. Empathy is lived in. It's off the page, out in the world. Even as you're sitting there.

Empathy is using your imagination to go into someone else's life, so that you can feel what they feel. This takes great concentration and effort. A conscious decision is made to use your imagination. It's a strenous undertaking. People don't have imaginations, and they definitely hate thinking, expending energy, being present, focusing. Things that are inseparable from empathy. There are no other writers in the world, even, with imaginations right now. You know, the people who are supposed to have imaginations. Empathy is just a word people use...for other reasons.

When there is a snowstorm, I'll see people take to social media and say they are prayng for the homeless. They are doing this, of course, for attention and points. If one really cared about the homeless, that person would be helping the homeless, not posting like this. Had that person walked past two dozen homeless people on the street that day, I think it's quite likely that they didn't give a single one of them a second thought--or a first thought, beyond having the idea to make a post about the homeless later on, because that could get them some points and attention.