7:09 am: it’s overcast, rainy, and dark. The weak morning light is barely indistinct from the ashen pink of an overcast night sky. Streetlights are on. Mornings like this don’t recommend the day. It’s tough to get out of bed. My apartment’s 5 degrees too cold, and I’m hungry but have nothing to eat.
My post was eaten by a Firefox bug. Or maybe a WordPress bug. I blame it on Firefox because it’s written in C++, an utterly awful language that should have died out a decade ago. The essay was nearly complete, and I hit the “Save Draft” button, and was told it had been saved. It wasn’t. It’s gone. Maybe I’ll write it this evening, if I have time, and put it out on Wednesday or Thursday.
On this cold, rainy morning, we move into the grand finale of autumn– early November’s display of brilliant color. Let’s just hope it doesn’t get rained out, weighed down, like so many falls. Then we enter winter, the season of spice, snow, love and intimacy– or sometimes of cold, rain, mist and desolation.
I love October, but the 27th is not one of my favorite days– I associate it with a number of deaths, breakups, numerous manifestations of bad news that have transpired on this day in years past. I realize that it’s all coincidental, and that bad things happen on every day of the year. So do good things. Approximately 1/365.2425 of all good things that have happened have occurred on this day. The same holds of bad things. Anyway, this is just prattle. I’m quickly losing my point. Did I even have one? Not so sure.
I feel raw, poorly slept, and confused. At the same time, I’m optimistic about the future, and grateful to be alive. I keep pushing forward, believing that, as damaged as the world is, it will get better. The collapse of American culture that began in the 1970s, was sped along by the Reaganoid mouth-breathers in the 1980s, and swerved into a nose dive in the 2000s, will end. Either we die utterly and finally, or we turn around. I have reason to believe the latter is more likely.
I’m going to call the nadir. It happened today at 2:30 am, the midpoint of the traditional “hour of death”. Over the past year or two, I’ve sensed a backlash. The destructive forces of casual sex, crass commercialism, female indulgence, anti-masculism, heartless conservatism, conspicuous but insincere liberalism, “game”, sociosexual obsession, combat dating, human self-mortification, et cetera, have begun to wear themselves out. We’re now on the upswing, as of 2:31 this morning. This world of ruin is reeling, badly aching, but ready to be repaired.
Why do I think an upswing is imminent? I observe. I talk to people. I ask prying questions. I enter philosophical debate with random strangers. People and news come to me, as well. An 18-year-old Somali immigrant, a beautiful college sophomore, responded to one of my essays with an account of her experiences. Casual sex seems remarkably less common in her observation of college life than it was in ours. Young people seem to be moving away from it. She only presents one data point, but I have others, and it seems that college is becoming a less crass experience by the year. It’s true that some young people are irreparably damaged, casual-sexed-out emtional zombies, but many others are turning rapidly away from filth.
The shrill cries of those in our generation who have had casual sex, as their lot in life turns sour due to their nonexistent marital value, will be bitter, stark, and petrifying. I’m talking mostly about Sex and the City harpies. They fear competition from foreign, Asian, and black women– this is why they spread nasty rumors about white, American men who date them. But this is just a “trickle” of competition compared to the next wave: a rising cohort of cultured young women, of all races and nationalities, who eschew casual sex and combat dating entirely, rendering useless and unwanted the “never return his calls” wraiths who currently own the urban dating scene.
I can’t see it for the clouds, but my clock tells me the sun has risen. Good morning, world.
I think you are deluded.
Things will have to get worse before they get better. And they are going to get much, much worse.
Surprisingly, I’m still happy. I don’t need comfort all the time to be happy and I don’t need pretty lies.
Clarence
-You should write it in Word and then copy it over.
-Did anything happen with the Jamaican woman?
-As a whole Asian women have better behavior than white women, however there is a sizable chunk that is the Americanized Asian that is the same as white women (look at NYU for example).
We haven’t hit the minimum yet. Rather, we might be declining more slowly—the second derivative is turning positive, if you will.
The worst is probably still yet to come.
I blame it on Firefox because it’s written in C++, an utterly awful language that should have died out a decade ago.
My husband writes in C++. But doesn’t everybody? 😉
I think you are deluded.
He’s not deluded. He’s an optimist. There’s a fine line.
But he’s definitely not deluded. The nadir hasn’t arrived, Cless, it already came and went. We’re riding the upturn already.
Most “morality” indicators are on the upswing:
* Divorce rates are dropping (and have plummeted among the college educated)
* Teenage pregnancy (including abortions) have dropped dramatically
* % of teens who are abstaining from sexual activity has increased
* Illicit drug use is in dramatic decline
The things that still need to be worked on are illegitimacy, nutrition/fitness, and education. That would pretty much solve the crime problem, as well.
Everything else is improving, slowly but surely. We just have to keep it up, keep beating that drum, keep fighting the good fight.
And all that jazz.
Why are you still using Firefox? Get Chrome – I’ve been using it for two months and it’s worked great for me so far.
Divorce rates are falling very slightly, but the bigger news is that marital rates are way down in every demographic other than the dual college educated demographic — the “consumption marriages” that Betsey Stevenson writes about. The % of children born outside marriage is also higher than it’s ever been — another indicator of what is really going on in the culture that is more telling than the divorce rate itself.
I also no longer use Firefox — it’s become a temperamental program, really, as well as a memory hog. I’ve been using Safari most recently on my Mac, but Chrome is good as well.
I mentioned illegitimacy as a major problem that needs to be tackled.
Yep, I wasn’t disagreeing with you as much as emphasizing that, because I think it impacts a much wider demographic than the falling divorce rate does.
Yes, it does.
read like a diary entry. sometimes those are the best. thanks for sharing, you are mostly right. if you don’t mind my asking…when is your birthday?
It’s amazing to me how many men I’m friends with who are dating Asian girls. I’ll confess that I do find some Asian ladies to be very gorgeous, but what do you think the attraction is really about? Why do some white guys only go out with Asian women…can someone explain to me why so many guys have this preference?