Expectations of the World

Staying both unsettled and at peace.

Nothing quite unsettles me like the idea that I have been loafing and complaining while others have been brilliant. This happens most of all when I look in the mirror and call myself shabby, stupid, flabby and provincial. It means I’m disciplining myself into fixing one or more of those problems. This time around, I got a retro haircut that works. My wife now calls me ‘Play’. If you know, you know. With a fresh set of kicks, I can pass for 47. But this was not sufficient.

I read Nabokov’s autobiography and these days I am watching a TV show called Lioness. Both are proving to me that I am irredeemably provincial. I’m such a Peasant that I read two books and I think I’m not. I’m still twenty pounds heavier than I was at 30 and I still keep giant bags of Oreos and Chips Ahoy around the house. I still yelp when the stock market goes up and my choices go down, and I still get all Dunning-Kruger in 11 dimensions. You tell me you’ve been to Hawaii and my mind reacts. I have to lock my jaws to keep from blurting out that I’ve ridden the horses at Princeville. So here I am.

Western Civilization is at risk, but I cannot tell how much. That’s because I have no insight into the ratio of reasonable men in our ruling class, and how much control they [need to] exert. My habits of curiosity have always gone to the experts - to the Geniuses and having discovered their ideas, I tend to believe things are well in hand. I mean how could I have not followed my passion for logic into computering? How could I not remain through Moore’s Law and the rise of Silicon Valley? How could I deny the crossing of the Uncanny Valley since the days of Tin Toy? I’m less than a decade from retirement and I own less debt than the purchase price of a new pickup truck. So there must be something going well in Western Civilization and I must have picked up the right clues.

On the other hand, I just bought a half-gallon of milk for $6 at a Chevron station that was behind yellow police tape half of yesterday. The interwebz are littered with idiocy, street violence, mendacious passive-aggression and every direction of sexual profligacy. I don’t know what this world is coming to. I don’t know what I should expect from it. Some days I want to move to Medina.

The Joy of Discovery
What keeps me sane is the fact that on a regular basis I can expose myself to paths that lead to answers to questions that have vexed me. The Genius ambit is wondrous. I am even excitable at the retro. As I recently mentioned, I am studying the Korean War and am even finding joy in high quality black & white film and mono jazz recordings of the 1950s.

• The Mercy of Humor

• The Solace of Reason

• The Shield of Humility

I could write out those paragraphs with examples from my own life but I fear they still add up to one word. Dilettante.

dilettante

dĭl′ĭ-tänt″, dĭl″ĭ-tänt′, -tănt′

noun

1. One who dabbles in an art or a field of knowledge.

2. A lover of the fine arts.

3. An admirer or lover of the fine arts, science, or letters; an amateur; one who pursues an art or literature desultorily and for amusement: often used in a disparaging sense for a superficial and affected dabbler in literature or art.

4. An admirer or lover of the fine arts; popularly, an amateur; especially, one who follows an art or a branch of knowledge, desultorily, or for amusement only.

5. An amateur, someone who dabbles in a field out of casual interest rather than as a profession or serious interest.

6. A person with a general but superficial interest in any art or a branch of knowledge.

In my consumption, this time of Apple TV+ production of Asimov’s Foundation I was struck by the use of the term.

“My oldest sister, the crown princess, was trained in leadership. My brother was an officer in the Royal Hussars. I was allowed to be a dilettante. Sport. Art. Music.”

I sat yesterday in my leather recliner watching a first person video of a trip to a French Polynesian resort called The Brando. Kayak provided a quote of 4,300 odd dollars. I’m stonefaced. You’ve seen one isolated crystal lagoon, you’ve seen them all. The sun becomes overbearing. The distance from civilization, your dependence on the staff becomes overwhelming. You quickly know you are a social animal and realize how much you need the herd. To what ends? That of the bourgeois dilettante? I mean who hasn’t laughed at jokes at the expense of Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods? Who hasn’t sneered at the pretentious kneeling quarterback and his self-serving slavery metaphors? Who among us can actually describe the genius of action painting?

I doubt that this is where Western Civilization is challenged, but such are the challenges we lay before ourselves, urban peasants that we are, living with our three budget gourmet hots and smart adjustable cots.

Can I Say It?
I get no pleasure is reading between the lines of the New York Times. I simply blame myself for expecting something much more. I mean, I knew back when I moved there that I preferred The Observer. It was spoiled rich and irreverent. I liked that at the time. I’m out of that demographic and smart enough to realize I’m habitually in that of the NYT and WSJ and still the hegemonic subtexts continually grate on my nerves. Today’s hot weather allusions to climate catastrophe. Today’s economic stumbles allude to Chinese supremacy. Today’s riverboat brawl alludes to racial strife. Where the hell do we even have riverboats? The future of rap is female. Taylor Kitsch is OK with no longer being a leading man. Ross Douthat explains to us how Barbie needs Ken. Thanks, Ross.

When people asked me how I found Boston, I evolved the reply “I love the place, but can’t stand the people.” This is the America played on my screens. I can’t necessarily tell the difference between that and social reality. I can’t wholly discount what journalists report and what people actually say in the comments sections. Some days I feel much better that I should remain in my leather recliner.

I’m becoming the sort who wants tinted windows on my quiet, powerful sedan and a preferred seat in a preferred restaurant on a regular night. And I resent my own attitude that America was chock full of people who would bear me no irrational hostility. But this whole place seems independently irrational and hostile. I do believe I need an Old Boy Network, or at least one speakeasy.

The Stoic Speakeasy
As much as I enjoy the work of Taylor Sheridan, it pisses me off that he doesn’t seem to venture far beyond cowboy bars. So my expectation of the world, as much as it matches his hardboiled oevre, has the necessity for more than simple truth, integrity and security. It needs beauty and poetry as well, otherwise we are all just warring brothers scrapping for the teats of the material world. That vixen is a hard bitch. But Taylor flunked out of junior college, so his hard bitch mistress probably haunts his dreams. Me, I played cello in elementary school and won more than one dance contest. Did I mention that I sang solo at Cathedral? That my grandfather was house master of an Old Sheff organization? Alas, perhaps I am the prodigal who has lost my way home, or have the bunkers and tombs of the Old School been blown to bits?

In any case, there ought to be piano, or at least enough room for a trio and torch singer. There should be an extended membership, some tentacles out on the interwebz for those who managed to get sidetracked or never quite found the avenue. Would I wear a tattoo? Doubtful. But I do love my grandfather’s outfit’s slogan: “Friendship, the sweetest influence.” It is this kind of brotherhood I could pledge allegiance to, but I wonder how hermetic such societies should be. That’s the critical question. One that vexes me now.

My expectations of the world require me to attain wisdom and remain wise and alert. That is because in my peasant shoes, I dance among elephants and I must be fleet. But if I had some sinecure, would I be more content to remain a dilettante? Would I even bother with discovery or humility? Therein lies some inherent contradiction, or strict progression. I grew up believing that my generation had an imperative to pursue business and science after my parent’s generation of politics and war. So my children might pursue the arts and letters. I’ve mastered none of these aims and wonder if I’m in the main of any enduring aspect of Western Civilization. Maybe I’m just along for the ride and my choices and fortunes are pure luck. Even so, I see the value in the virtues I possess even if I’m no role model. My survival and dedication to the preservation of Constitutional liberty is real and necessary - and so I should have this brotherhood. Unfortunately, my guess is that I’m more rare than I should be, that my conception of citizenship and public spiritedness is a little too over-sincere. Maybe I’m a useless goody two shoes in the vicious bastardy of Taylor Sheridan’s world.

Still I’m not so sure I’d trade my freedom for security. After all, I’m the one who said Fuck the Bike.

The Dirtiest Laundry

So that leaves me where? I need to pay attention to global markets because domestic peasants can get screwed when they can’t figure out the actual value of their currency in the schemes of international trade and arbitrage. I need to pay attention to war and rumors of war even though I don’t fear conscription for myself or my offspring. Still, I will make it known that in America, violent chaos can get danger close. I will never forget Portland Antifa.

I expect that we are eating more kale because somewhere in our economy, lettuce is not quite profitable despite the billions of hamburgers sold. Just because we’re obese today doesn’t mean we won’t be compelled to consume fewer calories tomorrow. I expect that there will always be places to hide out, but like the outlaws in Heat, you may have to turn that corner at a moment’s notice and never look back. In other words, the lessons of the rulers - living as they do among the powerful and pitiless are the best lessons to learn. Our only advantage is that we live below the radar, our slim pickings are not worth pilfering except by other grubby, grabby peasants. Their predatory patterns should not be difficult to discern at all.

Also, I expect that Elon Musk will learn to live in a tiny house. That’s all he’d get on Mars. Perhaps we ought to learn how those things work as well. Lawns are a luxury, but I’m staying here on Earth where jungles are not. Rudyard Kipling anyone?