Two big delusions

 Yesterday  I set off to do my "weekly Wal" but I also, in my effort to simplify things and thus make my mind a bit more at rest, decided to take all the books I'd been saving up to trade in at the used book store, and just donate them at the little free library in Japantown. Trading books in is just too much work for too little money (or trade credit). 

I got as far as Japantown, dropped off the books, and got a bento in Nijiya. It was crammed with people in there so I ate over at the old hospital, and realized I had to take a crap, bad. So I headed back here. 

I did find a copy of "World War Z" by Max Brooks, a book I'd heard a lot about, and that was mostly what I accomplished, was reading that book. I got a so-so practice session in too. 

For some reason I like to learn about people doing incredibly silly things, so at various times I've gotten into watching videos about people doing solo ocean crossings in sailboats, climbing stupid high places like Everest, and bodybuilding. 

One of these things is not like that other. At least with sailing and climbing Everest, a person has to have a fair amount of money to pony up, plus you don't just go and do it; you have to do a bunch of sailing or climbing first and work your way up to it. Plus there are concrete, not-subject-to-opinion measures of success. You made the summit or you didn't, you made it across the ocean (or the finish line) or you didn't. 

But bodybuilding is something with almost no barrier to entry because if you're young and vigorous you can train and also work a job, the diet isn't any more expensive than the average working-class diet as you're switching out beer and cigarettes for more eggs etc. So just about anyone can get into it and if you have a talent for it (good genetics) you can go very far, very fast. This is a commonality with some of the obscure Olympic sports such as the one I got into (no it was not weight lifting). 

And herein is the problem: It's a really common delusion that, the "real" world being corrupt and crooked as hell at least here in the US, that if you get into a sport you'll be entering some kind of pure world where there's actual sportsmanship. So in my watching video after video about bodybuilders, a lot of them names I remember from the 1980s and 90s, I'd see again and again, the same story: A guy works his guts out, has good genetics, is really of tip top quality, and due to politics and fixing, they don't win. I saw many big guys in tears. 

The more obscure Olympic sports are like this too. Big ones like running or swimming have too many judgemental eyes on them and there's less, not no, but less, corruption. But there are all kind of ways people in the smaller sports can be dicked with. 

So I've come to the conclusion that if you're in a society where crookedness and corruption are the norm, the sport you get into will probably be rife with it too. So the delusion is a mistake, that if you can get good at a sport you'll enter some idealized world where everything will be OK. 

So that takes care of the first delusion I wanted to describe here. The second is even more widespread. I'll call it the delusion of American hyper-individualism. 

Americans are best described as "Iks who drive cars". Everyone. Is. On. Their. Own. Family means nothing. The delusion is this: It's believed to be the best way to live. Working together in any way is considered to make one "weak". 

We're now entering our end game, where we become Russia or Hungary or maybe post-WWII Sicily, but much more atomized than even those places. But this cancer has been at the center of our "culture" for a long time. 

Not only did my father make it clear that once I was 18 I was to be out the door, but even in my quest to find what little work could be found for a "haole" where we were, he did things like fix me up with a job weeding a yard for a lady, who pressured me to come up with an estimate and I'd be paid that estimate. I had no idea how long it would actually take, thinking it would be an afternoon, so I estimated $10. It turned out to take 2 days and I had to take the bus back over there the next day to finish it, and I'm not even sure I saw the $10. I think it may have been given to my father, who kept it. 

My older sister, being the oldest and thus everything showered on her, got to go to the same elite preparatory high school that Obama went to. Thus, to her, if you didn't go to Punahou, you were some kind of lower form of life. I remember her, seeing some Asian gal trying to sell some T-shirts on the sidewalk in Waikiki, spit out that the young girl should be put in jail. My older sister, who some years before, had been trying to sell puka-shell and macrame jewelry on the sidewalk in Haleiwa. 

Iks who drive cars... I remember my older sis going on and on in self-pity, about how when she was first out on her own she was so poor, she could only afford a small car. I didn't own a car and learn to drive it until I was almost 30. 

My older sister doesn't even want to communicate with me now, and why should she? I didn't go to Punahou. I didn't marry into money. Fuck You I've Got Mine. 

So here's the delusion: The delusion is that being hyper-hyper-individualistic like this makes one "stronger". My argument is that it does not. Reading as much Reddit and r/homeless as I do, I see again and again, people who talk about life no longer being worth it, and wanting to put it to an end. I can't blame them because their lives, like the lives of most Americans, are incredibly bleak. They've had to do everything all on their own, and a lot of the ones who say they're determined not to end it all, don't, because they have a dog or a cat. A dog or a cat, not another human, not in the entire world. 

I will say here my blasphemy: That a single, isolated human is as meaningless as a single ant. The American ideal of being utterly alone is a recipe for weakness. It's the reason the American life expectancy is low and falling. 

The recipe for strength is to have other people who care about you, and who you care about. That's what has kept humans going for all of the history of humans. It's the reason why the Jews as a people (and other groups like Chinese, Hindus etc.) have survived for 1000s of years while other peoples are gone and forgotten.