Human

Human. Humanus. Those are Latin words, in case you’re very new to Romano-English. Mankind. Man. That is English. To be a man is to be human. We live in a time where it’s very easy to forget humanity. I’m a Nationalist. Perhaps I may sound like a turncoat for saying, but very few people come to this sphere of politics to discover their humanity. Some lose it. It’s not hard to imagine why, though perhaps not for the reasons you would think. You might think hatred drives us to Nationalism. Maybe for some. Not for me. Ah, but despite appearances, this isn’t why I’m writing this. My humanity is, in fact, quite intact. Nationalism aside.

It is too easy, if you are a Dissident of this stripe or that, to forget your humanity. It is easy to lose sight. The Prophet Nietzsche made very salient declarations on this, something to the tune of ‘when you’re out fighting monsters, take care not to become one.’ Oh, and when you gaze into the abyss, it looks back. He said other things, too. But let us dwell, a moment. The one idea is obvious, but of the other? Medieval Theology speaks of the God-Shaped hole. Nietzsche was no stranger to Theology. He used it to try and kill God with the philosopher’s hammer. Sure. Nietzsche knew that in the core of every man is a void that desperately needs filling. It never goes away. That void, that want, is what drives most of us.

We need satisfaction. Reassurance. That is part of being human. In Nationalism we put on a brave face. We puff out our chests. We square the jaw and make sure that upper lip is nice and stiff. If we have feelings you would be forgiven to forget about them beneath the veneer of self-deflective humour, or fed-posting in the age of the Spypocalypse.

No. This is not a Corona Post. I think this gay plague is inflated by the hysteria of a dieing empire. That there, the underlying cause I think that needs to be addressed, is what I wish to discuss. Humanity.

A friend, and a Brother recently got me to thinking about this. In the Bund with which I associate, there is a panic. Corona Rex, blah blah. This good man has tried to keep our lads calm, and steel them with knowledge that will allow them to thrive. But the fetishisation of panic prevails and decline of mood and spirit continues. It is disheartening. But he made a salient point. We need to rekindle our connection to our humanity. It has been severed. So here I am, making a subtle attempt to do this.

Perhaps I am the last person from my cadre to do this. After all, as I am so frequently reminded, I am autistic. But on the other hand, that isn’t the worst thing in the world if you are smart enough to manage your assets. Which I am. I had to learn to be human, nobody bothered to teach me, and autism put me at a deficit. In my travels I see a lot of people taking a lot of things for granted. Experiences, wasted. Emotions, denied. Irony, ignored. Seriously. Ponder the irony of an Autiste being positioned to talk to Neurotypicals about emotion? Yet, the world of the normative man has crumbled and his social fabric has been destroyed. The playing field, from my vantage, has become quite level. As I am fond of reminding my peers, an Autiste can be trained to learn social skills if managed properly and from the right perspective. However, the Neurotypical is hard pressed to manage the assets nature has gifted us with. We are of course, part of a larger puzzle.

So here we all are. Born into an uncertain world with no real directives or clear direction. The social fabric is disintegrated, and there are no objective social standards because everything is negotiable. We are therefore, all of us, uncertain, full of trepidation. Ah, yes, but we are MEN. So we deny the feelings of trepidation and pretend that they do not exist. Until the house of cards smells the wind beyond the trees and shudders itself down awaiting a storm that might not come. Here we are. This pitiful virus has revealed the sad state of human affairs.

We focus on numbers. Be they death statistics, or crime reports. We obsess over that math, and lo, part of the humanity dies. Do we explore the causality, or dare to embrace the spiritual and emotional questions? No. We have become superficial. Do we admit to ourselves the why, as opposed to the how, or the what, or the why? We frequently remain on the monolithic expanse where the mind is comfortable, afraid to pierce the veil where deeper questions lie.

Humanity is experiential. But in this globalised age, we have quantified experience. We have it to a science. For instance, my son would have cost me $107,000usd were it not for insurance. My wife’s stay would have cost about a third of that cost. Perhaps you read my account of the Preemie process earlier in the archives of this blog. That was an experience, but now I have a number to quantify it with. How many of us dwell on the dry statistic and lose the spiritual messages that deliver them? More than some, but less than all, I suppose.

When my son came to me, he was a lump. I lived in constant fear that the process of caesarean section had damaged him. Before this I lived in constant fear he would miscarry. Before that I lived in constant fear my wife would never conceive. Before that I lived in constant fear I would never marry. Is being human nothing more than a stream of fear and concern? No. But lo! He cried. And for a time he never stopped crying. We resolved to put him on a schedule, and behold, he laughs! My eyes water at the thought. I can squish his pudgy little cheeks between my leathery thumb and forefinger knuckle. When he hears me or my wife speak, he looks for us. His eyes dance in his head. This, my son, flesh of my flesh. A part of me that was washed away from the river of my genepool and become an island of his own. A man can be an island.

Now I hold a new life, a new world in my arms. I have in my house a soul, an infinity of possibilities that did not exist before. Every day he grows and changes. He will learn to crawl, perhaps. (Ma tells me I never crawled, that I simply up and walked one day.) He will walk. And someday he will walk into his own care and counsel, and I will learn how to live alone again with my wife. Seaxling will probably have siblings, though it is God or else Kindlier Nature that decides, as Ovid would say.

I think of this, and it is no longer my own mortality I consider, or that mortality of my wife. We are a moribund society, focused on the end at the detriment of what precedes it. This is another illustration that this gay plague has made. Just how ill equipped and disconnected everyone is. This flu is not simply a flu, it is Thanatos. The manifestation of undealt with fear. The panic, the rage. The TOILET PAPER. Gods, is that ever embarrassing.

This occurred to me. Many of the men in our Bund have led interesting lives. But few have been compelled to be intimate with death. Some because life has afforded them soft lives. Others have chosen soft lives. Others because nobody has compelled them to think of it. I am a Carpenter. Why does this matter? My job can kill me. I’ve had brushes with death. One gust of wind at a bad time can send you to your doom, if you’re high enough on a roof. Sure, you can wear a harness, but there’s no guarantee that will save you from the absolute. At any time any one of my tools could malfunction and lead to grisly injuries or death. Tablesaw lacerations are no joke. Hell. Someone has dropped a roofing beam on my head before thirty feet in the air. Not only does it hurt like a bastard, it could have very easily shocked me into losing my balance and falling back down the roof valley. They say, in fact, roofing is one of the deadliest trade jobs. I think it was number four on some poll or other.

But you know what else? We’re dieing all the time, anyway. Every day is an inch toward the end. Every birthday is a macabre, sugar-coated reminder that you’re maggot feed. But because their situations don’t force them to mori all their momentos, people don’t think about this. Not really. The Kung Flugnarok has acted as a very stark reminder to all the late bloomers that they don’t have all day to go live. Hence I see now hikers abound, congregants in the Temple of Mother Nature. A sad commentary, but not unwelcome, that it takes this ridiculous flu to teach someone life.

How we exercise our thoughts in our private moments where there is nobody left to impress, this dictates who we become again in the presence of others. And truly, how you conduct yourself in company impacts those solitary moments.

My son has rekindled a lot of humanity. It’s made me think about God, life and death, how bittersweet this all is. Because I’m going to grow old, shrivel up and die. Unless my job or Asian vapour kills me first. Whatever. I might live long enough to see my boy have his beard’s first grey hair. Wouldn’t that be something? You know something. In classical Catholic Theology, I came across an idea. If God is eternal, than He would see you, the individual, not as you are, but as substance, unaffected by the illusion of time. And time is an illusion created by entropic forces, make no mistake. I want that. I want to look at my boy and know his future. When I am old, I know that I will look at my son and wish more than anything I could go back and pinch those squishy baby cheeks or hear him be wide eyed with wonder. The Gods, Angels, Immortal Souls, whatever if anything you wish to call them, would not be limited by entropy. The signature of the energy that animates you, call it soul or spirit, breath or life, would not be limited by the illusion of time.

But here I am, again, just a man. I will grow old and die. So will my son. Gods willing he will by far outlive me. Gods willing I shall never see my wife’s feet touch the grave, so I pray as Baucis and Philemona did that I should never for a day be without her. I have no control over this. Yes, Baucis and Philemona is a romantic tale, told by a romantic Roman. What is wrong with this? When did ignoring the deep, seering, soaring feelings which make us men become a weakness? Are we really a gaggle of Victorians with our chastity belts a notch too tight? I love my wife. Seeing her face still makes my travails worthwhile. And there again now is my son, the literal manifestation of my love for her. A divine gift, here in my hands, the object of so many of my prayers. The object made flesh, now a subject, and a prospect. My son, who before he even came to me was heralded by the eagle and the owl that came to my lawn, whose circumstances are marked by auspicious numbers. Life is a wonder, and death, what is this but a reminder to make use of our good measures?

But here I am, again, just a man. I can hold my son. I’m not old yet. I’m strong, I’m wise. I will be the best father I can be. I’m not old, I’m not dead. And surely, neither is he. I can squish those little cheeks. I can laugh, I can cry. I can sit with my son and let him listen to Dethklok just to see his eyes grow as wide as saucers. I can hold my wife, remind her that I love her. I can visit my parents, benefit from their experience, and offer my own. And I can speak with my brothers from the Männerbund. Hopefully I can offer insights and experiences which will help them. Or perhaps not. Time shall tell. Regardless of my infrastructural role, the fellowship and sense of community we share is a blessing. Even if frustrations occur, they’re outweighed by the reality of what we have and the currently unformulated promise of what lies ahead.

The sun is still shining. The amount of beauty in nature is awe inspiring. This pathetic virus has laid the failure of globalism bare. Here we are. We are men, afraid and overcoming. It should not be this bad, and it would not be so bad were it not for the sociological breakdown. We must take that humanity back. Does that mean that brick by brick society must be destroyed? We cannot rely on this flu to reset the clock. Things will probably return to normal in surprisingly short order. Until whatever happens, does, what is your sphere of influence?

Globalism is the hand behind this virus. This virus, I mean, is the decay of the human condition. Co-Vid is nothing more than a manifestation of the soul sickness that has been destroying not just the Occident and Orient, but the rest of the damned world for greed and stupidity. Work on your community. Don’t let fear get the best of you. Make plans. Follow through. This isn’t the end. You don’t know when the end is. That’s the point of death.

I think I’m going to have more kids. Some boys, maybe a daughter. They’re going to become friends with the sons and daughters of my friends and Brothers from the Männerbund. They are going to inherit whatever is left of my dwindling wealth. My wife will walk with me, I with her. We will laugh and cry and fight. Make up, make love. (And more children. I’ma be the next All Father, ya know.) None of this is dependent on a flu, or the fact that I have to die someday. And if I am lucky, I shall meet my Gods and all those souls I have known and loved will be known to me in a light that’s brighter than the Sun, so wonderful that it blinds me and I have to use a sight unseen to know the truth I hope is revealed. If I am lucky than when I am dead my life will have been judged to be a blessing, as opposed to a mere resource.

And maybe you will tell me my faith is a cope and a joke. You might be right. Your big brained science might be all there is. If you are correct, than this life as it is matters more than ever. Because if I can never know my son and my wife as past, present and future are one, than only by my hand can I come yet closer to that pure Gnosis. Still, I crave that Gnosis, science be damned. I understand there is a deeper reason for this than Darwin’s notebook. But you do you. Either way. We have what we have is what we control by our wit and hand. The rest of the world is a mystery. We among ourselves, our communities must decide is true. We ourselves must decide our rights, our wrongs.

We all speak of things with such authority, but often without substance. Let us delve deeper, look for the colours and the shapes and the textures of words. Do not be compelled to take anything at a word or for a glance. Go deeper. Life is so much more than the moment, the surface, the inclination and the summary. We think in reactionary terms, while speaking of revolution. Meditate on meaning, don’t take this high-minded approach that betrays your effeteness. Seeking depth is not some autistic conspiracy, it is not just for Spergs. It used to be a great European pastime. Do it.

Where to begin? Personally, I’ve been enjoying my Roman reading. Such a passionate people, wrapped up in a neat and orderly bow. Have you explored your passions? Have you admitted them to yourself? Or are you caught up in a society that preaches virtues that have no meaning? Our ancestors were men. Look to them. Don’t just look around.

That’s all I have for now. I’m off to go be human awhile before I return to my statistics.