Thread

My last one for the day.

@realDonaldTrump and @genflynn know what I know:

MOST AMERICANS ARE GOOD PEOPLE.

They vote in good faith.

There are several types of predator who take advantage of good people.

We understand the motivations of almost all of them.

Power, rage, personal gain, sadism, hatred, and so on.

But there's a kind of predator whose motivations are unknowable.

I'm not talking about this guy.

No offense, but he was boring.

But count yourself lucky if that kind of character bores you.

The predator with unknown motivations NEVER EXPLAINS.

It isn't nihilism, power lust, or some convoluted attempt to make us all realize that we're just as bad as he is.

When the predator doesn't explain, you understand that this person can be stopped except by death.

But if the predator is absolutely fearless, a genius, and entirely lacking in all human traits, you can't do anything.

Whatever you do, the predator wins.

I've known one such person.

His power was limitless, as I discovered by researching him.

There was nothing he couldn't do.

The only thing I couldn't find was his motivation. Every time I thought I'd figured him out, I was wrong.

Therefore I had to admit that at the end of my research, he was an even greater mystery than he was when I began.

I don't feel contempt for people who've never experienced such a person and therefore have no idea what real evil is.

I'm GLAD, for your sake.

We fear the unknowable.

I admit to being in fear for almost all of my life.

The reason I'm now fearless is that everything is knowable.

And the unknowable predator is gone.

If you can calmly relate the details of a conspiracy theory, it means you know it isn't real.

I have no need to "educate" people. Although I HAVE written a memoir that I hope to publish after the publishing industry recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic, the story I tell is about FEAR, not graphic details.

My own bias is to not believe people who get into the details.

It's not right to INFLICT things on people.

What can anybody do for me? Why should I give you nightmares?

The answer is that I'm on my own. I have a story to tell, but I refuse to make YOU feel the way I do.

It's not wrong to watch movies about horror.

In fact it's natural.

People are essentially trying to conquer their fears.

Although I don't watch Quentin Tarantino movies, he has the right answer when asked about the violence in his films:

"It's just a movie."

He's not trying to hurt anybody.

It's a complex issue.

But the thing to remember is that the vast majority of us won't be confronted with unknowable, unstoppable evil that defies all psychiatry and religion.

Obama is actually quite a rinky dink. Yes, he did tons of damage, but his motivations are pedestrian.

He's an angry twerp who lives in a fantasy world in which he's God.

As a villain, he's not even interesting.

These are all extremely mediocre people who got as far as they did because the country was in a trance.

I don't don't believe in shocking people or "waking them up" or forcing them to discover how awful things can be.

The fact is, things have been improving steadily for decades.

No more world wars, global extreme poverty will be eradicated, extremism is dying out.

To paraphrase Ryan O'Neal, I'm 57. The plan is to make it to 67, then 77, then 87, then 97, then 107.

It's a great time to be alive.

If you can perceive that, you're as gifted as Donald John Trump.

END