Please excuse a self-indulgent, somewhat rambling thread.

I've been thinking about TM ever since I saw his anti-Semitic tweet earlier today. Actually, I spend more time than is probably healthy thinking about TM. It's weird, but I feel a sort of kinship with him.

Obviously, there are way more differences than similarities. He's much more intelligent than I am, for one. He has a large, lovely family and I'm increasingly worried I'll die alone. He has, for a trad Catholic personality, a huge platform, and I've got 27 followers.

Here are the (tenuous) connections : we're both converts, we were both once conservative Catholics, and both of us have seen are understanding of and approach to the Faith change over the past several years.

I don't know whether or not he would concede that last point, but as someone who read his blog and listened to his podcast 7-8 years ago, I stand by it.

And that's another thing - I benefited from his stuff around the time I became Catholic. Deep in his podcast archives, there's an episode called "Did You Miss God's Plan for Your Life?" I listened to that one more than once. It was genuinely encouraging at a time when I needed it

So I'm darkly curious about the transformation of TM into an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist who hates Vatican II, the ordinary form of the Mass, Pope Francis, ecumenism, and indigenous form of Catholicism.

And why didn't I, as a fellow theologically conservative convert, follow a similar path? His conservatism hardened into a rigid and paranoid traditionalism. Mine gave way to a more dynamic understanding of Tradition. But why? I'm not better than him; I'm certainly not smarter.

I can't even claim to be more open to change. I accept and welcome it in theory, but it still makes me a little uncomfortable, if I'm honest. I wonder - if I had read different books, listened to different speakers, would I have become a Viganoite, too?

Perhaps politics is what saved me. Even at my most theologically conservative, I've never been politically conservative. I suspect I'd have balked at the point where they aligned themselves completely with Trump and the GOP.

Regardless, it's probably time I let go of my dark fascination with the man and the obsessing over counterfactuals. Here took his path; I took mine. I doubt we'll ever be on the page again.

That was a touch dramatic, but I like it. A good place to end.