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People are deeply hostile to the reality, no matter who you are, that fulfilment and happiness and ‘living a worthwhile life’ essentially come down to a very simple recipe.
Marry young(ish) to someone of good temperament, have a reasonable number of children (three or more), work a job you can somewhat stand, have some kind of spiritual life. Above all, tend to a dense circle of friends and family who you trust and who trust you, who live nearby and who you see often. Save a little money if you can. Try to do good by those who care about you.
This advice is proven over countless generations. It applies to almost all people, everywhere in the world. It is attainable for everyone in the global middle class and above, which is everyone here and certainly everyone writing political commentary on the internet.
But it’s also kind of scary, because if it’s that easy to be happy and fulfilled despite living in a decadent, empty, atomized, soulless, blah blah blah modern hellscape (etc etc), then why aren’t you doing it? Masturbation about joining Wagner or the Foreign Legion or fighting a war against China or leading The Revolution is much more interesting, because the very fact that these things are unlikely to happen means that they confer no obligation or even pressure to improve.
The fact that the recipe for happiness is so easy is precisely what makes it so terrifying, because it means failure to achieve it is usually our own fault.
You say this and yet a lot of the spite is generated precisely by the inability to realize this vision.
You brush away in a single sentence all the legitimate reasons why living a good life in in fact nigh on impossible for most people today.
I would bet a small fortune that if the author could get what you describe with reasonable effort, he wouldn't be where he is.
But of course since virility axiomatically requires an internal locus of control in all things, it's his fault that he fails even as his entire society is stacked against the very idea of this simple happiness. Sucks to suck, git gud.
Where you err in my view is in what to do about this. The rational answer here isn't to try harder to live the good life in the face of insurmontable obstacles like a dupe. It is in fact to destroy society or escape it.
Systems that refuse to do what is necessary to sustain themselves deserve to die.
And this is true at all scales.
You’re not going to realize this vision if you’re doing ketamine and cocaine and having “polyamorous” “relationships” in your 20s
Look at the Mormons for the most extreme example. No, actually this is attainable. You just have to actually follow the rules.
Not everyone has the luxury of tradition, religion, family or even any sort of belonging. Mormons are immensely privileged and the least central of examples.
Try to get a traditional relationship as the average Western 20 something now, see what happens. Fucking try.
There literally aren't places for you to even look for those things anymore. And most of the people who advertise themselves as available are degenerate in the ways you describe or other worse ones. This is true of both sexes. And, unfortunately, of large portions of those that are still nominally religious.
I've followed the rules my whole life, I've met dozens of people who did. The rules don't lead anywhere anymore for most people except lone misery. Because the institutions that backed them are not there anymore.
Everyone is desperately trying to replicate the radio call that brings about the cargo plane with the home, the car, the wife and the kids. The intricacies of which buttons to press in what order, and the significance of every gesture are subject to great debate. But it's not working. Nobody's listening on the other side.
what stops someone from joining the mormon church? If you dont have tradition you can buy into some, after all converting new people is a big part of the Mormon tradition with the missions that guys go on.
I have a friend who actually did this. Met him at a tech job about 15 years ago in the bay area, and he appeared to be a clean-cut nerdy Mormon. Got to chatting with coworkers and found that just a year earlier he had been a normal tech dork (working for Falcon video no less, a well known gay porn company) and had converted recently.
I got to talking to him after working there a while and in a moment of...something, he confessed to me that he didn't really believe the Mormon doctrines, but had converted in hopes of getting a wife and family.
The thing is : it worked. He actually did get married, have kids, and move to Idaho to be a Mormon. From what I understand he is still living this way to this day.
I think it's fantastic that someone did that. And, yes, I think it would probably work!
But the fact that we're talking about this one example as some sort of strange and rare specimen shows you that the advice is not very practical. If it were so easy, surely more people would be doing it.
Even though it's possible for people to overcome their upbringing, we'd surely benefit if society was structured in a way that is more conducive to forming stable marriages.
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