I was going to title this one “Treating People Really Well” but my writing professor from college popped up into my head and said, “Steven, don’t you dare.” She was a saucy minx. She liked to be seductive with her students. She’d been a beauty when she was younger. She was one of the more competent professors I had.
Hello, how are you? It’s been a minute.
I wanted to write about an ethos I keep — this is one treating people well.
People are unaccustomed to being treated well. There is a myriad of reasons for this. Up until the last 20-30 years, I would say people haven’t been that self-knowledgeable. There have been exceptions, such as Carl Jung or Hermann Hesse, but self-knowledge hasn’t been a thing for all that long. It probably got its wings with Nathaniel Branden. I’d like to think I’ve contributed to the canon but my life’s greatest works are still ahead of me.
In pockets, here and there, people have been treated well. Colonial America is an example of this. The parenting was decent and the markets were free. America ceased to be a Republic in 1913 with advent of central banking and the horrendous income tax. This gave the people license to be rotten shits to each other. Restraints were lifted. When I was a wee child, you could still pick up on the Old Republic if you were around people in their 80’s and 90’s. Those people were so kind. People who were parents through the Great Depression. A lot of the Silent Generation people were very kind as well — people who were children through the Great Depression.
Sometimes I take a step back from social media, as I have in July and now August, to read old books and regain an older sense of life. Nobody ever talks about the neurotransmitter signature you get from old books. It’s one of the great delights of life, available to all.
But I digress: when you are self-knowledgeable, you have endeavored to overcome personal struggles and setbacks that others have not. You have the wisdom to point the way where others will falter. And if you do it with a lot of kindness, you show a kind of grace and humility that allows others to trust you more deeply.
I believe in showing an interest in the interests of others because it allows them to deepen their interests.
I believe in listening attentively to a person’s concerns and asking how they think things could be improved.
I believe in celebrating another’s moments where they do right by their conscience.
I believe in using failures as fuel for teaching moments where a person can pick themselves back up and get it right the next time.
I am not a limitless resource in these regards but I aim to improve my availability. Drop me a line at stevefranssen@protonmail.com if you could use my feedback on something you’re going through.
You cannot gain the gifts of creativity, humor, joy, and solace if you are an asshole. An asshole may know there is some value in these and will mimic them but to those who are truly good, these efforts will fall on deaf ears.
Good and evil repel one another.
If you allow yourself to be corrupted, you will bring more evil and suffering into your life.
If you make strident efforts at doing good, more and more goodness will come into your life and evil will leave your life.
America is suffering because people have allowed their consciences to be bought off by welfare payouts, particularly Social Security and Medicare, but also through government employment – which is a form of welfare.
America is at a crossroads, will the generations after the Boomers further embrace the all-encompassing State or will they reject it in favor of self-reliance, the free market, and an unwillingness to bring aggression into their personal dealings (everyone calls da policia these days). Will Americans reject the mass welfare program that is mass migration?
Will the younger generations be seduced by the power principle? Will they take the Luciferian bargain of, “Everything’s broken, may as well break it further” or will they join the quiet ranks of those saving for a rainy day?
Sometimes I think a lot of my efforts fall on deaf ears. Often I ask people to read for subtext. Often I am quiet because I believe silence is good for clarity of thinking and for connecting with others. Maybe I will go back to liking pomp and circumstance at some point. I’m not ruling it out!
Being treated well, to a person who has known nothing but dissociation and the madness of modern living, is sometimes overwhelming. The nutrient density is too high and the person’s defenses reject it. When you have a rich message, only those who can receive it will benefit from it. If you vulgarize your message to reach for more universal appeal, as good businesspeople often do, you also lose touch with some of the glimmer that happens when you are truly on your edge. I would prefer people be on their edge and so that is the message I transmit.
I adore when people are at their edge. When good people do well, I embrace their success and root for them harder than ever. I am happy a White gal is top of the charts right now. I am glad Trump is keeping that Border shut, even if I don’t agree with much else he’s doing. I’m happy Sophie Cunningham sold out her Adidas shoe. Good people make more freedom for other people. People are convoluted, some good and some bad. I love when the good in a person shines out and makes life freer for other people. That, to me, is the only interesting component of the news cycle. I don’t concern myself much with the going’s-on of evildoers. Why give them the attention? Why put this Mustang of a brain in service of those ends? The only morally pertinent developments are when people do good. They show others the strength, courage, and dedication it takes to spread more virtue.
I think this all starts from being treated really well. I have a sweet voice when I speak with people. People have long said it’s soothing. The world needs so much more of that. As the world becomes more just, I look forward to having more and more responsibility within it.
Until then, talk to you soon!