A time to pause and reflect; that is what the holiday season is really for. It could be used in a futile effort to convince yourself you are happy. You could spend it visiting relatives and old friends and giving each other diseases.
A lot of the above has been going on. There may be less of it this year as more people catch on that there is no option to changing the way we live and do things. A lot of people are still uncomfortable with the idea of staying in with themselves or a few close friends, and reflecting on the past year and the prospects for the future.
Many people are uncomfortable with reflection. They also have ways to fill the void, to convince themselves they are happy. This is usually about consumption, but there is somewhat less to consume this year, and less money to consume it with.
Many people still feel the need to travel to visit relatives who often live far from them. A lot of them are presently stuck in airports or trapped by road closures. This is due to the ‘once in a generation storm’ which seems to happen annually now, and this time right over the holidays.
There was ample warning of this but many people decided reality did not apply to them. Winter is never a good time to travel. Cars and planes were never good modes of travel.
If you want to visit the folks halfway across the continent, summer is the time. The Christmas holidays are for staying with those who are physically near to you. Covid times are for staying among people with the mental marbles to protect themselves and others.
Yes, I am an old sourpuss. Pardon me while I dip into my pickle jar again. I am staying alone and comfortable in my home and I feel no urge to go anywhere or see anybody.
The holiday season allows me to take a break from the net; not much is going on. I can reflect. I am reflecting on how I should change my approach to the net and the blog for the next year.
I have already written something about moving away from the essay type pieces I have been doing for the past year. Some of them have got some substantial reads; a few over a thousand. These are mostly about the Ukraine war but I do not want to write just about that.
Lately I haven’t had big reads, but I have not had the dismal ones like when I first started this, either. It is hard to predict how well any piece will do. Sometimes they do better on Substack, sometimes on Wordpress.
I think, rather than go for big numbers, I would rather build a smaller but more committed following. I do not think there is much point in trying to make money doing this. I want to try using the discussion features Substack is trying to develop, and the crosspost function.
I want to return to the way I was using the internet some years ago, back when it was about email discussion lists. The way blog platforms are starting to be used seems to move toward that kind of discussion, again. That kind of platform also makes it easier to control trolls.
But, what ho? Somebody wants to start paying me. He thinks my stuff is worth it. I am not sure what to make of this; as I said, I started this for the love of writing, not to make money.
I do not have anything else to do anyway. In fact, reading, thinking, then writing seems to be the only thing I am any good at. So far, it has not got me seriously persecuted, they way I was when trying to be a social activist.
I get only a few really nasty messages. What is strange is that most of them come from other bloggers.
I wrote something a few weeks back about the problems with government in Toronto. I got a snarky comment from somebody who did not like my suggestions about a written constitution in Ontario, to protect the integrity of local government. He turned out to be someone who, in addition to his blog, had published something in a local newsmagazine regarding The Mighty Mayor.
He was of this anti urbanist persuasion who sees local government as useless and corrupt, run by developers, contractors, and unions. These people still do not go so far as to assert that local government should be shut down and cities run by provincially appointed Gauleiters, but they are getting close. They are blind to the inadequacies of provincial governments.
But this guy fumed at me, sneering at ‘amateur bloggers’ like we should not be allowed, and of course, blocked me. Hmpf! I will continue to blog amateurishly and try to get links to my own stuff on ‘professional’ bloggers comment boxes until they block me.
Citing and crossposting each other’s work is the best way for bloggers who are not funded by influence networks to build up readership. That is why Substack’s new set up is so useful. However, it all this reading and crossposting each other’s work can get very time consuming.
Year end is also the time for a look back at the past year, and forward to the next year.
2022 was the year the terrible twenties really started to bite. It became clear that covid was not going away, it is an artificially created virus, and there are powerful factions in the western oligarchy which will not allow serious efforts to eliminate it. It is used as a tool to kill off those factors of society who are not producing for the oligarchs; retired, disabled, poor people, and me.
2023 will be the year in which it will start to become evident that covid is going to destroy the economies of those countries which have refused to control it. The shortages of goods, the deterioration of services, the inflation, will get more severe. You cannot have an economy if half the working age population is too sick to work.
2022 is the year the Ukraine war finally broke into open conflict. It had been simmering for years as the Western elite endlessly provoked Russia in the belief that it would collapse quickly in an open war. It would give them the excuse to embargo Russia.
Throughout 2023, the obtuse Atlanticist elite will slowly come to realize how badly they have miscalculated. The Russians will slow-grind the Ukraine war to its inevitable conclusion. Then the idiots placed in control of Romania, Poland, and the Baltics can decide if they want to lead their own countries into the same calamity.
The attempt by the Atlantic alliance to isolate Russia will continue to back fire. Instead they are isolating themselves and they have no way out of this. This time they are really finished.
By the end of 2023 I will be able to say a lot more about the kind of world which will emerge out of this mess. It is grim right now, but I think a new golden age will follow from it, as after the second world war. We shall see.
PS. I have done the deed and set up Substack to send me payments. It feels strange to have people paying me just to read my opinions.