Mr. November
Hey beautiful people,
We relaunched the Metagame Mastermind today, and we introduced a new “safe-to-fail game” we will be experimenting with.
If you could not attend the session today but want to be a part of the experiment, watch the video below, and message me if you want access to the accountability spreadsheet and the shadow journal.
***
Tomorrow’s events:
Stoic Breath: Sunrise Edition w/ Steve Beattie. Every Monday @ 6:15 AM ET.RSVP here.
Stoic Provocations: The Problem With Social Science w/ Jane Gatsby. November 2nd @ 12:00 PM ET. RSVP here. 120 mins.
Recent Results in Ignorance Studies w/ Sarah Perry. November 2nd @ 6:30 PM ET. RSVP here.
Newly posted event:
The Metagame Mastermind: Limbic Unhijacking Part 2 w/ Peter Limberg. November 8th @ 6:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
An event to get excited about:
Settler Sexualities w/ Kim TallBear. November 6th @ 8:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Professor Kim TallBear visits The Stoa to discuss “settler sexuality,” which is the idea that Indigenous sexuality has been supplanted with the sexual modernity of settler subjects.
***
November 1, 2020
I won't fuck us over, I'm Mr. November
I'm Mr. November, I won't fuck us over
I won't fuck us over, I'm Mr. November
I'm Mr. November, I won't fuck us over
These are lyrics from the song Mr. November, from The National, which I am listening to now on repeat. It is really landing for me when I hear Matt Berninger sing “I won't fuck us over” repeatedly.
I am reminded of what Rorik told me about Saint Peter, who I thought I was archetypically plugged into when I was going a little mad: Peter was dense, a screw up, and even denied his Lord three times, but he repented.
In those earlier journals, when I was experiencing the madness, I was writing stuff like this: I am not hanging myself on this upside-down cross, in an act of Satanic virtue signalling, but I am here to tell you that I do not feel worthy, and I strongly sense that being in the right relationship with that is the foundation of virtue.
When Saint Peter was crucified, he did so with his head facing down, and apparently this was because he felt like he was unworthy to be crucified in the same way his Lord was. I dig that.
I am totally trying to present myself in these journals as this super awesome guy, who is hyper competent, and really intelligent, who just so happens to be cute. But honestly, before The Stoa came into existence, I deeply felt like a screw up. I was a fuck up, who messed things up. I was a Game A loser.
I probably should be more charitable to myself though. In a denotative sense of the word, people probably would not call me a “loser,” as I went to a good University, and held down decent jobs for most of my adult life, while building somewhat of a career, albeit an uninspiring one. Most importantly though, I have been in a monogamous relationship with a beautiful and loving woman, who is now my wife, since I was 23.
Despite these “good” things, I've often felt like I was a loser. I've never felt like I lived up to my potential. I goofed around during school, and I did not get good grades. The same thing can be said for all of my jobs. I did not really try, and I got really good at not trying. I got good at half-assing my way through life. I chronically procrastinated in pretty much everything I did.
To give all of this a more heroic spin, I sense the reason why I did not try was that I intuitively knew it was a trap, one that I was being shamed into. I went to school, and got a normie job, not because something deep within my soul was telling me to do so, but because I felt like this was something I had to do. I did not want to disappoint my parents, and I wanted to keep up with my peers, and not become a loser and fall behind.
Fearing about becoming a loser, makes you a loser. The daemon does not want to hang with that energy, and during those dead player years, he did not hang out with me. He is here now though, and I no longer feel like a loser, and I am definitely not half-assing things anymore.
I feel called, alive, plugged in. This fuck up is not going to fuck us over, or at least he will try his best not to. I have gotten my Stoic Cowboy on, and I have ridden into the uncharted territories of the noosphere, while cringingly declaring myself your Stoic Daddy, and I am here now to tell you something …
I am so fucking down for us to start playing a new game.
***
patreon.com/the_stoa