(Diary)
Very strange evening.
I live in a small town of only a few thousand people. Most working class. (And I love working class people).
I need to finish this document for Court on Monday. Rather, I needed to finish it for Friday but couldn’t do it. Short notice to start with. Tech problems making it worse. And of course, under stress, ADHD problems abound.
I need white noise to work on anything written of substance and overcome the ADHD. So I drive to a local cafe and get most of the way done, then my battery dies. So I drive down the street, there isn’t much in the way of shops in town, so I run in to the dollar store and luckily they have a ten foot lightning cable.
Next I drive to local restaurant, pub. I need power so I take a table for four in the corner near an outlet, and tell the staff that I’ll move if they need the table, but otherwise I’ll move to the bar when my iPad is charged. (Yes I’m writing on an iPad Pro because I dropped my laptop on it’s head.)
I’m not hungry at all, but I need to rent the table so to speak to pay my way. and so I order nachos without cheeze – meaning just chips, and sour cream and salsa to dip them in, and a Corona to drink. I can then nurse this combination for a couple of hours. And Coronas don’t provoke my allergies, so other than Jack Daniels that’s charcoal filtered, and also doesn’t provoke them either, that’s the total range of my alcohol pallette unless I swallow unhealthy amounts of antihistamines.
Shorlty after I get settled, the barmaid who I’ve gotten to know a bit, tells me to come sit at the end of the bar and she’ll plug my adapter in. And I’m thankful. Partly because I know she’ll chit chat with me. And that means I get to take a break and not get too caught up in the work.
So I sit down at the end of the bar, next to the wall, and start working – and after twenty minutes or so I’m getting to the last part of the argument that suggests the mutually beneficial remedies so to speak, before I have to add the signature page and, then write a Motion to Continue because I’m not going to be mentally ready, have my witnesses and such, and the Judge won’t have time to read this missive and think about it before court in the moring – which is scheduled for online.
I don’t like online court AT ALL. I havent done the research on it but it’s quite evident to me given the few cases I’ve worked, that decorum and communication is dampend and conflict accelerated in the online forum.
Thankfully I have a legitimate excuse that my laptops are busted and waiting for repair, and I can’t suffer the court on an iPad or iPhone, and would feel at a disadvantage.
Anyway. I meet a pair of couples all in their 50s that have sold their construction business. I do my thing and learn their life stories. And the four of them are a lot of fun. Especially the two men willing to talk smack to one another. They guy nearest me is hooked in with some VCs and is pushing me for leads so I take his contact info and add it to my list of others.
Next couple is an incredibly fit mid 40s electrician and his wife of four years that’s a realtor. He’s a hard 8 easily, and she scored. But of course she’s a handful and smart. So conversation is good. I get the contact info because she’s with Coldwell real estate.
Then I work for about an hour, and at this point I’m mostly making sure I’ve made sense, was clear, and didn’t repeat myself (which I am want to do).
And this guy walks up and offers me fifty bucks to call him an Uber, because his car broke down. Why he can’t use the phone in his hand of course is suspicious but I’m charitable and I try.
While I’m re-downloading and setting up my phone and trying to log into my Uber account I ask him a series of questions, including name, occupation, how he feels about it, why he’s so stressed (in divorce), and he’s a cardiac nurse in a local hospital – and he’s not lying because some of the details are too accurate.
Unfortunately my phone is new, I haven’t used it to call Uber, and I’m switching carriers now that I actually need a phone (recovering from covid I didn’t). So I only have my international number and Uber won’t take it. He walks outside to make some calls.
I’m feeling that no good deed goes unpunished. But I want this guy to dissapear by now. So, next I try the cab company and they don’t answer. Next I try the local police routine calls number because I know they will solve this problem – and if this guy goes off, I am out of the loop. And they don’t answer. And next the young woman next to me calls the town next door’s dispatch and it turns out they’re who you call from our village. Great, I think. Off my hands off out of the risk of a man on the edge because of overwork, divorce, car breakdown, and unable to get home. I mean, he doesn’t have shoes on, just fliip flops. 😉
Anyway, when I tell this guy the police are coming to help him he goes from hyperstressed to agitated, and starts spiraling. At this point he offers me 200 cash to drive him to a town 30 minutes away. Well, not only am I not doing that, but I am not getting in a car with this guy because my dysfunction detector is now approaching the red zone, and given my current condition I don’t feel like trying to force this guy into submission anywhere, including my car. Next he insists with agitation and slightly suppressed panic, and so I tell him that I”m a good person and trying to help him but I’m not going to do it, so don’t ask me again.
The cops show up, and surpirsingly take great care of him, call a family member, for him, and wait until that person picks him up. And then I spend the next ten or fiftten minutes with back and forth stories learning that not only are these cops great human beings, but they’re the kind of cops we all wish we ran into. This is also a strongly italian ara, especially in the police force, and I’m friends with a rather popular and retired cop from the deparment, so of course stories have to be told, compliments given, names exchanged, and hands shaken.
So I run home contemplating this evening and thinking about all these good people I meet, and how horrific the internet and the media and entertainment, and all the talking classes are. And how dangerous is the collapse of prosocial behavior, especially in the younger generations. And the narrative they experience only confirms the propaganda and indoctrination, because they are so desocialized by other than that internet that they are effectively crippled socially, politically, and mentally.
One of our missions at the instutute, now that we’re converting from R&D to activism, is running events that promote in-person relationship formation (Something I learned from the Mises Institute and the Property and Freedom Society), because even at our scale, every little bit helps.
The Lesson Here?
The upside of being confident and gregarious is that you make a lot of contacdts and easily make friends anywhere. And makingn a game of it is a lot of fun. Because it lets you see, and remember, that there are really alot of good people if you don’t want anything from them and are willing to give them positive attention and reinforcement.
But there is also the downside to being kind, gregarious and confident enough to help others in distress when others won’t.
Sometimes you are the victim of that distress. 😉 And it’s all too often true that no good deed goes unpunished. Because that distress is often self inflicted. And self inflicted distress is often the result of wiring that is not well put together in those few pounds of grey matter etween our ears.
Cheers. 😉