“Epictetus believed that happiness and inner peace are entirely within our power, but sometimes hit shore don’t seem that way ennit.

Anyway it’s a starting point. Once again we are thus indebted to the Einzelgänger

who (nevertheless) goes on to note:

From that point forward, I think you might be able to see why I entertain doubts about the ultimate utility of this philosophy you have on offer.

Just as I am able to see why you might be dubious about my Diogenes-leaning and more anarchic spin on it.

See also: “aligned with Nature”, and what that might really mean, or could possibly mean

within the capitalist

Anthropocene.

***

Maybe you know the names, or maybe not.

Team One: Bret Weinstein, public intellectual, and Walter Kirn, novelist

Team Two: Whitney Webb and Jeremy Loffredo, journalists of a sort

All of them have pretty good hard-left credentials, but the teams are engaged in a bitter hot twitter shooting war, a barn-burning tempest in a rhetorical teapot.

Whitney Webb Triggers Weinstein Tantrum With Facts

That which is being debated isn’t very interesting or important.

The analysis offered by DD in the video is, at least to me.

… because once upon a time, it seemed as though making professional-level money by becoming some kind of ‘content creator’ was a sure-fire way to maintain ones integrity and live truly free.

I’m rather convinced now that it’s not all that straightforward or simple–not just because of this example, either. Some of those video-game essayists I’ve been watching avidly make some of the same points about the world of game reviewing.

As creators of content we are, it turns out, very much at the mercy of those who watch and support us, in nebulous but nevertheless concrete ways.

Fortunately or not, I’ve never yet made any serious money from this. So theoretically, my motivations can still remain Pure.

There are about three or four people in my audience regularly, according to Jetpack and YouTube analytics. Similar numbers over there at Patreon, where all of the actual support comes from. And critically, there is some overlap between audience and supporters, but not complete congruous 1:1 overlap.

The Lord, she moves, in mysterious ways. I don’t even pretend to understand things like the Unholy Algorithm, and I have zero interest in trying to fatten up my bottom line by clever use of the plague known as social media.

In part, throwing down that first job application was an admission of failure, or … if not quite that, at least … resignation, to the facts about how this world works, whether online or in the meatspace world of allegedly real jobs.

I tried like hell to bargain with the devil. It didn’t work out.

I do have a roof, nevertheless, and if I go hungry it’s because I choose to.

That much, and a pickup truck and a camp trailer, and the freedom to say whatever the hell I want to say …

Is enough for me, six days out of seven.