I cannot in all honesty recommend/follow anybody without raising the specter of failed omnipotence.

There's my favorite YouTube guy for the moment. Love him for his politics and for his goofy skits involving costumes and stuffed animals and Star Trek. But he posted a pretty egregious screed about what he personally would consider hell, granted was a couple years ago, but even so. Going on about social interactions in the supermarket, characterizing them as hell, as though they were poison.

There's my favorite choir director with whom I have had many intense interactions over the years, (I mean, he pretty much rescued me when I came down with Covid in Bulgaria) whom I have come to think of as pretty… unusual. Not only has a relationship, but went so far as to officially marry a young man who is literally young enough to be his grandson. To get him out of a deadly situation. None of my fucking business I get it, but I saw the kid. So shellshocked from the horror of what he had been rescued from overseas that he couldn't even make eye contact.

There's my family doctor from when I was a kid helped me through any number of difficult situations. Turns out he was nutty as a fruitcake. Insisted that he and his wife had such good genes they needed to propagate them (sound familiar?) so they had 10 children deliberately spread the wealth you know. prescribed birth control pills for me when I was 19, but also called IUDs "little abortion makers."

One of my best buddies of all time back from high school hell middle school come to think of it. We just had lunch and once again we have a wonderful chat and we catch up. And then we veer off into deeper subjects and she invariably brings up mystical shit. Like what is that thing? Where somebody talks through somebody else like séances? Mediums? She's got people that she goes to and she'll ask a question and they will respond, but it's channeled. Like somebody else is talking. And she says this with a straight face and I'm like OK whatever floats your boat I'm thinking but not saying it. She's a smart person and she certainly doesn't buy into the current climate of conspiracy theories and such. Such a disconnect. Plus, there's the thing where she shacked up with my dad. That was a tough one.

Then there's my little brother who has a hard-on for a well-known philosopher/Harvard professor, author of several books and up until very recently member of a board of a large atheist organization. I stumbled across a YouTube by my favorite guy [see above] in which he blasts the guy along with a couple of other well known speakers/prognosticators turns out they've all been tossed off the board because of their anti-trans positions. As much as you want just turn away and pretend somebody doesn't say something, if it comes out of their mouth there's your proof right there and my brother is reactive defensive outright almost trying to make a case for oh that's just free speech when come on. Telling somebody else you don't get to exist that's some Nazi shit.

And my old man had lots of bizarro beliefs, like regeneration of collagen. He had bone on bone and he swore by glucosamine, even though there's absolutely no scientific evidence that supports collagen regeneration. Sad but it was entirely placebo effect. Same with some other stuff like anti-flu vaccine and certainly not in favor of just going to town eating anything. Much much more likely to spend more money and buy organic. And swore MSG was giving him some sort of allergic-adjacent reaction. That's debunked and he was a rational man for crying out loud. He hated science fiction because he said it was making shit up and he preferred reality. Totally on board with multiple shooters for JFK. Probably CIA. And outright hostile to the practice of meditation. Now how's that for ironic?

And then there's my youngest son and his wife and my grandson. Since the old man checked out, I very rarely see them. Used to be a regular thing like have dinner together or something. so I did a quickie calculation. Based on the last four years, I have been in their presence or gotten a phone call or some kind of contact maybe once a month. Since Facebook seems to be reliable insofar as my daughter-in-law is concerned for broadcasting news, I can pretty much count on either seeing a picture of a sunset or a picture of a gathering or vacation photos of her and the family. Mundane nonsense. Dollars to donuts that's going to include her mom and dad, or her brother and and his wife and kids. So here's the calculation. If in general, our family is non-religious and in the case of my son actively so, and her side not. As in go to church and are pious. This rankles everybody. I don't mind admitting this is difficult to articulate. What I'm seeing and experiencing is that based on their politics and their religious views, objectively these are people that we would be avoiding. But they're family so we don't. Yet when I reached out for consolation to non-duality and a form of Buddhist adjacent practice, it was not well received. I was told that I was part of a cult. Period. No discussion.

I am not.

In fact, none of my behavior meets the barest minimum of what could be defined as a cult. And yet the statistics don't lie. I'm on one side and her folks, they're on the other. The kids in the middle are facing away from me, who ostensibly behaves in the world in a way that lines up with their beliefs, and toward their church going Republican folks who don't.

What gives?

Is it about old school respect capital R? That sort of tracks. I can see the through line.

But I can also see a lot of paid vacations and a down payment on their house.

Today in the mail, I received my German made egg clacker. It's for soft boiled eggs. I was too lazy to cook one so I tested it on a raw egg. That's not what it's for so it didn't work.

I'm keepin' it anyways.