Jill Domschot

…for preorder. I’m working on being a regular author who publishes in a timely fashion and puts up books for preorder. Well, I managed this time to put it up for preorder five days ahead of the pub date. That doesn’t give me a lot of time to get ahead of the game, but I’m not that concerned about that now. It’s ready! That’s what I care about. I have made one more step toward the publishing schedule I’m aiming for, which is one book a year from now on. If I could manage it, I would do two books a year. This is like exercise to me, though. I’m going to start with the weight I can manage to bench press and not the one I can’t even lift off my chest. There will be no stress here.

This is my Amazon description:

When the Alien Peace brings nothing but war…

…it takes the world’s ragtag youth to fight it. Two of them, anyway.

Under the bright sunshine of the innocuous town of Roswell, New Mexico, the aliens landed their ships for the first time, leaving behind a virus that eventually swept the globe. The spread was curbed through a series of vaccines that also cured the Earth of violent men. This curious global stability has come to be known as the Alien Peace. Peace, that is, for all but a lonely few whose minds, damaged from the vaccines, now taunt them with unrelenting noise.

Talat is one of Roswell’s vaccine damaged. After her caretaker publishes censored information about the aliens and ends up dead, Talat flees before the authorities can force her into foster care. This lonely flight ends when an equally damaged young man, Robert, shoots a government official to protect her. Now fugitives, they escape their hometown together…and run right into the aliens’ trap. What was once noise is now clear: the aliens’ prophecies must be fulfilled.

Order of the PenTriagon is the first of a two-book alien adventure series. Get your copy today!

Here is my cover with a link to the preorder page if you click on it:

Yes, I am, and no amount of good things will cover it over. I am livid that our president is in bed with big pharma and is now enacting an executive order to force millions of people in the US to get Covid vaccines. Honestly, I normally don’t know what to do with my frustration but to work harder and longer. That’s what I’ve been doing all day, preparing my documents for the September 20th publication date and tutoring. [By the way, my pub date is still on, though I think I will only have the ebook ready. The reason for that is I need to order a proof, and I don’t yet have a cover. I can’t order a proof without one, obviously. But I can put up the cover art for the ebook in a jiffy.]

Somehow, the frustration, borne by helplessness, creeps in anyway. Do you want to know what I heard on Catholic radio this morning? A vaccine shill spouting his nonsense — it was as if the propagandists were sent out thither and yon to ensure the populace was prepared to accept their tyranny later in the day. I really believe this. The only Catholic station in Roswell is now called Relevant Radio. That should tell you all you need to know.

When I first moved here, it was Immaculate Heart Radio, and I would listen to Catholic Answers even though I was not yet Catholic, as well as a few other great shows that were cancelled when the station became “relevant”. Never — and I do mean never — trust a Christian company or organization that puts the word “relevant” in their title. It means they are not relevant to the faith and have given way to the world and now hold antichrist values. I have continued to listen to Relevant Radio, mostly for the Patrick Madrid show and the Rosary Across America. I’m not going to listen to them anymore, though, not after they put on a Covid propagandist. As an example of the many lies and distortions he told, my favorite was that the delta variant is as contagious as chicken pox. For those of you who don’t know, chicken pox is one of the most contagious diseases known to man. Even NPR wrote an article disproving this wild claim of the CDC, and yet, it was put out like a puff of hot gas on Relevant Radio.

Before I turned off the radio for good, an elderly woman called in to ask why the world around her was so different from what he was saying. “My entire family is vaccinated,” she said, “and now we all have Covid.” She went on to talk about a cousin who died of Covid after vaccination, and another one who is currently in the hospital and probably would not make it. Most people in her neighborhood were vaccinated, she said, and yet Covid was sweeping through, seemingly unaware it was supposed to skip the neighborhoods of vaccinated folks. She wanted to know how she was supposed to reconcile the discrepancy between what was happening around her and what she was being told.

Now, please believe me; I’m not one for putting stock in single anecdotal cases. But what that woman was describing is the same reality I’m experiencing. And many others are experiencing it, as well. When what the propagandists are saying becomes completely flip-flopped from observable reality, that is a sign the propagandists are lying to us, not that we’re irrationally believing in our own anecdotal experiences. See, the thing about science is that it isn’t a pure entity. Only a fool “believes in science” unless that science conforms to observable reality. If the propagandists tried to tell you they’d had a breakthrough and you can now jump off your roofs and come to no harm because gravity has been subverted, would you believe them? I wouldn’t because gravity has been observable reality my entire life, sometimes in very painful ways. That’s why I don’t ever just “believe in science.” Science is only as good as the people conducting it, which means they would have to have no ulterior motives. No profit motives. No power or control motives. No preconceived biases that cause them to dig in their heels even when the evidence does not support them.

Because that show was on at six a.m., my day started with a bad taste in my mouth. It’s as if every organization has stepped into line for our new tyranny-to-be. And then Biden* came out with new vaccine mandates, and now I am silently screaming. I want to drink or eat potato chips (it’s my thing, okay? Everybody has that one food that has to be kept out of the cupboards) or keep working and exercising like a lunatic. It did occur to me that, even if the irrelevant Catholic radio is now spewing statist garbage (they actually have been for a while, but it has never hit this close to home), I am still a Christian. And what should Christians do? Order a case of vodka online? No, they should pray and continue following God’s purpose for their lives. If it’s one thing I’m absolutely sure of, we were created to live in such a time as this. God does not make mistakes. This is our time, right now. This is the only time we have to respond to what is going on in the world and to respond to others’ needs.

*I was harder on the radio shill than Biden. What do I think of Biden? He’s pathetic. He gaslights and makes threats, veiled and otherwise, but he’s unconvincing. He’s at the point of Soviet propaganda when it was so wild nobody believed it any longer.

I was captured by clickbait! This clickbait particularly: Selena Quintanilla: el video publicado por Marco Antonio Solís donde se le ve junto a la cantante. If you don’t know Spanish, it basically translates as Marco Antonio Solís published a video where he is seen with Selena Quintanilla. That’s quite a loose translation, but I’m all about getting the quick sense of a phrase when reading. That’s how I became a fluent Spanish reader years ago, by the way. When I had to translate Sor Juana’s poetry for an honors dissertation later, I took more nuanced care, obviously. Academic work is not fluency work — remember that.

In my wildest dreams, I imagined the video was one in which they were singing together, but that was, alas, not to be. She is shown as the host of a music awards ceremony, one of which he won, and she proceeds to hand him his award. This is the sort of video that hardcore fans will collect and obsess over, especially since Solís put up a teaser before he posted the video. As the article states: Este hecho generó gran emoción entre los fanáticos de ambos famosos. This is a fairly easy translation for even non Spanish speakers, I think: This fact generated great emotion among fans of both stars.

It caused me to click on the link! Let me explain a little about these musicians. Selena is a legend. Most Americans have heard of her by this time; after all, J Lo played her in a blockbuster movie. More recently, Netflix has been making a Selena show, but it is really awful. Beautiful, voluptuous, brown-toned Selena, with her charm and stage presence, is played by a scrawny white Latina vegan who completely lacks stage presence. I only bring up the vegan part because the actress looks unusually skinny, which prompted me to look this up — as in, I guessed she was vegan by her physique. But this post is not about the show, which I do not like (it’s honestly just boring). This post is about things — or people, rather — that I like. Selena has a gorgeous voice and made all manner of interesting, catchy tunes, mixing in music from her and her siblings’ eighties’ childhoods with traditional cumbias and conjunto ballads. Although her brother was responsible for much of this innovative mixing, I’m sure she had some artistic input. And she certainly brought the songs to life with her singing and dancing.

While Selena was American, Marco Antonio Solís is a true-blue Mexican singer. For that reason, you might not have heard of him. He is also not a gen-Xer who was cut down in the prime of musicianship as Selena was; he is a boomer, which means he has decades’ worth of music out there. I don’t like all of it, as some verges on easy-listening. But his voice! Él canta como un angel. Yes, he sings like an angel with all the proper array of emotion and drama. I love him so much (as a musician, obviously)!

If you scroll all the way down in the article, you will see the video of the two singers together…not singing, much to my tristedad. I’ll let you figure that word out. Despite that it wasn’t my wildest dream, I’m sure it’s a great memory for Señor Solís. I’ll also leave you with a video of Solís singing…it’s hard to choose a song, though. He’s done everything from singer-songwriter with a guitar and/or keyboards to traditional mariachi and cumbia. Ah, well… I’ll go with a traditional mariachi because, you know, I love everything that is very Mexican:

No, I won’t be posting every day. In fact, I should be doing other work right now. But of all the things I like, these two musicians are somewhere near the top.

Because what’s going on in the world is so very prescient right now, I’m going to post a few links for your perusal, two of which should be inspiring because they are calls to action (the first and the third). The second is what a lot of people have been saying all along: basic immunology is still true. If you catch Covid-19, you development long-lasting immunity to it. I was floored anyone was arguing otherwise at the start of this pandemic back in 2020. 1. http://The Road to Totalitarianism – OffGuardian (off-guardian.org) 2. http://Harvard Epidemiologist Says the Case for COVID Vaccine Passports Was Just Demolished – Foundation for Economic Education (fee.org) 3. http://What the Church Needs to Know about Covid-19 – by Jeff Childers – ☕️ Coffee & Covid 2021 裂 (coffeeandcovid.com)

Now that I’ve gotten that over with, I’m going to proceed writing about something I enjoy and forget about the state of the world for a few minutes. Is that possible? I believe it is. What do I enjoy? Exercise! But like anything else one can do, it comes with its own set of challenges and moral quandaries. In my case, the two are related.

I started exercising regularly in high school to get outside my mind and to develop my muscles so that I was no longer just the skinny girl, but the skinny muscular girl. I didn’t have a ghost of a chance of putting on weight back then. Trust me, I tried. Since then, exercise has become a point of pride for me. That is, unfortunately, my moral quandary. I’m prideful about my ability to continue exercising after thirty-odd years.

Not everyone can or will. Many get sick, tired, or suffer from an injury and give up. I’ve suffered from multiple injuries over the years and haven’t given up. When I observe the world around me, I see that the people who injured themselves and gave up have deteriorated beyond their initial injuries, while those who didn’t give up have not. Because I’ve managed to “fix” my injuries through continued movement, I tend to fall into the kind of pride common to those who can crack codes that others can’t, even if that code doesn’t take a lot of brain power.

I was thinking about this because it was hard to get back into exercise after I was sick. I didn’t exercise for three weeks, and when I started again, I could only manage short walks and twenty-minute workouts made for women who are above the age of fifty. It felt as if I’d advanced in age five or more years. It was frustrating. It got me wondering if I’d ever be back to normal. And then I wondered what normal was when life isn’t static and age progresses into degradation rather than strength. While it’s possible at any age to improve one’s situation, that situation is constantly in flux.

Now that I’m back to my normal exercise routines, the front of my mind has largely forgotten these philosophical thoughts. Meanwhile, the back of my mind is still processing them. I suppose this is the hazard to sliding too close to fifty for comfort. But to the core of my being, I still believe that giving up at any point, at any age, will be worse for my body and mind than continued movement. So for the moment, I’ll do what I can manage. And then if I arrive at a point where I can’t manage it, I’ll adjust my exercise to meet the new reality, and then I’ll readjust as necessary. The chiropractor is also useful at times.

What does it mean to readjust? It means finding exercises that are specifically meant to strengthen and stretch injured areas of the body so that the body can heal. Sometimes the body will need a rest, but if that rest goes on too much longer than a week (in my case), it’s going to be harder and harder to heal. I’m obviously not talking about broken bones, here, but I did break my tailbone when I was about thirty while rollerblading, and after an adjustment at the chiropractor, it felt better to walk than to sit until healing was complete. I’m not sure the same would hold true for a broken leg or foot bone, however. That is not the kind of injury I’m talking about. I’m talking about strained ligaments, spills that might dislocate something (a couple of years ago, I dislocated my shoulder and fell on my hip while I was at it), aching knees, hips, or backs, and pinched nerves.

Clumsiness aside, many of my injuries have been caused by exercising too much in one specific way, improper stretching, and ditching all my stability work for cardio because I was bored of strength and stability. This string of errors caused an injured knee, an injured hip, and sciatica. For the injured knee, I stopped doing exercise that put stress on my knees and wore a knee band for a while. This took me several years, but I no longer have to wear the knee band, so I guess it worked. For the injured hip, I did flowing stretches rather than static stretches. Although I no longer do yoga because it’s a religious practice associated with Hinduism, at that time, I did yoga for two months straight. The pain passed, but it does come back from time to time, and I have to address it once again through fluid stretching. For the sciatica, I had to do exercises that were focused on stretching and strengthening the back, abs, hips, etc. After about two weeks, I’ve had no reoccurrence of pain associated with a pinched nerve. The sciatica was very painful, by the way. I don’t ever want to have a reoccurrence of it.

My focus right now is on accomplishing a rotating series of exercise types: cardio, strength, and stability (this last is usually core and balance work). Since I exercise six days a week, I simply repeat this series of three twice in a week. Also, I believe walking is very important to maintaining health and will walk seven days a week. This seems to be working for me again, now that I’ve recuperated from my illness. I can’t change my clumsy nature, but I can try to keep my body from becoming cramped and gimpy. I should add that I recently invested in an expensive pair of workout shoes, too.

The problem with accomplishing healthful activities (that work) is that they can be a source of pride, as I already noted. E.g. I don’t eat garbage food, either, like those people do. God does not want us to compare ourselves to others. The opposite of envy is smugness, which is frankly a trait most people find intolerable. The Bible has a lot to say about both envy and pride. On the other hand, healthful living can be a source of satisfaction instead of pride. No human being is invulnerable, but exercise has kept my lab numbers normal for cholesterol, triglycerides, etc. I’m also never been out of my BMI range, not even close. I’m not chiseled, to say the least. I wish I had a slimmer waist, for example, but I don’t. I didn’t when I was eighteen, and I certainly don’t in my forties after giving birth to four children. That is, I guess, where the envy might come in…except I’m at an age when I don’t care nearly as much as I used to.

There you go. I wrote about something I enjoy instead of Covid-19 and the creeping totalitarianism. I know — all I have to do is reach out my hand just a little, and I’ll touch that topic with this one. Exercise. Obesity. Immunity.… Nope, I’m not going to do it. Exercise is fun. I recommend it. Just don’t give in to the kind of pride that will deceive you into thinking you’re invulnerable…because even if you’re not a clutz like I am, your pride will eventually cause you to fall. That’s the state of life and its degradation until we arrive at the end. (But exercise is still fun!)

No, I really wasn’t going to write a post on Covid vaccines or Delta or anything else the media can’t stop yapping about. But here I am, ready to let it all out. Have you ever noticed that one journalist will write a declaration, and all the other journalists will proceed to repeat said declaration with no more facts or figures than the first one had? It becomes a truth statement after a while, something that is simply known and doesn’t need sources. For example, no writer would need a source to state that Annapolis is the capital of Maryland, though he might need a dictionary to spell it correctly. “It’s a pandemic of the unvaccinated” is one. Another is “Cases and hospitalizations have skyrocketed among children” because “the delta variant is surging.” Of course, they’ve been using the word “surge” for over a year now. Get a thesaurus, writers.

This post I’m writing had a couple triggers. One was a local news article I read earlier this week. Another was Pfizer. Just Pfizer — the corporation’s very existence is enough. I’ll get the first one over with. I’m not sure I want to talk about the children. I assume that this new repeated “truth” statement is to ensure that we’re prepared as a population to get our children vaccinated as soon as possible. When the news uses words like “skyrocketing,” you really have to look at what those numbers are — if they make them available. For example, 200 hospitalizations among children in the US is quite small. If it rises to 300, it has “skyrocketed” because that’s an increase of 50%, even though that number is still a blip on any statistical map. Children do get infectious diseases that pass readily through their disgusting, booger-eating fingers, and a very small percentage will end up in the hospital. As I work occasionally as a sub at a school, I can attest that this year is starting out with a bang of illnesses passing through the system. This happens. It’s actually normal to have bad cold/flu years. Do any of us remember what normal is any longer?

I don’t know whether these children are getting the Delta variant of Covid, however. Why don’t I know? Well, let’s see: for the obvious reason that the state of NM isn’t testing for it. Oh, I admit the NMDOH might have done a few tests, but it requires genomic sequencing that we don’t have the resources for. The idea that we have a surge of Delta simply because people are getting sick right now is just an absurd leap from a handful of samples. Now people are going to run around crying, “Do it for the children!” Oh, ay. No, I won’t — whatever it is they want me to do. I hate emotional manipulation almost more than any other tactic. If people try to push me into doing something to save the children or the elderly, I understand that it’s exactly the wrong thing to do. If it were the right thing, they wouldn’t have to use those tactics. I don’t know how to express this loudly enough. I HATE EMOTIONAL MANIPULATION. Seeing as how I never use all caps, perhaps you’ll understand the strength of my loathing.

Now I’m going to move on to Pfizer and the “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” See, the problem is we don’t really have the data to make this claim (and remember I live in a state with an exceedingly lazy, inept bureaucracy, so I’m talking about my state, not yours). That parenthetical statement being said, I rather doubt the data is ever collected as quickly as our news media pretends it is in any state at all. I don’t trust our hospitals for the obvious reason that they can’t even type addresses or patient names or patient information correctly in their computers. They also get a lot of funding for Covid and have jumped on the bandwagon of pushing the vaccines. It’s all about the vaccines! The vaccines will save us! It doesn’t matter that whatever real data is actually trickling in says that the vaccinated population is getting sick with Covid. If we move beyond the US and its lying media and unreliable or missing data, the majority of Covid hospitalizations in Israel (which has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world right now) are among the vaccinated. In the UK, the vaccinated population is the one that is (supposedly) getting Delta. I used supposedly, as I have no idea whether the NHS is doing broad sweeping genomic sequencing on positive Covid tests.

Obviously, there is no pandemic of the unvaccinated if vaccinated people are getting sick at an equal or greater rate with Covid or Delta or both and are, hence, defeating the very purpose of not spreading the disease when they, too, are infectious. It’s all become incredibly ridiculous, and the more ridiculous it gets, the more frustrated people get. There are people suffering in the hospital whose families are frustrated with the politics, and there are people who are callous to the entire subject due to politics, and that latter group isn’t going to have proper empathy for the former group.

That above rant was meant to be a lead-in to Pfizer, whose name might as well be a modern curse word. Pfizer is a behemoth of a corporation that strongarms countries into doing deals with them. Weird deals, where they get military bases and embassies as collateral to their vaccine contracts. This is a company that is making billions of dollars off these vaccines; that’s what they have at stake in pushing them. Billions of dollars and military bases and embassies and…. A corporation that operates this way is not a scrupulous business. It’s not surprising to me that they were the first to get full approval by the FDA. They also know that their vaccines don’t prevent transmission of the virus, which is why they are now pushing a two-a-day antivirus drug that they expect to be soon approved and mandated, right along with their vaccines. So after you get your two “jabs” (ugh, it drives me insane when people use that word…it’s just more emotional manipulation) and 5000 boosters, you can take their pills so they can make an untold more billions. It’s beyond absurd. People on the internet are calling it Pfizermectin; I have no idea what its actual name is, but it isn’t a new branded form of Ivermectin. Why would it be? Remember? Our media and government and Merck have all told us Ivermectin is useless and maybe even dangerous. Also, it’s a generic drug these days and billions can’t be made off it. Or…that other drug Trump was pushing as a possible help: oh, yeah, hydroxychloroquine. That one has been approved and used for fifty years but suddenly became very, very dangerous, as it also isn’t a money-making drug. The Lancet even faked a study on it to prove just how dangerous it is to Covid patients, which was thankfully retracted…after the damage was done.

Okay, so maybe I’m a conspiracy theorist. On the other hand, maybe you could call me a conspiracy realist. History reveals that there are many people in the world whose only aim in life is power and money. They want to rule, and they want earthly gains. Meanwhile, there are real people suffering: patients, family members of patients, people in the medical field. So, while I might believe in conspiracies to an extent, I believe this virus is real and can make certain demographics very ill. That is why the people behind lying media and big pharma companies, who only care about their billions, are heinous and evil monsters.

What is the solution to this? I’ll take honesty for $500, Alex. Honesty about the demographics: obesity can kill you. Honesty about the experimental drugs: if Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine help Covid sufferers, they need access to them. Honesty about immune-supports: how many people with extreme Covid symptoms are vitamin D deficient, anyway? What about a good old-fashioned treatment of iodine? Granted, iodine can be toxic (so can vit D at high enough levels). I added iodine as a possibility only because I started craving seaweed snacks when I was sick, and after finally getting around to buying and consuming two packs*, my energy level returned to normal. I’ve also treated “stomach” flus and colds with Lugol’s in the past — as in, nixed them within a day or two. Seaweed has many more nutrients in it than just iodine, however.

And that’s all I have to say. My rant is over. And for the record, I never give medical advice. I’m not qualified to do so. You should never take any supplements just because I think it’s fun to experiment on myself.

*By packs, I mean the little ones called “snacks” and sold in the Asian section at the grocery store.

Here are some related links; I honestly just ran out of time to find all the ones I wanted, but these will suffice for now (the first one is relevant in as much as it provides a table of actual numbers): BOMBSHELL UK data destroys entire premise for vaccine push – by Chris Waldburger – Chris Waldburger (substack.com)

A grim warning from Israel: Vaccination blunts, but does not defeat Delta | Science | AAAS

I’ve been sick. I was actively sick for about a week and have been dragging with exhaustion in the couple of weeks since then. Before somebody gets the idea that our times are worse than all times that have come before it because of Covid, this bout of recent illness rather reminds me of the old days when my immune system didn’t function very well and illnesses that dragged on like this were simply part of my reality. My immune system didn’t improve until I gave up wheat and dealt with severe zinc and vit D deficiencies.

Living in the world is not perfect and will never be perfect, however. Illnesses come and go. Sometimes, they are severe and knock people down; that’s why I’ve been at a loss to understand why people are in such a panic over Covid. To me, it’s just a part of life, another struggle, another assault like any other. But I’ve also never been prone to anxiety. Don’t get me wrong — I’ve felt anxiety at moments. I know it isn’t any fun to be anxious; it’s a somewhat harrowing feeling, and I’m thankful I don’t constantly live in it. Hear me out for a moment: it doesn’t change anything. A feeling of anxiety might cause a person to react in negative ways to the world around them, but the feeling itself doesn’t change material reality.

This exhaustion has led me to giving up my usual routine and focusing only on the immediate tasks I need to do for work and my family. I’m very given towards routine. It’s hard to give mine up. I’m not much of a planner; I’m not terribly organized. But I follow a routine that normally keeps me fit, keeps my house clean and my yard looking decent, keeps me writing books and following all the hobbies that keep me ticking. I’m sure I’ll find the energy to bring my old routine back. I know the way these long illnesses work — I’ve already said as much. Baby steps are key, as well as absorbing every available spot of joy I can find. Finding a sense of continuity so that the world doesn’t feel chaotic is essential.

Over the years, when recovering from these illnesses, it’s usually music that brings me back to life. Binge-watching TV gets old. Books are all right, but it’s hard to read when my eyeballs are seared into my brain like hot pokers. Music, on the other hand, is easy. Music hits the soul and mind simultaneously and can elevate both. I still fondly remember the tunes that brought me hope twenty-odd years ago. I might not even like the artists who made the songs, or — let’s be honest — the songs themselves. For example, when I was about twenty-five, I remember dragging myself up and staring out the window over the kitchen sink to see the New Mexico sky and the landscape filled with the barest hints of spring, and I had a sudden hankering to turn on the hand-crank radio that sat on the windowsill. The radio was set to a pop station, which I rarely listen to, and the song that was playing was Nelly Furtado’s Like a Bird. Oddly, the song sounded amazing to my ears, and I later bought the album…though, again, pop music just isn’t usually my thing.

I know you must be waiting with bated breath for the great song reveal that has brought me hope this time around. Well, yes, there is one. It’s rather strange. Of course, it’s a Mexican song; what else would it be? This post illness exhaustion happened to coincide with my son’s days back at school, and for unknown reasons, one of the local Mexican stations has been playing a song by Grupo Pegasso called Cosas del Amor every day at the same time when I’m driving to my son’s school. It’s not a new song at all — I do not know what DJ has queued this particular song up to play every day at the same moment like a cuckoo clock: time to pick up your son. But there it is. The song is magical. I can’t deny it, and now it’s constantly playing in my head. Sometimes, when I’m exhausted and I lie down for a rest, I put the song on at home, too, and imagine I could float away in it. Maybe I could become the song. Do you ever have such fancies, that you could float away into the ether as you become music? I’m probably slightly insane, but it’s something I fantasize about all the time. Maybe I’ll catch a ride on the back of a flying horse, as a pegasso is exactly what it sounds like it is…or I believe so. I believe! I believe!

If you want to listen to this magical song for yourself, here it is:

The rugged individual of American lore has taken a beating lately. Many people of my generation, who are not just individualistic but rebelliously so, have realized the worth of community and tend to look scathingly on the mythos we were brought up to believe in. On the other hand, collectivism — which is a sham version of organic community — has always been attractive to a certain set, usually those who cling to a Marxist mythos instead. But it’s my contention that as American individualism goes the way of dust, our community blows away with it. Or maybe it has already blown away, and here I am beating a dead horse (because, as everyone knows, mixed metaphors involving the winds of time can and should involve beating horses — but why would anyone beat live horses, anyway?! That’s cruel.) Individualism is a cultural value, but it’s cultural largely to pre-WWII era Americans. Now that eighty years have passed since the milestone of the 1940s shifted everything, I’m not sure we can go back.

What is the mythos behind the Rugged Individualist? From whence desert spring does it sally forth from? Now I’m bringing all my metaphors into a wonderful picture: dust in the wind, horses, and desert springs. The Rugged Individualist was the type of person who could uproot himself from a home in the east and travel to the west, where he had no roots, where there were quite likely no immediate water sources, where plains met deserts and everybody got just a little dusty on the trip. But let’s hope nobody beat his horses to keep them plodding. Communities formed around these rugged people; they could survive on their own, but it was much better with likeminded individuals surrounding them.

What happened in the 1940s to change things? Well, a large federal government rallied the nation to pull together as a unit and support the war effort. We already had a large federal government; we gave into that many years before the 1940s. But there wasn’t the push for working together like in the war years. Families rationed and went without; children collected things; women went to work in the factories. This sort of communalism probably also lent itself to socialism being more widely accepted. After all, not only was there a not-so-distant memory of the first world war, but also of the Great Depression, and socialist writers could subtly alter everyone’s memories with their propaganda. Yeah, I think I’ve written before about how much I despise writers like Steinbeck. I’ll give him a pass for now because there was an inspiration for this post, and it wasn’t The Grapes of Wrath. Not really. It was a glimpse of the odd changing times I witnessed last weekend.

Sometimes, my husband and I go to Lubbock for our anniversary. It just so happens to be one of the closest big cities outside of Roswell, where we live. Now Lubbock is the epitome of a ranching and oil town — a real western cowboy stop. I mean, yeah, we’ve got the history of Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett in my county, but Lubbock has a similar culture, and it happens to be in Texas. Or I thought it had a similar culture but was more politically right than where I live. I do live in one of the only red areas of New Mexico, for the record, but there will always be the blue bleed-over, simply because of being inside the borders of a blue state. I thought Lubbock was culturally more red until I decided to visit one of their churches for Mass. The Lubbock diocese rules are astonishingly authoritarian and collectivist in nature. I was annoyed by even the modicum of rules in my own diocese, but these rules are much more extreme with pews still cordoned off, no allowance for individuals to socially distance themselves on their own, and no freedom of movement. By that, I mean the parishioners are forced to wait in line to be ushered to a seat, and they aren’t allowed to leave until they are ushered out. And despite that the governor had nixed the mask mandate, masks are still mandated inside the churches for everyone, regardless of vaccination status.

But this is an interesting conundrum, isn’t it? The Catholic church isn’t really collectivist; in fact, most Catholics are opposed to communism on principle, but it is communitarian in nature and has a hierarchical authority structure. So while I do believe the larger church culture will come into play, the local culture also influences how Catholic churches behave in a community. Parishes are both outside and inside the culture. It’s a balancing act, I think, the same way that Christians as individuals are supposed to be operating in the world but not of the world. But any church is going to operate as a microcosm of the people in the community and what they will accept. From my glimpse at Lubbock through the lens of the Catholic church, they are willing to accept a lot of collectivism. Actually, I saw this at the local mall, too, where the stores were operating very much like the church with long lines of people waiting to get in and masks required.

It was disheartening to me because I haven’t yet been able to reject the Rugged Individualist ideal — and there seems no place left where this is a reality. My husband and I keep looking and thinking — oh, maybe Wyoming is the last bastion or South Dakota or even Alaska. But I imagine even those places have been influenced by the long years since WWII. It really has been a long time, so much time to lose the good aspects of individualism, such as being able to repair your own roof and car, grow your own food, and sew your own clothes from cloth you wove yourself by the light of candles you also fashioned. Those were the days, right? I don’t know. I’ve never lived it. But I used to listen to my grandparents and great grandparents talk of people being able to do for themselves and somehow manage to have closer communities around them than we have now…when we wait in line with fifty people we don’t know and don’t care to know and later parrot on social media about it all being for the common good of those people whose faces are obscured by masks.

For the moment, though, I can be grateful that my diocese has pulled their toe from those desert spring waters of collectivism. I doubt very much that’s what it’s really about, though. Oh, maybe it is. Maybe I’m cynical and see the local cultural influence is simply sheer laziness at enforcing authoritarianism. In the past, this laziness has always made New Mexico surprisingly livable….