Cult, Go Away! Time for Joy is Now

We've been through a lot. Let's leave the shadows behind.

This story is about today’s rally, the state of affairs in New York, and timeless joy, on Valentine’s Day.

First, here is my pre-COVID story of freedom that is very dear to me, a story about being an outsider. It still stands—and it explains why some of us opened our mouths early in 2020, as soon as this whole “New Normal” knocked on the door.

Earlier today, I spoke at a rally in Brooklyn. The speakers were extremely diverse—and every single one spoke about love, unity, standing together, and not getting divided over race, religion, or vaccination status. Every single one spoke specifically about standing for freedom and dignity together, the “vaccinated” and the “unvaccinated.” Clearly a bunch of dangerous terrorists!

The happiest part was the joy on the faces of the people in the crowd and those driving by. The smiles and the honking were so heart-warming!

It’s crazy though, the things we have to fight for. The right to breathe oxygen instead of our own exhaust! The right to only subject ourselves to the medical procedures that we, as citizens of what has been advertised to us as a free country, consider safe! The right to not disclose our private medical records in order to have a bite at a restaurant! All of this honestly is insane. Two years in, still insane, and increasingly so. We are fighting for basics!

(In August 2020, I wrote a story about comparing us to frogs in warming water. I think it was accurate, alas.)

We are being subjected to a kind of psychological grooming that is associated with cults. You know how cult leaders come up with arbitrary rules that restrict and redefine bodily sovereignty and sexuality? How they arbitrarily redefine natural things as unnatural and shameful, and unnatural things as desirable and moral? This is Cult 101—and this is also our life today! And hey, at some point, the CDC even went as far as proposing putting pantyhose on our faces to better secure our masks! That is not weird at all.

And right now?

In New York, it’s a little schizophrenic. On the one hand, tomorrow, there is supposed to be a vote on a piece of legislation that potentially opens the door for a legalization of force-quarantining healthy people based on arbitrary criteria (“arbitrary” seems to be a key theme here). See analysis by 2nd Smartest Guy in the World and a very moving article by Margaret Anna Alice.

On the other hand, they “dropped” mask mandates—but then again, not really. One is still supposed to wear a mask in a cab, on the train, or as a student at school—and shops are allowed to arbitrarily impose mask-wearing if they feel hypochondriac.

Whoever runs this global “health response” clearly hates joy. Case in point:

David Pugliese @davidpugliese

Police in Ottawa @OttawaPolice stood by and did nothing as protesters installed a hot tub in the middle of a downtown street. We have images of police fist bumping protesters...what next...police carrying their bath water or scrubbing their backs?

But you know what, Schwab and other lovers of unnatural things, the more you pressure us, the stronger we get.

On my end, I about had enough. So, to counter the joylessness and the rule of the robots, here is an Armenian song I recorded recently, in case you missed it earlier.

We are free people born for joy. Who says so? I say so.