Psychology says some people avoid socializing not because they hate people, but because they can read them too well. They walk into a room and immediately sense the fake laughs, the hidden agendas, the performances. Their nervous system doesn't misread the signal, it just refuses to ignore it. Small talk feels like a tax they didn't agree to pay. Forced smiles cost them energy that takes hours to recover. They're not broken. They're calibrated differently. They don't avoid people. They avoid emotional labor that leads nowhere. When they do connect, it's deep, intentional, real. No masks. No games. Fewer friends doesn't mean loneliness. It means higher standards. That's not antisocial behavior. That's emotional intelligence.
Search is full of ads and wrong answers. Every other email is an ad. Prime Video charges you and shows ads. Paramount? Ads. Peacock? YouTube? Hulu? Ads followed by more ads. Netflix full of ads. Meta and X, every other thing is an ad. Pinterest is nothing but ads. AI is in everything. AI finishes sentences incorrectly and won’t stop. AI reads your email and search history to target you with more ads. Every time you open an app or visit a site there’s an update making it worse. In a hurry? First, click here to agree to terms you don’t have time to read and must accept. You need an account to do that. Change your temporary password. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email and enter that code. Now use a passkey. Your password is too simple to remember. Change it. No, not like that. Now log on. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email for a code… Welcome back! We’ve updated our terms of service and privacy policy (you have none). Subscribe to the site. Subscribe to Netflix. Subscribe to toilet paper. Subscribe to these groceries. Pay a membership fee for the right to subscribe then tip your driver who delivers the subscriptions your membership lets you subscribe to. Time to work? We’ve got to update your laptop and will slow down everything you do until you agree to update. But first, click here to agree. Update installed — your laptop’s broken now. It doesn’t matter, since your boss just replaced you with AI. Go to your phone to complain on social media. Wait, your phone needs an update so we can add more AI. Click here. Oh sorry, your phone can’t handle this update. Now it’s useless. Go get the newest phone. Here’s a text from a friend, an email, a voice mail they left three days ago but you didn’t see until now because of sync problems with the cloud. It’s their GoFundMe. Their MLM. Their Patreon. Never mind, you didn’t respond to their text within 9 minutes and now you’re no longer friends. They blocked you. Make new friends. Download this app to find people in your area. In your neighborhood. On your street. Two doors down from you. Do you know this person yet, we think you’d get along. You need an account to use this app. That username is taken. Enter a password. Not that one, you used it on another site. You need to be connected to WiFi to download the app. Allow the app to connect to other devices on your network. Allow the app to access your contacts, know your precise location, store your credit card details. Oops, sorry, we got hacked now all that info is available on the web. There’s a class action suit. You can join. It’ll take a decade to get your $3.73 share of the ten billion settlement. We’ll send it via PayPal or deposit it to your bank, just tell us those details. Oh no, another hack. That info is circulating now, too. Here’s a spam call, a spam email, a spam text. Why are you angry? Why are you talking about getting rid of your phone? Why don’t you like AI, it lets us make all of this easier? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? This is progress. You’ll be left behind. Do you want to be left behind? Do you???
Republicans:
- "Happy holidays" = War on Christmas
- Feminism = War on Men
- Terms of Service = War on Free Speech
- DEI = War on Whiteness
- Gay marriage = War on Traditional Values
- Temporary crime spike post-COVID = Race War
- Bombing Iran and killing its leader = Not a war
Twenty years ago we invaded Iraq. The war killed many innocent Iraqis and Americans. It destroyed the oldest Christian populations in the world. It cost over $1 trillion, and turned Iraq into a satellite of Iran. It was an unforced disaster, and I pray that we learn its lessons.
Tweeted this a while back… evergreen.
“Imagine living in a fantasy world where John Piper is a self righteous virtue signaler, Tim Keller is a leftist liberal, and Beth Moore is a sinful Jezebel...
But Donald Trump is gonna save America. 😳”
I think it’s about time I admit my political stance—-
Over the past year I have developed such a disdain for politics as a whole. I think every politician is either a liar or a pedophile or both. I hate them all. Both sides. I hate the commentators, both sides. I cannot stand
When you insist on seeing God in the face of the emperor, no matter how corrupt they are, and refuse to see God in the face of the immigrant being arrested after being falsely accused of being a criminal, you have yet to understand the gospel of Jesus.
There are two ways of being a prophet. One is to tell the enslaved that they can be free. It is the difficult path of Moses.
The second is to tell those who think they are free that they are in fact enslaved. This is the even more difficult path of Jesus.
- Richard Rohr