It Doesn't Stop

Or the ride never ends. Lessons from a feral childhood for navigating changing realities

Dale Mathis, David Mechanica, 21st century, polychrome wood and silver composite mechanized sculpture with motorized gears

One pleasure of this Substack is seeing things fit together in new ways. It’s natural when different but related stuff is gathered at the front of the mind. Here it’s a range of social and behavioral topics from a bunch of angles and scales. It’s not surprising that connections appear. When you think about it, [self-awareness + situational awareness] covers the entirety of life. Who you are and what’s going on around you. My perennial charge to “ignore the narrative” means the media and institutional spray of nonsense, lies, and fake ontology. Do pay attention to socio-cultural trajectories because that’s what has to be navigated. Flexibility and timing in an uncertain future depends on it. The opposite direction works too, when something old or small shines a light on something current and big. Anyone can see the House of Lies has sapped [socialization] and [doing things] proficiencies at a time when they appear needed. Who’d have guessed narrative-huffing neglect offered a cure. ¹

The idea of feral childhood has come up a few times. This was a unique [functional society / parental neglect] matrix with a huge formative impact on Gen X. It may be worth a future post - and not for boomertastic [how cool it was] reasons because I’m not clinically retarded. Because of how bizarre it was in hindsight, and the unexpected lessons for a late-stage House of Lies. A couple of preliminaries.

Intra-generational nostalgia has to be relevant to offer commentary on current realities. Including being honest about the real circumstances the tales reflect. This should be obvious. Then again, boomer advice is such an atrocity because it all starts from the mindlock belief Clown World is real. It maps a landscape that doesn’t exist. Real things like laws of physics or SSH dynamics stay relevant because reality is consistent not flickering illusion. Situations repeat, so solutions stay … solvent.

So useful connections between topics. In this case where personal-anecdotal, socio-historical, and currently useful overlap.

Rob Lambert, Mark and Santa 1977, photograph

Connecting impressions != universal declarations or sociological expertise. Impressions and reflections are truthful but personally filtered. YMMV. Truthful because the [personal-anecdotal] has to hit two marks. Applicable to a big swath of my generation [socio-historical] and relevant in hindsight to downstream socio-culture [currently useful]. The swath is the large number allowed to be born and grow up in the generic assumptions of 70s-80s [rural-small town-small city-outer exurb] continuum of “normal life”. Call it the Non-Urban Continuum. The contemporary value comes from reality-based organic socialization inoculating against future House of Lies. It’s not being critical to call lack of organic socialization is problematic for people moving outside Chez Clown. They themselves identify it as an obstacle. It’s a big reason why Sigma Game blew up and these posts have what readers they do.

I’ve only recently thought about how unusual our childhood was sociologically. Every child imprint normalizes what they know. But I can’t think of a prior generation of kids in Western history that were just blown off by their parents. Inter-generational bonds were always the norm. It’s how cultures continue. Not coincidentally, the idea of aggressive horizontal identity only even became a thing with the boomers. And that came after their biological childhood. [Optimal social outcome] as zero-sum generational war was literally a brand new experiment. Parental responsibility was rejected with the full vigor of social responsibility. More even, because our existence ran a timer beside “forever young”. And that’s before resentment for the noontide of our youth and beauty. Independence wasn’t unique - the Bastables and Pevensies and the like seemed comfortable and had lots of freedom. It’s the solipsistic neglect. Putting God and Country social purpose or bettering family fortunes over children isn’t optimal. But it’s infinitely better than jettisoning them for consumptive, venal, infantile, low-wattage materialism.

But aggressive parental disinterest is only half the equation. Behind that, the larger socio-culture still made sense. Outside the underclasses, life looked a lot like the high-trust, unregulated, basically fair set of assumptions our grandparents grew up with. What “America” called to mind.

The outcome was a unique natural ecosystem but with ingrained boundaries and norms. It got a lot darker as we got older, but that’s a different topic. Childhood was idyllic in hindsight. It’s why my Dazed and Confused insight came so easy. A fake bubble of real organic freedom in an utterly fake consumption machine was … life. Just adjusted for the times. Because the difference between Carousel of Progress and The Terminator as futurescope was … significant.

Mike DuBois, Golden Road, licensed Grateful Dead print

The reality is our generation is split - the divide is [sunny good times] as the assumed future. Some caught the last cars of the boomer train and erased themselves from future consideration. The rest caught the vanguard of today’s dysfunctional socio-economy. Obviously nothing like what Millennials and Zs face now. But the salad days that everyone treated as perpetual were already over in our teens and none of the “explanations” made sense. It’s why we seem more reality-facing than people just a few years older.

For the NUC, opportunity dried up, and then things got expensive. A new kind of social stratification appeared. We were the first generation where “everyone has to go to college”, but programs and institutions hadn’t mushroomed absurdly. Staying or going was was like predestination. Gotta get out of this place and make it in “the city”, you see. Who cares if it’s civilizationally unsustainable - every channel presented it as the natural course of life. Plus, where we got in gave the boomers something else to posture over. So the organic idylls of feral childhood ended in different ways. Some of us would be going on to a shot at an echo of boomer life, a new kind of feral playground, or both. And others wouldn’t. That’s another topic - the point here is that we were slotted into the House of Lies’ channels without realizing it.

Norman Lindsay, Victory, lithograph

The point is that neither was acceptable. We’d grown up split between functional society and the Tao of boomer and both sucked. Number one had been destroyed economically and I lacked the perspective to see the organic solution. Number two was the platonic form version of my parents’ solipsism. I’d had my systemic fakeness “vision” sophomore year and saw the Macro Arc soon after. The success habitrail was unthinkable. Ignore the nihilistic hedonism of the post-college Singles years. The first lesson was that if all the system paths are unsustainable, the problem is the system paths.

There obviously has to be a system. There’s always a system. Ancient Sumer was a system. The Chippewa had a system. Organized people > unorganized people, therefore system. Ours does do distribution and services on an unprecedented scale. But enter the second lesson. That’s all it is. There’s no objective truth or mystical essence beyond morality - and that extends from the people. Systems order social reality but aren’t reality. Networks of man-made abstract and physical rules, paths, rewards, threats, that exist within reality. That can be observed, read, and reacted to without emotional investment. For or against the system is a category error, unless a rival is somehow on offer. Like for or against the weather. Preferences are real, but that’s not analytical decision making.

Union of the Impossible, In the Network, 2021, oil on canvas

The third lesson then is that feral childhood never actually stops. Not on the read, and react level. There are just new situations and expectations. Structurally, all it was was navigating a mix of organic reality and ingrained boundaries. The real nonsense was abandoning holistic analysis for slots in the House of Lies. Then “correcting” with equally nonsensical just be yourself puffery. Since then, the split just gets wider. The internet made the system an all-pervasive “knowledge economy”. The pressure to play only intensifies, but returns are diminishing. [College = nice home on Elm St.] has gone the way of [good job at the plant out of high school] for most. To the point where generations are facing socially transformative standard of living drops. There are lots of factors, but all add up to fake can’t fake forever. Working with [the system as it is] as one part of [living in reality] has never been more important.

Relevant anecdote - as the youngest in the cul de sac crew, it took maximum effort not to be a liability. There were advantages to older friends, but they came with never being the lead. My suggestions were rarely taken up. Being one of the first picked was inconceivable. Just keeping up/playing/hanging took all my energy and smarts. But among age peers, my physicality and decisiveness stood out. I seemed “formidable” despite being socially unintuitive. In ways being a cognitive outlier didn’t bring. A fourth lesson is that you can stay the same, but it may not matter if context changes.

Sometimes you’re overmatched, sometimes you overmatch. All while staying exactly the same. Confidence and humility. Focus on where you are as much as what you can do. Formal accolades are situational rewards and situations come and go. Are they actually significant to your life path? Do they translate to reality? Will they down the road? All that really matters is what you can control. Your own standards. Whether you’re at your best and how you can improve, win or lose, in any context.

Parents in this new age should be aware of the importance of independence in forming whole people. The ability to read and navigate comes from reading and navigating. Our situation isn’t a model - it was based on neglect and a lost era, and cost intergenerational bonds. But healthy families can create opportunity for safe adventures with friends. A lightly monitored sleepover is worth 50 playdates or activity signups. Think about outdoor access when settling somewhere. And remember the power of imagination. It may just be a tent in the yard to you…

Bernardus Johannes Blommers, The Young Navigators, around 1875, oil on canvas

If you’re older, treat the world more like an obstacle course or escape room than endless maze. If it’s fake, then it really is like a game. Implications follow. Consider how many smart boys blather about simulations then don’t try to improve their gameplay. Be analytic. Where do you want to go? What series of steps goes from there to you? Is it possible? - there’s no path to Lakers starter or president for me. Working backwards eliminates feelings of hopeless or paralysis by not starting with yourself. It’s a more objective way of assessing possibilities. If there is no series of steps, reset goals. And when there is, no matter how convoluted, just take the first one. Then reassess. Wash, rinse, repeat. Either you eventually get there, or some unexpected possibility appears along the way. The view from inside is always richer than outside. And if your current situation has you stuck socializing online only, treat it like real life. Discernment and social skills can be sharpened wherever you are. Don’t LARP or act like a douche just because you’re anonymous. Learn to actualize your real self. While figuring out the set of steps that leads to [not being confined to online existence].

Fernando de Jesus Oliveira, Discovery, serigraph

1. The Macro-Arc is just broad situational awareness.