The maskists left behind

The wokes, the maskists, the mentally ill — what do we make of those who miss forced anti-social behaviour?

I’m not a psychologist, but I wish I were. I often regret choosing Women’ Studies as my major, feeling psychology would have been more useful, but then of course I’m fairly certain I am the only person on the planet who managed to turn a graduate degree in Women’s Studies into a career. My ability to see gender theory clearly and for what it is is due in part to having been in the department literally watching as Women’s Studies morphed into Gender Studies, having barely engaged with the actual history of the women’s movement and what real-world women were really dealing with, in real life, around the world to begin with, instead focused on post-modern gobbledegook and endless explorations of “queering sexuality” and “decolonizing porn.” This is to say, I am well-equipped for my unconventional career, the bulk of which has centered around critiquing modern “feminism.”

Nonetheless, for some time my passion has lain in the unqualified psychoanalysis of those around me. I say “unqualified,” because obviously I am not a psychologist or a psychiatrist or any kind of therapist. That said, I have spent ample time in counseling, trying to better my brain, communication, triggers, and coping mechanisms, learning about things like cognitive behavioural therapy, addiction, codependency, and ReD FlaGs, and also have long had an interest in diagnosing others with mental illnesses. Oh, the borderlines, sociopaths, narcissists, Aspergers', alcoholics, codependents, and histrionics I’ve known!

Oddly, “mental illness” has been glorified in our modern culture, wherein we treat the most feeble and least resilient as heroes, to the point that adverstising one’s various failings, instabilities, and afflictions (aspie/trans/furry/ptsd/ADHD/Vegan social anxiety disorder🏳️‍🌈) on social media provides status — you are to be elevated, listened to, given a platform, and taken seriously. Who cares what a boring old het/cis/sane/healthy/normie thinks! Why not hear from a pasty/frail/ridden-with-social-anxiety/demiboy instead? Surely xe can provide some profound insight on how to live a full and satisfying life, from inside the metaverse, under a weighted blanket.

Doctors and therapists over-diagnose, to the benefit of Big Pharma (apparently everyone except me is on anti-anxiety meds or anti-depressants), and we over-self-diagnose (I don’t feel happy all the time and I have trouble sleeping! I should probably never leave the house, try out a social life, stop eating junk food, or get some exercise — no, what I need are PILLS that kill my sex drive and make me fat(ter) — no one wants to do the hard (but ultimately more satisfying and successful, in the long term) work of changing their lives, and in fact they are encouraged not to. We are told, now, that being “really into fitness” makes you “far-right,” which is a funny way to insult the left, but hey, I didn’t say it, you slug. Taking up martial arts or boxing would likely do the weak, fat, and miserable a world of good, but the woke world is telling them, no — you are perfect just the way you are (oh and by the way, you are entitled to be desired and fucked, despite your body, life, mental health, and personality — gosh where did all these porn-addicted incels come from?)

Whether or not these various and expansive mental illness diagnoses are legit, the pandemic exacerbated it all — the imagined and real mental health struggles of the urban populus, that is. And the whole thing was laid bare, as some revelled in isolation, masks, simulated hypochondria and anthropophobia, while others fought for life.

What kind of person would not only choose to live life alone, in a mask, virtually, never mind fight for that kind of “life”? Turns out, the woke do. Which tells us something. Let’s observe the patterns:

The woke are primarily urban, over-educated, social media-addicted, virtue signalling phonies (yes, this is my professional and expert diagnosis) — they have more time and money on their hands than the average working class pleb to come up with academic-sounding hot takes and argue with wrongthinkers on Twitter. They also have more incentive to do so, as this kind of behaviour is treated as currency within their social bubbles. People with real lives and friends and interests and hobbies who are mentally healthy tend not to want to spend the bulk of their lives pontificating on Facebook and working to destroy the lives of those who fail to see their light. These people’s political views and “activism” are similarly rooted online, rather than in reality, which explains why they believe men with penises are in fact women with ladysticks, that there is an epidemic of white police officers specifically targeting black people for murder in America (and Canada! lol), that an insurrection happened on January 6th, that putting everyone in spitty cloth masks for two years would keep them alive, and that Trump was a dangerous fascist who threatened to destroy democracy, unlike the authoritarians in power now, attempting to censor and silence and financially destroy anyone and anything that fails to toe their political party line.

The fear is real, when all you do is scroll.

Meanwhile, those of us who operate outside, in the real world, around real, diverse people, and who value human life and freedom, are better equipped to avoid hysteria, and stay rooted in reality. Oddly, I was able to leave Canada and live completely normally, among many others also living normally, as though Covid didn’t even exist, and survive. Indeed, we all survived. Those hiding in their homes, behind masks, either did not believe this was possible, as they weren’t seeing or experiencing it, their algorithms being their only access to the “outside world,” or did not want it to be possible, preferring the safety of their couch and social media bubble, which refused to challenge their fears, financially and politically motivated “science,” and ideologies.

These people are sad losers, it’s true, but there is a deep privilege in the “mask up!/stay at home!” cabal — the laptop class became so deeply out of touch with real life (and, as a result, reality) because they were able to operate in isolation. They could work online, for one — they needn’t leave the house to build someone else’s house, or to chauffer food to others’ doorsteps, or to ship out Amazon packages — but also, if you live in an urban center, you really don’t need to interact with others to survive. You can stay in your apartment and operate fully independently (so long as the capitalist wheels keep turning, Uber keeps delivering, industry keeps operating, big rigs keep trucking, and the food supply chains don’t shut down… Oh crap…), without needing help or interaction with another being. This is not the case if you live in a less, let’s say, developed place — in a less-than-first-world town, if you are poor or working class, in a small community, with less access to good and services, with less infrastructure and financial privilege floating through it.

This is true where I live — it’s simply not possible to not see or interact with other people. Here, you truly need others for survival. There is a community for that reason, but also because community is valued — family, fun, and friends are valued. Helping one another out is valued. Depending on one another is the norm. You carry my water, I’ll lend you some cash when the ATMs are down. Help me build my bar, I’ll give you beers and probably some meat. Use my wifi, take my TV, borrow my motorbike for the week or month. We are better at sharing, because we need to share. Things are harder to access, harder to fix, and harder to transport. Things don’t fall apart in cities — the power doesn’t go down routinely, you don’t run out of water, the internet doesn’t stop working, your house isn’t overtaken by ants. In the city, if you don’t have cash to pay your manicurist or vet, you can’t just come back a few days later. The farmacia down the street won’t let you pay for your water some other time, because they don’t have change for fifty pesos. Your friends don’t bring you meds or lug a jug of water up your stairs when you’re sick. Probably because, in a city in North America, you can just pay a stranger to do that. If you have means, and you live in a place like Vancouver or San Fransisco (which means, probably, you have means) you can fully check out of the outside world (and life) and keep on living. Most people around the globe not only don’t have that privilege, but they also don’t have that desire.

This was a mental health pandemic, driven by the mentally unwell. People who want to stay inside, to wear masks, to never touch another human being, to avoid exercise and dancing and singing and parties and laughter are unwell.

Ironically, it is these very people who spent the last year claiming it was we: the healthy, happy, freedom lovers who were a health risk. We, with the vitamin D, fresh air, exercise, and balanced lives — we who understand that death is imminent, that you could die tomorrow, so you need to live now, while you have the chance. We, who did not desire to control every move and thought of our neighbours, via ostracization, slander, hatred, and the law. We, who desired a holistic, rather than profit-dictated, version of health. 2+2=5, yet again.

Amusingly, now that the people have spoken, and said, “Honk, honk — we’re taking back our lives and rights,” the maskists are freaking out: do you mean to say my pasty, Vitamin D free face and flabby body must see the light of day? (Full disclosure, I have had a flabby body at many points in my life, so am being judgy only now, from a place of being currently better than you.) Do you mean to say I must engage with other humans, as though other humans matter and exist? Must I let go of the sense of power and control I had when I only operated online, and could weed out anyone who dared challenge my worldview, simply by existing differently than I? Or having a different perspective? Do you mean to say there are people who have sex drives because they haven’t dampened their spirit and nature with pills and lethargy, who wish to touch other people’s bodies and form intimate connections and experience joy and esctasy? Do you mean to say my social anxiety was self-imposed, and now it’s my responsibility to take steps to make myself better? Is my health, in fact, in my own hands? Do you mean to say I might have to consider that *I* am the problem — the dangerous, unhealthy, fascistic, anti-science, anti-human, sicko? That *I* destroyed the lives and health of others, rather than the other way around?

Yes, friend. Now it is you, alone on the internet, in your stupid, embarrassing mask. Virtue signalling into the void, as the rest of us move on with life, having learned our lesson about trusting the pyjama class with our lives, rights, and realities.