This blog is about society now

I don’t really know what to do with this blog, but I’m thinking about shifting gears a little bit and making it about society. Just like, society in general. That kind of seems like the move now. I don’t know where our society is headed, guys, but I’ve got some ideas for how to make it better. I turned 30 a couple months ago, and I’ll be honest: I haven’t really achieved any of my goals in life. So I think it’s as good a time as any to start throwing my opinions out there about how things should be in the world.

While I’ve been wasting away in New York retail and open mic comedy over the last few years, I’ve noticed some of my friends from high school and college have been busy developing high levels of expertise when it comes to how Americans (and also everyone else on earth) should be existing, both on an individual and communal level. It’s pretty wild how quickly they developed such deep understanding. I’ve been really inspired by them, and because my life continues to go absolutely nowhere, I think it’s time for me to follow in their footsteps.

As someone who is in the beginning stages of becoming an expert on how groups of human beings function together, it’s difficult to know where to start. Do I start with Israel-Palestine? Russia? San Francisco? Immigration? Mental illness among college students? Obviously I hope to develop fully formed and incredibly strong opinions about all of them over the course of the next few weeks, but I’ve found that becoming 100% right about everything can be a little overwhelming.

I think I’m gonna start with fixing our cities. Cities aren’t looking good, guys. We gotta step it up with the cities. There’s a lot of problems, and personally, I think those problems need to get fixed. Take transportation, for example. Transportation is big. We need to make it better. People need it to go places and do different stuff. Personally, I think making cities more walkable is gonna be huge. We gotta make sure the people in these cities are walking around, guys. If we can do that, everything else will follow. And no, I’m not an engineer or a city planner. But I think I could’ve been one, and I get the sense that engineering overall is pretty intuitive.

Anyway, let’s talk taxes. That’s another massive issue that I’ve been thinking about. Some people say taxes are too high, others say they’re too low. I’m not sure who’s right. But I’ve done some calculations based on what I learned in my magazine editing classes at the University of Missouri nine years ago, and I’ll tell you this: something is definitely off.

Am I doing this right? I don’t know. But I shouldn’t even say stuff like that! I do know! Getting more confident in my opinions is something I really need to work on if I’m serious about making this shift toward knowing lots of things. When I look at people on Twitter who are making a living as political commentators in 2024, I’m genuinely inspired by their confidence. It seems to be growing every day, actually. But you know what? I can be that confident, too. I just need to believe in myself. And look, I’ll probably never be a Ben Shapiro or a Rachel Maddow or a Candace Owens. But I can become as confident as them on dozens and dozens of social issues. And that’s what matters.

One thing I love about people who make a living talking about politics is how uniquely talented and interesting they all are. I guess that’s what I’m shooting for. To be so effortlessly compelling as a human being that I’m letting it fly with my political takes at every moment. I want the brilliance to flow freely out of my mouth with absolutely no hesitation. And that takes practice. You have to practice it all the time, in front of your friends, and you can’t fall into the trap of thinking that you’re being annoying by never shutting up about where the economy is headed. Personally, I’ve come to believe that the economy is not something that you can learn about. Economic truths are buried deep in our hearts. You just have get in touch with them on a spiritual level so you can endlessly babble about them at parties.

And that’s not annoying. It’s actually become way more annoying to me when people have nothing to say about the future of the housing market because they have conflicting viewpoints or don’t know enough about it to have an informed perspective. Those people have become increasingly obnoxious to be around, and I don’t want to be one of those guys anymore. There’s just no excuse for that kind of behavior in this day and age. It’s honestly rude. I have friends who have full-time jobs, families, even vibrant social lives, and yet they’ve still made time to develop an advanced understanding of civil engineering, economics, biology, political science, the shadow government, homelessness, climate science, geopolitics, and a hundred other things. They didn’t waste their time studying any of it. They simply discovered the truth within themselves.

Like I said, I just need to figure out where I start with all this. If you have any ideas, please let me know. I figure once I begin to discover how much I know about one topic, the faster the discoveries will happen. A snowball effect of knowing stuff. That seems to be how it works with other people at least. So hit me with the big issues, whatever you think most needs to be addressed right now. I’ll be reflecting on how we’re gonna fix San Francisco.