"and it's getting more and /more absurd."

Bernie Taupin & Elton John

(Today's earworm)

It's weird. I know people like your brother, and cannot decide what the hell is going on. No time, perhaps? Plenty of time for the gameboy, though. No curiosity? Yet plenty of time for the YouTube rabbit hole. No discernment or critical thought, but can compare which pickup truck to buy and why, or examine all sorts of statistics to construct their fantasy football team.

Don't know. I'm scratching a hole in my head to figure it out. How do you convince a friend that homeopathy is an industry that sells billions of dollars of inert ingredients while they tell me that vaccines cause autism?

Is it the need to deal with chaos with perceived control? Suspicion of authority? The desire to have secret knowledge that you want to evangelize?

Whatever it is, it has been weaponized. Finds a crack and widen it. Bored moms', laid off mechanics, yoga teachers, naturopaths, crop circle adherents, Flat Earthers, all you need is a weakness, and you're in. Got a half-assed product to sell? Or an ideology?

Mrs. P. and I have been watching "The Vow" on HBO. It's a documentary about NXIVM, the multilevel-marketing self-help cult NXIVM. Chilling, but familiar.

Yeah, I'm depressed too. I am witnessing a culture lose its fucking mind.