I really do try hard to get on with the other humans, but somehow, things usually go awry. Does this mean I’m not a misanthrope? I don’t know. But I often find myself fighting my inner self. I don’t want to hate people, but more often than not, that’s what I end up doing. Logically I know I can’t exist in this world without having some sort of interaction with other people. If I go to buy a pizza, I have to interact with people. Even if I make a pizza myself, I still have to rely on people to mill the flour, grow the vegetables, and milk the cows to produce the cheese. Unless I produce everything myself, and have my own electrical grid and water source, I just have to accept that I need other people. It would be foolish of me to hate the people that grow my vegetables, or supply my electricity. Or at least, it would be foolish of me to publicly hate them. Actually, the whole idea of money and trade purely exists because of people. If I want to earn some money and live a comfortable life, I have to appease the other humans. If I want people to watch this YouTube channel, it’s no good me just saying, “Watch my f***ing videos you ungrateful c**ts!”. I mean, most people would just be offended and tune out. Basically, even though I call myself a misanthrope, I recognise that if I want to be happy in this world, I have to get on with at least some of the other humans. Whether it be you guys watching these videos, or my family members, or my work colleagues, or even the cashier at the supermarket. If I want anything nice to happen in my life, I have to treat these people with a certain level of respect, even if half of them don’t respond in kind. As I’ve gotten older (and perhaps wiser), I’ve realised a couple of things. First of all, the overwhelming reason I get upset with people is not because of them, but because of my expectations not matching reality. Secondly, I’m highly sensitive. Where most people aren’t offended by minor remarks or encounters, I often get overly upset. It’s a real thing apparently. It’s called Sensory Processing Sensitivity. It’s not a condition, but a personality trait, with about 15–20% of the population having it. A person with this trait is considered to be a highly sensitive person. They tend to have increased emotional reactivity and empathy, to both positive and negative influences. They tend to have higher stress levels. They’re more easily overwhelmed. They have increased rates of depression, anxiety, and symptoms of autism. I mean, that’s me in a nutshell. When I interact with people and expect them to behave a certain way and they don’t, I get upset. I feel like they should know better. But they don’t, and they never will. And I think I’m starting to realise it’s more to do ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pQgQzJwZL4

In an upcoming match, the Manly rugby league club are going to make their players wear a gay pride jersey with rainbow stripes and trim. Unsurprisingly, seven current players and an undisclosed number of potential new recruits have refused to wear it and therefore will be forced to sit out of Thursday’s match. Manly Jerseys: https://ebay.us/hgBr4Z (affiliate link) “Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.” ~ Voltaire (1694–1778), French Philosopher If you know me, you know that I’m all for people living their life as they see fit. I don’t care what people do as long as they don’t harm others. Live and let live, right? If somebody wants to dress up in a gorilla costume handing out free balloons, go right ahead. If you want to put on makeup, wear a top hat, and prance around the street, be my guest. You should have the freedom to do so, but equally, I should have the freedom not to. The official narrative is that the Manly players’ refusal is based on religious and cultural grounds. You know what, it doesn’t matter what their reasons are – If they don’t want to wear it, they shouldn’t have to. Just because Brad Pitt wants to wear a skirt, doesn’t mean that we should all be forced to wear one. Actually, a couple of years ago, the university I work for had a rainbow day or whatever to celebrate the LGBT community, and they were asking everyone to wear a rainbow armband. I just told my supervisor, “Nah, I’m right mate” and went on my way. So did a lot of other people. It doesn’t mean I’m against the LGBT community, it just means I don’t want to wear a rainbow armband. The same thing happened during NAIDOC Week. They were asking us to wear an Aboriginal flag wristband. I just said, “Nah, I’m good thanks mate”. That doesn’t mean I’m against Aboriginal people. It just means I don’t want to wear the wristband. Actually, me wearing the wristband might even be confusing. People might mistakenly think that I’m claiming to be Aboriginal. To be fair to Aboriginal people, it wasn’t even Aboriginal people handing these out. It was a white lady from human resources. When I was working in Japan as an ambassador (no, not THE ambassador – I was a sister city ambassador for a small town), I was asked to attend a German Oktoberfest celebration, which I was happy to attend. But just before the festivities began, the organisers asked me to don some lederhosen. I just said, “Nah, I’m good mate”, went on my way and enjoyed the festivities. Does that mean I hate Germany or hate the German people because I refused to wear some lederhosen? No! It just means I didn’t want to wear lederhosen. The same thing happened at the Australia Day march. They asked me if I could drape the Australian flag over my shoulders, and in typically Aussie fashion I just said, “Nah, I’m good mate”. Does that mean I hate Australia? Does that mean I am less of an Australian? No, it just means that I don’t want to wear the Australia flag around my shoulders. There was also that time that I marched in the New York AIDS walk, but I refused to wear the AIDS ribbon and consequently got beaten up because of it. Oh hang on, that was an episode of Seinfeld. The point is, if a few big Manly rugby players don’t want to wear a rainbow jersey, they damn well shouldn’t have to. It doesn’t matter what their reasoning is. After all, they’re there to play football, not to be pressured into supporting all these other causes. If they want to support these causes in their own time, so be it, but the football field should be for playing football, not politics. However, a few members in society have decided that if you don’t do what they tell you, then you’re the enemy! That’s the unfortunate thing about society, especially of late. People are being browbeaten by their peers to do something that they don’t even want to do. It’s very much a dark side of human nature. A number of people have unleashed a level of anger and hostility against those who choose to follow their own conscience instead of the decrees of the collective. “Do what we say, or else!”. Extremism can take many forms, but it’s important to understand that the people who tried to force Kramer in Seinfeld to wear a ribbon, or the people trying to force rugby players to wear a gay pride jersey, they share a common trait. Both groups are absolutely convinced that what they are doing is good. Wanting to do good is a noble human instinct, but the instinct ceases to be noble and good when the perpetrators begin to use aggression and coercion to make others do what they think is right. There’s only one way to deal with these people. Simply stand your ground and say “No!”. MUSIC Melancholia by Godmode #manlyseaeagles #pride #jersey ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmsnzcboH6c

There’s a quote floating around on Twitter and in the media, which I’ll be fact-checking in this video, which was released by the Burnet Institute, “an Australian, unaligned, not-for-profit, independent organisation that combines medical research with practical action to address health issues globally”. The Twitter quote states, “I have absolutely no doubt that Australians don’t know that COVID is putting 50x more people in hospital than the flu, it’s killing 50-100x more people than the flu, that 5%, if they get infected, even if they’re vaccinated, are likely to get long COVID”. The part that I’ll be fact-checking is the one that states COVID is killing 50-100x more people that the flu. This quote is by Prof Brendan Crabb. Taking a look at his Twitter profile – yes, he’s one of those people who still wear a mask in their Twitter profile – he’s the director & CEO of the Burnet Institute: parasites, viruses, global health, medical research, and health equity. Okay, so the first thing I did was look up the most recent COVID data on the Australian Bureau of Statistics website. This data was released on the 24 January 2023, and is a summary report of provisional mortality statistics for 2022. For example, there was a total of 9,440 deaths that were officially attributed to COVID in 2022, noting that the majority of these deaths occurred in the earlier months of the year with often more than 1,000 deaths per month, whereas recent months show significantly less deaths, well under 500 per month. I’m going to go out on a limb here, and predict that 2022 will be the worst year for COVID in terms of deaths. I’d suggest that based on recent months, this will get better as time goes on. After downloading the data and graphing it, deaths are definitely trending downwards in 2022 as more and more people build up immunity to the disease. Hence why I state that 2022 will probably be the worst COVID year we’ll ever experience. It certainly looks that way, anyway. Assuming that 2022 is one of the worst years for COVID, well it would make sense to compare it with one of the worst years for flu if you want to compare apples with apples (don’t worry, I’ll compare it with a lower year later). A quick Google search tells us that 2017 was one of the worst years for flu. This archived report from the ABS titled, “Causes of Death, Australia, 2017”, specifically, “Deaths Due to Influenza”. In 2017 there were 1,255 deaths due to influenza, which is a significant increase from 2016 where 464 influenza deaths were recorded. First, let’s compare the 2017 figure of 1,255 with our 2022 COVID figure of 9,440. So 9,440 divided by 1,255 equals 7.52. That means, there were seven-and-a-half times as many COVID deaths in 2022 as there were flu deaths in 2017. I’m not saying that’s not significant. That’s certainly a lot, however, it’s nowhere near the 50 to 100 times more that the good Professor was proclaiming. To give him the benefit of the doubt, let’s assume that he compared 2022 with a lesser year, say 2016 (noting that he didn’t tell us how he calculated his numbers – please correct me if he did). 2016 had significantly less flu deaths at 464. Running the numbers, we find that there were 20 times as many COVID deaths in 2022 as there were flu deaths in 2016. Yes, it’s significant, but it’s still not anything like the 50 to 100 times the good Professor was quoting. So how did he get his figures? Well, I think he used the latest Provisional Mortality Statistics from the ABS, noting that this has a reference period of January to September 2022. If you scroll down to the “Doctor certified deaths by cause” table, you’ll see that in September 2022, there were 234 deaths from influenza and pneumonia, of which 230 were from pneumonia. That leaves us with four flu deaths in September. If we compare that with the 420 COVID deaths that occurred in the same time period, we get 420 divided by 4, which means we could say that there were 105 times as many COVID deaths, which is something akin to the good Professor’s tweet. But I would suggest that comparing a single month of data would not be a very accurate way to come up with these statistics. If we look at the same set of data, but instead look at the baseline average, 404 minus 242 equals 162 flu deaths on average (noting that we don’t have a baseline average for COVID as it hasn’t been around long enough). But comparing our average flu deaths with our total 420 COVID deaths for September, we find that there were approximately 2.6 times as many COVID deaths as compared to historical influenza averages, which is a lot, lot less than the quoted 50 to 100 times that Professor Crabb has been telling everybody. Yes, those are crabs on his mask. So in terms of my fact check. Is it true that 50 to 100 times more people are dying from COVID than the flu? Well, in the spirit of our public broadcaster, the ABC, Professor Crabb’s figures are severely overstated! MUSIC Allégro by Emmit Fenn ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g6bLG2tAT8

Buddhists teach that expectations are the cause of all suffering. The only reason we get upset, is because we expect a different outcome. I’ve found that almost every time that I’ve had a strong expectation or anticipation about something, and then that something has fallen through, then I’ve gotten extremely upset and pissed off. But what’s the point of getting pissed off? In almost every situation that I’ve experienced, it has achieved nothing, and quite frankly, has just lead to more stress and more hardship. I’ve been mulling over this idea of expectation causing suffering for a while now. It makes sense. If we had no expectations, then we simply would never have anything to be disappointed about. It would also mean that we would have nothing to look forward to, but on the plus side, we would have nothing to be upset about. I would suggest that it would be a fairly boring existence. I think the key to happiness is to find a comfortable middle ground. We can’t completely eliminate our expectations without also eliminating a lot of the joy in our life. Nor should we get super upset when our expectations don’t materialise. Our expectations cannot change reality, so it’s best that we manage them in a positive and realistic way. And now I know the best way to achieve happiness, at least in my life. I must manage my expectations, accept things that I cannot change, and find the positive in every situation. If something bad happens, I must learn from it, and then move on. Dwelling on negative experiences doesn’t help anyone. Life brings us a whole bunch of unexpected events. We can either fight life at every turn and be stressed and anxious all the time, or we can accept our fate and move forward with our heads held high. Psychologists have found that people who are overly controlling end up being frustrated and having fairly miserable lives. They obviously have high expectations of others and when those expectations are constantly not met, they get angry and frustrated. People who accept things as they come experience much greater happiness. If you want to be happy, don’t fight the universe – be one with the universe. FIND US ON FACEBOOK https://www.facebook.com/DailyRantAustralia/ RELATED LINKS Don’t Fight The Universe; Surrender To Resistance – http://amandalinehan.com/dont-fight-the-universe-surrender-to-resistance/ Managing Your Expectations Is The Key To Happiness – https://www.elitedaily.com/life/motivation/stop-having-expectations The Tyranny of Expectations – http://dharmawisdom.org/teachings/articles/tyranny-expectations Ups, downs, expectations, and attachments: What the Buddha missed – https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ambigamy/200910/ups-downs-expectations-and-attachements-what-the-buddha-missed ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJlnbYN7CCE