Raphael Sadeler, the Elder:
Allegory of Wealth, Lust, and Stupidity (1588)

" … some just manage to cope better with its presence."

M'Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in our imagination,

Hallowed be thy name.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done

on Earth as within our deepest intentions.

Give us this day our enriched white bread,

And forgive us our debts

As we persecute our debtors.

Lead us well beyond temptation and

Forgive us our Cluelessnesses

As we persecute those who seem most clueless to us.

Award us the franchise to deliver evil,

that we might finally vanquish decency,

For thine is the power and the glory

We intend to invoke forever and ever. Amen
—

When evil arrives, it will be surrounded by Pharisees intent upon enforcing laws for the sole sake of enforcement. The purpose of justice must be to mete out punishment, for nothing asserts power like judicial edicts. The less decent, the better, for respect must be enforced to be deserved. Many must suffer so that the few might more than prosper, for who better deserves to inherit the wealth of any nation than those capable of multiplying that wealth for their own benefit? Those who struggle to merely feed themselves might just as well starve for all they contribute to the collective. What we freely give, we lose forever. Whatever we hoard only amplifies our power.

Seven years ago this week, I was writing a series that, unbeknownst to me, would eventually be published in book form. I didn't know then if the work's subject matter would age well, for it seemed at least possible that we might come to vanquish Cluelessness in the future. I needn't have worried. While we managed to make real headway after Trump's first term, we backslid considerably in the background over the following four years. However, Biden managed to correct many of the glaring shortcomings of the prior administration. Nevertheless, the underlying media circus had hired and entrained extra clowns. The economy that had become the envy of the world subsequently crumbled after the followers of the imaginary God regained power.

Their sanctimony might be their most impressive superpower. They seem invulnerable to reality, however it's served. Natural disasters encourage their disinterest. Simple human decency sits complacently as they try to pass it off as mere obscenity. They promote an uncommon indecency instead, thumbing their nose equally at precedent and wisdom. They seem dedicated to stupidity, in all its many varieties. They breathe new life into penny-wisdom and pound-foolishness. They will likely manage to bankrupt our United States and might even avoid lengthy prison sentences for their efforts. They remain, of course, beneath contempt, and they seem bound and terribly determined to bring the rest of us down to their level of existence. We daren't comply.

That book I was creating should be out of final copyediting this week. Entitled Cluelessness, A Book of Mirrors, it contains stories from before this sorry time. In it, I ineptly attempt to live without trying to change this world. I try to learn from it, to appreciate its curiosities, but I do not attempt to correct anything I encounter there. The book might be about coping instead of failing to correct, under Virginia Satir's inspiring premise that the problem is rarely the problem that failing to cope with the problem seems to become. The book focuses on developing coping rather than problem-solving skills, given that most difficulties don't qualify as problems because they don’t come with attached solutions. Yes, this world was always overfilled with those who pray M'Lord's Prayer, self-serving bastards without an ounce of human compassion. They are not there for us to break our teeth trying to convert. They seem more than satisfied with their god, however false he might seem to those of us not so entralled.

Roger Williams taught tolerence, a much more difficult lesson than even reformation seems, yet it might prove more useful than a shit-ton of reformations. The truly Clueless will always be with us, and there will never be any way to successfully clue them in. What then? What now? I doubt my Cluelessness book will quash the seemingly overwhelming flood of Cluelessness we're currently experiencing. With recent cuts to the National Weather Service, we've lost whatever predictability we might have once possessed to predict Cluelessness' future in that respect. What can we do? What must we do instead? I do not have a clue other than that me and you might stumble into some more satisfactory ways to cope until this latest spate blows itself out again. What they believe will be eternal will most certainly be short-lived, and backlash being what it has always been, the pendulum seems poised to swing further than its historical average. Until then, we'll witness what we daren't ever forget, lest we descend into a counterveiling cluelessness every bit as reckless as theirs.

There will always be Cluelessness; some just manage to cope better with its presence. Amen.

©2025 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #FollowingChapters, #PureSchmaltz