Where to Run? Where to Hide?
When you first started coming to Thailand it seemed very strange, yes? Language, behavior, mental attitudes, food, all very strange. Strange but you loved it! Me, too.
And then after a few weeks or maybe a couple of months here, we’d get back on the plane and go back home, back to “normal”. Well, that was then. But now, it is everything back home that seems strange; upside down and inside out. By comparison now life in Thailand seems almost ordinary. Confusing? Sure is.
Here’s a recent post on another web site that does a very good job of explaining this high strangeness. Not specifically about Thailand, but does help explain the differences between what we see in Thailand and what we experience “back home”. As I read it, can’t help wondering where to run? Where to hide?
And I’m happy to see comments; either here as a reader’s submission or as a personal email.
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[Excerpts posted with permission. My comments are in italics.]
Mike Stone*: Stranger in a Strange Land
October 19, 2020
https://www.henrymakow.com2020/10/mike-stone-stranger-in-a-strange-land.html
“Welcome to the world of the awake, a world you alone are able to decipher as if you were wearing X-ray glasses. How do you cope? How do you deal with living in a world populated by humans that appear to be under a spell or a form of mass hypnosis? How do you deal with friends and family who just don’t want to know the truth? Do you feel odd, different or strange? Do you feel like a square peg in a round hole? Do you wonder if you even belong in current-day human society?”
Anyone with much experience living in or visiting Thailand certainly will feel odd, different, strange here. But we could go back home to “normal”. But now, back home is NOT normal, not anymore.
“You know the whole coronavirus deal is a hoax, but everyone in your neighborhood is wearing a mask, looking like extras from a bondage movie. You know Black Lives Matter is a violent, terrorist organization, but your employer just signed a statement of solidarity with them and they want you to attend “diversity training.” They say it’s “voluntary,” but you know exactly what will happen if you don’t go. You know Hollywood is nothing more than a collection of homosexual leading men, washed up old hags, and shameless young whores on their way to becoming washed-up old hags, but you’re forced to listen incessantly to your co-workers gush about their celebrity crushes.”
Not much of that has hit Thailand yet, not in a big way. Small bits around the edges, universities mostly, but mainstream Thais, no. Will it ever arrive here in a big way? I wonder.
“You know every word, every detail – no matter how small – coming out of the mainstream media and big tech is a lie. Yet no one in your immediate circle of friends or family doubts a single word they’re told.”
Ah, here we do have some similarity, eh? The mainstream media – these days – seems the same everywhere. For example, are there any farang in Thailand who still read The Bangkok Post?
“So how do you cope? How do you deal with living in a world populated by humans that appear to be under a spell or a form of mass hypnosis?”
Looks like these large mobs of young students are under some sort of spell.
And getting to the heart of the matter. Mike Stone writes:
“You long for love, but no one around you seems capable of giving it. You long for wisdom, but no one in your life has any to give you. You long for freedom, but everyone around you is willing to subjugate themselves to the dictatorial power of the state.”
One at a time:
Thailand seems to offer some chance of love or a reasonable facsimile thereof. Of course, we pay for it.
Thailand also offers some measure of freedom. Not total liberty, nooo, but some relief from the intrusions of the state into every little corner of life back home.
As for wisdom; In Thailand? Well, no place offers everything.
And finally, the author of the original essay offers this gem:
“You lead a peaceful life and would never harm another human being outside of self-defense. But millions of people right here in the United States would like to see you dead. They’re just waiting for the scales to tip in their favor before they brutally assault and murder you and steal everything you have … Welcome to your future.”
I would add, “Welcome to your future, white man!”
If you are reading this, perhaps your future will be in Thailand, far away from all that. Not perfect here. Far from perfect. But in this new, very strange world, I can’t imagine a future anywhere else that would be better than in Thailand.
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*Mike Stone is author of A New America, a novel of the Alt-Right. Available on Amazon.
Comments welcome: lcameron1944@fastmail.us
