I am anti-tyrant. Power to the people! Down with the mullahs and their gross repression of a beautiful culture. Down with our grifting narcissist-in-chief and his entourage of bootlicking incompetents. And down with the religious extremists everywhere who twist ancient wisdom into selfish cruelty.
My heart is with the Iranian people. I hope your liberation is near. I’ve been thinking about my mom and how she turned me on to Persian poetry. She gave me books by Rumi and even had us say a Sufi prayer before dinner every night: “O thou, the sustainer of our bodies, hearts, and souls, bless all that we thankfully receive. Amen.“
Likewise, my heart is here with the Americans who are standing up to tyranny and fear what all this portends for us. I stand with the people of Minnesota who took to the streets, with artists like Bruce Springsteen and Stephen Colbert who speak truth fearlessly, with the CEO of Anthropic who refused to cower to the Department of War, with the people showing up at “No Kings” rallies, and with anyone else sick of the lies who’s doing something about it. The resistance is up to you and me.
I believe everything we dream
can come to pass through our union
we can turn the world around
we can turn the earth's revolution
we have the power
People have the power
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Big picture things to consider: It is easier to destroy than repair. Embrace nuance instead of simplistic binaries. Seek the truth instead of tribal nonsense. Recognize how much easier it is to pontificate about all this when you’ve never had to run to a bomb shelter.
Notice what our devices are doing to us. Big Tech has locked us all in a digital casino and are trying to manipulate us because they think we are weak and pliable. They think we’re too lazy to navigate the thorny path of reality. Don’t give ‘em the satisfaction. We still have the key.
Ignore the bots. Beware of AI slop, paid-off propagandists, and podcasters who talk quickly with charisma but never write anything down. Wisdom is much more likely to be found in the written word.
Watch your own ego. Increasingly, we’re only able to see events through own prism. “Is this good for MY tribe?” we sing. I saw one thread online where guy who hates the mullahs told worried Americans to “stay out of it.” As if America dropping bombs that may lead to American boots on the ground has nothing to do with America!? Come on. We’re all so up our own egos constantly we can’t even muster up a shred of empathy for the notion that others have differing yet rational interests.
“Me! Me! Me!”
-Everyone these days
You want the truth? You can’t handle th–
OK, maybe you can. But you have to spin a bunch of plates to get at it…
Is this invasion good? No one actually knows yet! So far: This is good for Netanyahu (who dogwalked 47 into invading) who will use this to get reelected/stay out of jail, bad for the mullahs who keep getting assassinated (unless they like dying as martyrs as much as they claim), good for the Iranian people – especially women – IF (big if!) there isn’t crazy violence/civil war/a failed state afterwards, bad for Americans who think we should have learned a lesson from Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya, good for the Saudis/UAE who keep bribing 47 to do their bidding, good for the President since he doesn’t actually care about the aftermath, needs to distract us from Epstein, and wants others to cower in fear before him, bad for the US military since there are no clear objectives/obvious way to know when its mission is accomplished, good for the masters of war (e.g. Raytheon, Halliburton, Lockheed Martin, etc.), and bad for the Constitution/international law/Congress/American citizens who love democracy and recognize we are on the precipice of losing it.
Now check back in 48 hours. All of that could change in a heartbeat.
My side is I don’t know. But I will say this: Trips to the beach taught me most of what I know about military intervention in the middle east. It’s like this: You may think you went to the beach. But once you see how much sand is all over your home, you wind up realizing the beach actually went on you.
“Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.”
-Winston Churchill
As the warmongers hog the spotlight, I’m looking to the poets.
Be a lover. (Rumi: “Love is best when mixed with anguish. In our town, we won’t call you a lover if you escape the pain.”).
Stay hopeful. (Rumi: “That’s the funny thing about hope. Nobody else gets to decide if you feel it. That choice belongs to you.”).
Look to nature. (Rumi: “When you are in the depth of the well, remember the rope is being lowered. Do not say, ‘I am alone,’ for the Sun is your witness, and the Moon is your friend.”)
And don’t let the bastards grind you down…
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good?
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could?
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
Quickies
🎯 I’m allergic to people who say they’re fluent in sarcasm.
🎯 Just Irish exited a party and got accused of cultural appropriation.
🎯 Cul de sac sounds like it’s the French way to say herpes.
🎯 Anyone else ever spend time with a sick parent on morphine and think, “Damn, wish you got this free and funky when I was younger. We coulda had a blast.”?
🎯 All these toddlers wearing those giant noise canceling headphones feels crazy to me. Was every child born before 2000 just going deaf?
🎯 Everything that I want to be sixty minutes is six hours long now, except sex. That’s still just six seconds.
🎯 Everyone getting flakier when it comes to making plans is making it way harder to tell when you’re unpopular.
🎯 Why are we so worried about China when Korea is the one taking over BBQ, pop music, soap operas, movies, and everything else important?? K-olor me K-oncerned.
🎯 Truly admire the confidence of no case phone people.
🎯 Stop pretending you just met the subject(s) of your influencer video randomly on the street when it’s clearly a coordinated setup. Ain’t no New Yorker letting some rando into their $3M Tribeca townhouse without some advance warning.
🎯 I don’t get finance stuff. Like, whenever I hear it’s a bear market or a bull market, I always stop and wonder, “Is that a gay thing? Maybe it’s a twink market!”
🎯 Just hedged democracy with a bet on Polymarket that America will slip into dictatorship. Either way, I win!
More on the Iran invasion
💣 It’s kinda shocking that the person most obviously on drugs in this administration is Marco Rubio. Every time I hear him speak, I have to check and make sure the video isn’t playing at 2X speed.
💣 “No stupid rules of engagement.”
-Pete Hegseth and/or me proposing marriage
💣 Deposition Hillary is my spirit animal.
💣 Theory: Kash Patel was actually deep undercover in Milan, shadowing a player on the Canadian team: Steve “Big Beard” Ayatollah. Big if true. If so, thank you for your service, Kash!
💣 “Why are these Persians getting so emo about what’s happening in Iran? It’s not like we’re bombing Persia!”
-Americans
💣 The operation in Venezuela was a success because it’s easy to do regime change if you don’t actually change the regime.
💣 Quite a coincidence how we only do regime change in places that have huge oil reserves.
💣 Waiting for Theo to weigh in before taking a stance on Iran.
💣 People say, “The mainstream media won’t report...” But what they’re really saying: “Publications which require multiple sources, have editors/fact checkers, and can be sued for libel won’t publish the gossip I’ve been hearing.”
💣 REM saw it all coming. Look who’s mentioned in “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”
💣 Enough about Iran. Tell me more about the ballroom!
Comedy
Invite me to come perform in your town, at your work thing/conference, or somewhere else by replying here or emailing mattruby [at] hey [dot] com.
Upcoming cool gigs…
March 6 - Narrowsburg, NY - The Parlor
March 12 - New York, NY - Gospel (promo code JOY20)
March 14 - Philadelphia, PA - Next In Line Comedy
April 4 - Boston, MA - Elephant & Castle
5-spotted
🗯️ Dr. James Hollis in Creating a Life: Finding Your Individual Path.
Therapy will not heal you, make your problems go away or make your life work out. It will, quite simply, make your life more interesting. You will come to more and more complex riddles wrapped within yourself and your relationships. This claim seems small potatoes to the anxious consumer world, but it is an immense gift, a stupendous contribution. Think of it: your own life might become more interesting to you!
🗯️ Radical acceptance for daily annoyances.
When small things go wrong—spilled coffee, traffic jams, stubbed toes—we often think “this shouldn’t be happening!” Psychologist Patricia Zurita Ona suggests a better way, based on a therapy method called ACT (acceptance and commitment therapy) that separates unavoidable pain (the actual problem) from avoidable pain (getting upset about it). Her three-step approach: Notice what you’re feeling in your body (tight stomach, racing heart). Name it: “I’m frustrated.” Ask yourself: “Will my reaction serve me later on or help me live the way I want to live?” This isn’t about liking what happened — just not making it worse by fighting reality.
🗯️ Numb at Burning Man by Sam Kriss.
The real problem is that as soon as people start talking about energy, or the law of attraction, or the divine masculine or feminine, and especially when they start saying they belong to the conscious community, I instantly shut down. These people had melted down every great esoteric tradition, tantra and Gnosticism and shamanism and Neoplatonism and kabbalah, all rotted into this mystical slop at the end of history, whose final message is that there is nothing except yourself, no mysteries except your own, and the universe exists to help you achieve your goals.
🗯️ How to survive in today’s media landscape by Paul Staples:
To survive—and especially to thrive—in today’s media landscape, you have to sharpen the edges a little. You have to be louder than feels comfortable, more dramatic than feels honest, more emotionally charged than feels pure. You don’t lead with nuance. You hide your true message inside something more forceful and hope the reader stays long enough to find it…
And unless we change the incentives—not the morals, not the intentions, but the incentives—we’ll keep getting louder and sharper and more grotesque together, while insisting we had no choice.
🗯️ The Consumption Ritual by Jermaine Fowler with a 1955 quote from retail analyst named Victor Lebow:
Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing pace.
Thanks for consuming this. Peace.
-Matt
