So yesterday (Saturday), here in east Tennessee, I went to a small one-man business that deals mostly with music, instrument repairs, and used instruments. As a musician I play several different instruments, and this guy is an expert on one particular instrument, which will be nameless for the purposes of this post. His shop is in a different town, about a 20 minute drive from where I live.
As context, I am a rather hard-right, conservative person, and keep most of my more extreme views concealed (as was the .45 carry piece I had on me at the time), so I don't air my politics in public... I'm just tired of the futile debates with the Left, who are essentially morons with no critical thinking skills.
After discussing some technical aspects of this instrument, the chat wandered to cost of materials related to musical instruments... exotic woods, strings, labor, which instruments are better, German, French, or (more lately) Chinese.
Then the subject turned to the wild fluctuations of silver and gold (sometimes used in ornamentation on instruments).
Without missing a beat, the dude said, "Oh that's just so Trump can get more money."
.... WHUT?! I was rather taken aback by such a stupid statement that I asked him to repeat it. And he did. The man is brilliant when it comes to instrument repair and a knowledge base about instruments that I don't have.
But really? The rising price of silver and gold is... BECAUSE TRUMP WANTS MORE MONEY?! I just let it drop, no amount of reason or knowledge of the precious metals market, or common sense in general, would have gotten through to him.
Are all TDS sufferers this blind to reality?
Side note, leaving that other town I passed a demonstration on a sidewalk that I had to pass, about 100 people or so, with "NO KINGS" signs and other examples of TDS. They waved at me as I drove by, but I just lifted my middle finger salute to them and drove on.
So all in all, I had a full-on display of TDS yesterday.
It's really truly a full blown mental illness, I think it's a form of depression. When I was young I lived with someone suffering with depression and spent a lot of time talking with them about it. And from what I could observe at the time, it left a deep and abiding impression with me that there is no way to get through to a depressive person. Their minds are wired wrongly, they cannot process many things rationally, the moment they are confronted with logic that proves the cause of their depression is unreal - the manic depressive mind skips a track and instantly throws up something non sequitur.
It's the same manic track skipping behavior with full blown TDS sufferers. They have created a self-destructive fantasy world inside their minds and there is no way to convince them that the lies that prop up their TDS are lies. If you confront them with the lies they double down, if you press them and show them physical evidence of the lies, they blink, they skip a track and they regurgitate a different lie ad nauseam.
I learned in my early days, that when confronted with this self-destructive, self-curated insanity in manic depressives that no matter how much you love the person there is nothing you can do to help them. Because they don't want to be helped. The insanity is there identity and they are 100% invested in it.
It is dementia.
Well stated. I think I knew that on a subconscious, visceral level. That's why I chose not to engage in that nonsequitor turn in the conversation.
But ultimately I also knew that at some point in the future, I will need his services as a luthier, so... I just didn't bother engaging him.
I have this problem with relatives, I know they've lost their mind, but I love them still and they still love me. I find all the confirmation I need by the smart people - such as yourself - that I interact with on this amazing forum. I envy you though - I wish I had music, but that gift avoided me totally.
Thank you. The thing about my music is that, although I seem to have a gift for picking up stringed instruments easily, I am still quite at odds with most of my other musician friends. I am sure you can identify with that.
During COVID, many of them tried to ostracize me for refusing the jab and boosters. Something just told me to avoid it, and today I am still quite happy that I did. But those who ostracized me (except for one) have come back around, and several of them got quite sick after their jabs.
They still cling to the hope that they "did the right thing" and that "it would have been worse" if they had not been jabbed... all the logical fallacies we've heard before. I too am the sole conservative Trump voter in that circle.
But I was prepared to lose all of their friendships at that time, for I refuse to bend to peer pressure on things that I deeply believe. It's taken almost 5 years, but they (except for that one) have slowly come back around to our music circle. In fact I will be playing with them tomorrow night, Jan.1, for a regular jam session.
So I'm the "odd duck" among them, the outlier, and I don't mind that at all.