[Meanwhile:] Finland is on drugs.

This is, honestly, a solid argument for switching to Haitian Creole:

"More than 400,000 Finns receive reimbursement from the Social Insurance Institution of Finland (Kela) for antidepressants each year."

LINK: https://yle.fi/a/3-10639847

Ah, yes, and you might imagine that Sweden is the socialist paradise just next door, but no…

"Approximately 10% to 15.6% of the Swedish population uses antidepressants." That is very approximate indeed, given that these are legal drugs subsidized by government agencies (that tend to keep track of these things).

Wikipedia now has a list of countries ranked by antidepressant consumption per capita, and I say "now" simply because I've never seen it before:

LINK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_antidepressant_consumption

France and Israel are (almost) tied at roughly half the rate of antidepressant use we have in Canada —and you will have noticed that the Swedes are nearly tied with Canadians, both being worse than Finland. However, being better or worse than Canada doesn't count for much, from my biased perspective: I'm looking to Finland (and the study of the Finnish language, etc.) to augment the life I already have —I'm neither trying to talk myself out of nor into living in Canada.

Of course, Haiti does not even appear on this list, but it might be the last place on earth to develop this particular pattern of drug dependency.

Even what I have to say about happiness is esoteric. ;-)

[From a viewer named Clouds:]

The recent videos have been great, Eisel. Keep winning, as they say. Of course I remember the livestream era fondly, but I'd say your most recent couple of videos have conveyed a lot of your thematic central tenets with an incredible succinctness, and.... not sure how to describe it per se... unburdenedness? You seem happier, perhaps. Maybe I have an incomplete picture since it's been a while since I've kept up with the channel, but it seems gone are the days of the furrowed brow and sharp inhale, long exhale, and other gestures indicating the severity of the point. The gym crush video would be a great a-bas-le-ciel 101/channel introduction. All that is to say, I hope you're doing well these days. Seldom is there a channel that kills it with this level of consistency and boisterous novelty for so, so many years.

—————

[And I reply:]

Every day I wake up happy, every day I go to sleep happy: aside from physical pain and exhaustion, I am basically happy without interruption for all the hours in-between.  Part of what I'm doing on the channel now is just demonstrating what it means to be happy, as a retired intellectual —and I do indeed mean that I have retired from the work of becoming an intellectual —if not quite all of the work of being an intellectual —but the work that remains is a joy.  Too few people know that joy.

Girl Gangs of Finland: Suomen Tyttöjengit.

Some of you will write in to suggest that the title could be, instead, suomalaiset tyttöjengit. And some of you will write in to suggest that the title could be Girl Gangs of Newfoundland, instead. ;-)

LINK: https://youtu.be/saFe6UA3QZg

Don't let democracy ruin your sex life.

If the conclusions of our philosophies are inconvenient for democracy, we have to take them seriously anyway: if the truth is that the vast majority of people can't be happy (intellectually, sexually or otherwise) we have to take that truth seriously, anyway. We're corrupted by the notion of democracy in the same sense that many scientists are corrupted by science fiction.

LINK: https://youtu.be/03rUczxNAsc

Stupidity is a Political Philosophy: Revolutionary Narcissism and the Egoism of Dissent.

Try harder: try being a narcissist.

LINK: https://youtu.be/3P_Ry5q5Eng

The Gym Crush: the Meaning of Your Meaningless Life.

In case you think I haven't shown enough vulnerability and contrition in my last few uploads…

"Everything I know about women is a result of what they directly tell me themselves."

LINK: https://youtu.be/LuV58lgGvs0

Pro-Poor Politics: the Right Wing Will Win in the End

The Future is Poverty.

LINK: https://youtu.be/S6WJRemZJU4

Alcohol: the life of the mind AND THE DEATH OF THE MIND.

#Finland #Suomi

LINK: https://youtu.be/pr8LPsmhdSM

(This one is on both channels.)

Ovatko kaikki suomalaiset rumia vai onko se vain minä?

LINK: https://youtu.be/yC4NWmESOLQ

The Sons of Jehu.

[A question from the audience, below my video with "Megaculturalism" in the title:] Why would you call this right-wing though? Neither cosmopolitanism nor having intellectual standards sounds right-wing to me.

—————

I'm so right wing that I don't have sex with people just so they'll be friends with me, and I'm not friends with people just in order to have sex.

The refusal to wallow in egalitarianism is right wing: the refusal to take pride in being the same as everyone else —or in being oppressed like everyone else— positively puts you on the same side of the Revolution as the Sons of Jehu.

Overtly elitist, intellectual cosmopolitanism is indeed right wing: if you don't know this you haven't met ten left wing people yet.