The North Country Prophet

I was quote-tweeted by Hick! (see bottom of thread).

Hick is someone I follow on Twitter. He's a young man (late 20s, I want to say) who as developed a massive following over the last year or so because he has a consistent clear voice with strong opinions on what is wrong with American life.  I have written about him before in my blog. I admire him greatly. He's on a one-many mission (with his new bride) to save America's youth from suicidal despair, which is an epidemic. 

They just bought a house and some land, for cash, in the North Country of New York State, where he is from. That's the part of New York north of the Adirondacks, in the valley of the St. Lawrence River. I know the area from having driven through it on my long journey back west in 2004, after I left my marriage in New York City.  The North Country is quite a surprise. On feels almost part of Canada, which is something Hick talks about a lot as well.

He enjoys living up there because it is an abandoned part of the country that no one wants to live in (like parts of the Plains and the Farm Belt). He is constantly exhorting despondent young folks to forgo the illusion of the city life and carve out a life in the abandoned places, as he does in this thread here. He went back after extensive hitchhiking and roaming over the country. He is passionate about car-free life, as I was years ago. So I see a lot of my younger self in him.

He is also a devout traditional Catholic and attends the Latin mass. His wife is was the runt of a huge Amish family in Montana. She is planning to convert to Catholicism.

I liked this thread yesterday, where he starts with the following message from one of his younger listeners: 

In case you don't know

DM = direct message

hikikomori = the despondent "grass eater" generation of young men in Japan who have simply given up on life and never go outside.

socials = social media accounts

I have made a ton of missteps in my life, as I have written here. But I did some things right. I too have bought a long-distance Greyhound ticket on a whim, for example out to Berkeley in May 1984 when I saw Ken and David. I also hitchhiked down the Alaska Highway at the end of summer 1987. I did that partly because my dad had done that in 1961. For all that gumption, I was rewarded. The next year of life was the most intense of my young life. 

I even got to "sneak a kiss with the gal the next town over." I've had a pretty good life, on the whole, even as I have felt a ton of pain, shame, sorry, and regret as well. Part of my life's mission is to share that with others, in a way that inspires people both young and old, and in a way that brings me closer to God.

Hey, I'm 18, just starting my life and I was wondering if I could ask for some advice.

A few hours later, he posted this thread, highlighting a possible house to buy from someone following his advice. Ogdensburg is probably the biggest city in the North Country. One feels much closer to Ottawa there, than to the rest of New York State.

Regarding his suggestion, a large-follower account replied to his advice with this snark:

To which Hick replied:

I replied to his comment with my own, and re quoted it and posted it for his followers to see.

I think a lot about the same issues as Hick---the future of the nation, and of western civilization. I can feel the pain out there, among the people of all ages, so strongly. Back in my day, lots of people wanted cocaine and orgies too, but the difference is that lifestyle was genuinely pursued by only a small group. It was not encouraged or condoned by society. Now it is in our faces constantly through social media, in a way that makes it seem accessible to young folk. What we see so closely, we can envy. I did a lot of stuff out in my youth of envy, and not wanting to be left out of some things I thought I deserved. I understand why two entire generations---Millennials and Gen Z---have created the stereotype of wanting to live in a hip neighborhood in Brooklyn or San Francisco. I lived in a bunch of places like that, and knew many people who did as well, and often envied them. I wouldn't go anywhere near those places now except.

I knew only one close friend who was averse to cities from the time I first knew them, and preferred small town life. It seemed like a quirky part of their personality back then. Somewhere along the way I completely re-aligned to that type of thinking. Living in a huge metroplex, as I do know, does have advantages, but this is not feel natural for me. Much of my life at the moment feels like I am plotting an escape from that. 

Hick makes his entire living off his writing through Substack online. He also sends out actual mail to ihs subscribers with real letters. He has even floated the idea of having a get-together on any land he has acquired, where his followers could come and camp, having talks and presentations. Ideally he wants others to relocate to his small abandoned town in the North Country to transform it into a liveable village.

Much of this feels "beyond politics" at this point. Politics can only get us so far. That itself is a heretical statement in this age. For fifty years we have lived with the doctrine that "the personal is political", and that the dynamics of oppressor-oppressed must be present in every human interaction, even inside families and marriages.  There can be no part of human existence that is off limits to politics, for to do so is to continue an oppressive dynamic. Like many neotraditionalists, I believe this is a demonic proposition that has ruined many people's lives.

I reply to Hick's posts more than anyone else on Twitter. This is the first time he has "quote-tweeted" me like this. I have great respect for him and hope he succeeds.  If I were younger I would go join his village project. Maybe we will all wind up doing something like that, before we are all driven insane by technology. 

Things were disrupted greatly already in my youth, and a lot of people wound up as road kill in the cultural shifts. It's only going to get worse that way. Something's got to give. The way we've been doing things doesn't work anymore. There is a lot of wisdom in the past that we can recover, even as we have to make our own new solutions. I predict a lot of change in the next five years. What I just wrote about above will be eclipsed by bigger trends, the nature of which I can only guess at.