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Sarah and Nippy are on the show this week.
Brand new Depresh Pod for your ears.
You might know a few people named Sarah. This is Sarah Edmonson, who was heavily featured in the HBO doc series The Vow, all about the cult known as NXIVM (pron. “nexium”). And you don’t know anyone named Nippy but he was in it too. They’re married. They were in the cult together.
NXIVM, in case you haven’t followed the story, was framed as a kind of self-help, self-actualization kind of thing, not all that different from how Scientology puts itself across. The classes are aimed at identifying the obstacles you’re facing and then pulling you in to spend more time and money supposedly conquering them. Eventually, the person is encouraged to isolate from non-believers, move to a central location to be with other members, and pledge loyalty to the charismatic leader.
In Sarah’s case, that meant running an outpost for NXIVM in Vancouver and, eventually, being painfully branded with the initials of founder Keith Raniere.
Sarah was one of many young actresses involved in the cult, including Alison Mack from the show Smallville. Sarah and Nippy got out. Raniere is now in jail on charges including sex trafficking, possession of child pornography, racketeering, forced labor, and wire fraud.
Sarah and Nippy are smart. They were not lost souls before joining the cult, they were doing pretty well. But, like many people, they wanted to do better. They wanted to get rid of their hang-ups and unhealthy patterns. But Raniere and company were skilled at using people’s attributes against them, tearing people down while pretending to build them up.
Could you end up in a cult? Oh god yes:
They prey on your desire to be the best version of yourself, convincing you that the group is helping you achieve everything you wanted. They have already given you love and acceptance, and you believe that you are on your way to financial freedom, or self-enlightenment, or a purposeful life. And it is easy to believe those things, because we believe them when our jobs, our churches, and our self-help gurus say them too.
Every day we “just go along” with situations out of politeness or social expectations. These things seem harmless, and we accept them with little thought. At work, we say we read all the corporate emails. We listen and nod when our friend says they are a little psychic. Even church requires some suspension of disbelief – how many people go to mass without believing that the eucharist is actually transformed into flesh?
And now, a story about fat, happy bears
Here in Minnesota, wildlife experts were noticing that bears were having fewer cubs and having them later in life. This led to a worry that something was wrong with the bears, some kind of affliction. Now there’s an emerging theory that they bears are merely fat, happy, and well-adjusted.
From the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, behind its very strong paywall:
Oddly, only the bears with the most food available to them – near the farms and young oak forests of central and northwestern Minnesota – appeared to be stunted in their reproduction. Was a pesticide or change in the food web threatening the next generation of one of the state's most beloved and recognizable wild animals?
Now state biologists believe the opposite may be happening: That some of Minnesota's bears have become so fat that the old ways of testing for their general health and reproductive age may no longer work.
"It could be that rather than things getting worse, they could be getting better and these bears are growing much quicker than ever before," said Andrew Tri, bear biologist for the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR).
Look, if your career and personal life involve enough food to get comfortably fat from (and bears want to get fat because of hibernation), then why spoil a good thing by having kids right away?
Here is a cute bear moment that I would, regardless, scream all during:
How to return to office work without panic-screaming constantly
Well, that’s the gist of this article in the Seattle Times, anyway, offering a bunch of tips on how to handle a transition back to on-site work after working from home since the darkness enveloped us.
Here’s a tip on creating predictability:
Establish some grounding before your first day by finding a routine that works for you, Rogers said. Think about how you want your day to look from the time you wake up to the time you get to work. By setting up rituals, you can help eliminate uncertainty.
Try building in some physical activity to get your body moving and carve out some reflection time for meditation or setting intention for the day.
Before the week, plan out your schedule, pack your lunch and figure out what you’re going to wear every day, Buscher said. He also suggested drinking less coffee, which has a strong effect on anxiety levels, or switching to tea.
You can even practice conversations. If you’re nervous about how to answer “how have you been?” write down an answer and rehearse it until you feel comfortable.
Give yourself patience if it takes some time to settle into a routine or something you had hoped to incorporate doesn’t quite fit.
Tea.
Maybe, with electronic communication and a threatened global ecosystem, the whole central office thing is… outdated? Foolish?
The Seattle Times means well, of course. The tips are worthwhile and the article is well-written. But maybe the real story here is that going somewhere else to do stuff you could do from home is stupid?
Take it away, The British!
Now I shall boast!
Mrs. Moe and I went out TWICE this past week to see entertainments and those nights were CONSECUTIVE.
I know!
Thursday night we saw Dina Martina, who I will describe as a Drag Pathos Clown and we laughed just so much. Here’s some Dina:
and then! Friday! We went to see Mr. Robyn Hitchcock, who is one of my favorite music makers ever and has been for years. He is very great and nice.
He did this song, among others:
Seeing brilliant performers doing their thing IN PERSON makes me feel better about the universe and my place in it.