E10: People Protect Their Ego (Not Their Truth); S8: Finale!

Some of you are here because you follow Man With No Name, and you’ve wandered into my corner of Substack like someone who meant to attend a trauma‑informed workshop and instead found a man in a basement talking about socks, ego, and Canada Day. Welcome. I’m glad you’re here, even if you’re not sure you meant to be.Before anything else, I’m giving you a trigger warning — because many of you are used to them.But I don’t believe in trigger warnings conceptually.And the one I’m giving you is a lie.You’ll only understand what that means if you listen to the NotebookLM explainer made specifically for you. [*Not Available except on SubSmack]You have options:Listen to the NotebookLM deep‑dive explainer first.Listen to my actual episode first.Listen to neither.Listen to both.Listen in the wrong order.Listen in no order.Decide I’m not your flavor and slip quietly back into Man With No Name’s universe.All choices are valid.All choices are illusions.All choices are mirrors.For my regular listeners — my tiny, beloved, contrarian cluster… there’s probably a fuck in there too — you probably won’t want to listen to the NotebookLM explainer. It’s not for you. It’s for his audience.But because I’ve said that, you’re probably already halfway through it.You’re contrarians.You’re gremlins.You’re the kind of people who touch the “Do Not Touch” sign just to see if the sign blinks. Or is fingerprint repellent. Or maybe it is a fingerprint repellant. So you can spray your “Do Not Touch” fingerprint repellant on anything that you don’t want touched. By fingerprints.Nasty, nasty non-consent-seeking fingerprints! I hope the fingers don’t get any funny ideas. Because I will be there to swat them away if they do. I do not like anyone to force me to drink tea. Even if I told them that I actually like tea.I like big ships too. But, you know what they say… it’s the motion of the ocean. If you’re a size queen, like me though (at least in your fantasy life)… you’re going to be partial to the size of the ship too. All things being equal… otherwise. And it’s already obviously started, but here’s where the recursion starts:If you listen to the explainer, you’ll hear two AI voices explaining the episode. One is a woman’s voice, the other is a man’s. Do you suppose you’ll weight what they say based on their gender?What I’m really asking is: Do you believe in unconscious bias? Because that’s very DEI. And I know that’s fallen out of favour. We love our authoritarians. And they really don’t like anyone linking the present to the past. That’s ridiculous. Who is affected by their past!?!If you listen to the episode, you’ll hear me explaining the conversation. But you will need to redefine the word “explain” for yourself… several times… in rapid succession. Then you will just have to agree to float… even if you feel like you’re drowning.If you make a podcast about listening to either one, you’ll be explaining the explanation of the explanation, while drowning.., several times in rapid succession. Yes, you will die a horrible death… almost everyone’s nightmare… as frequently as the boulder rolls over Sisyphus. Because no one ever talks about that part… What happens when Sisyphus can’t get the boulder up the hill… again… And the only thing between Sisyphus and being squashed into a pancake is… his COMPLETE exhaustion.And if you tag me in your explainer of the explainer of the explaining explainer explaining explanations, I’ll probably make another episode explaining your explanation of my explanation of the conversation that became the song that became the episode that became the explainer that became this post.I’ll be bending in the next mirror. And that wasn’t a come on just because I’m gay.No, I don’t like all men. I actually like some boyish women.I would have no idea what to do with them… and I’m not just talking sexually. Like, I would probably not be very at ease with one in my house… other than as a friend.That would be weird.