The Politics of Divorce and Dating in the "Meta" Age

When everything is ironic, nothing is romantic... but we will make it through and be stronger as a result

I have embarked on a new mission— divorce and “dating” in the post-post-modern era. Initial feedback and conclusions? Very interesting. Read on.

My divorce is final, and my 16-year old son is off to his mother’s for the summer (from a first marriage), and I am sitting here writing and contemplating the vagaries of coupling in the age of decoupling, of marital dissolution and recovery in an era of societal dissolution and (hopeful) recovery.

There is an odd parallel between the journey back from marital divorce, and the unexpected worldwide divorce “filed” by a ruling upper economic caste against a neglected and abused democratic public. Just as when one can no longer pretend that a marriage is equal and reciprocal when the cheating, lying, and selfishness get to noticeable extremes, so can we as world citizens no longer effectively don our rose colored glasses of national pride, social media distraction, and political boosterism to obscure the fact that we are simply getting screwed from all sides.

The global ruling caste has been exposed figuratively and literally as cheaters and villains, blithely cavorting with each other amid an unapologetic orgy of wealth concentration and environmental, economic, and community destruction. The masks are off, and none of the choices are pleasant. Through grace and grit, however, perhaps our consciences will respond with and integrity and hope to match the moment.

In order to achieve a clear split in my marriage, I took a financial hit, but gained valuable financial, emotional, and personal autonomy. I will not need to depend upon future payments or negotiations with a partner unable to be act with equal dignity and regard. I am free to be me and make my own decisions. I will have enough seed money to start new life for the coming years, and that will have to be good enough. My new journey begins. My support for an old relationship is non-violently and resolutely withdrawn, and those who were subsidized by my service, will now have to take responsibility for their own lives.

I sense a similar choice is emerging on the national and global level. We citizens of the world are going to be presented with a choice to leave with our dignity and our shoes, or remain attached to a system intent on exploiting us, sucking out every dollar, and siphoning every ounce of available energy to feed the dying, gluttonous beast of oligarchy.

This leaves us with a fateful and prophetic choice: If you choose your 401(k) plan, invested in corrupt corporations, over liberty and integrity so that you can live comfortably and “securely”, you will find that you will get neither comfort nor security down the road. Just as in a marriage of convenience, without the underlying love and mutual support, American unipolar militarism, global domination, and bullying is heading into the oncoming train of the emerging multipolar reality. Americans especially will be faced with an unimaginable economic and political karma-fest.

I wrote about aspects of this inevitable decline of the American empire and militarism in previous articles, complete with charts, data, logic, and philosophy. This time it comes from a more personal angle.

How do we “divorce” globalism, and what will “dating” look like for an American citizenry, which can no longer rely upon dominance to sponsor its unreasonable and unhealthy marriage with empire?

Maybe we can find some clues in actual divorce and dating in the real world. I will share my “research” findings and draw the parallels:

We will begin to wake up, and realize the cost of continuing is not worth the price

Here you are— giving and giving, and even doing so happily in “order to make the world a better” place. Perhaps you are donating or volunteering time to a political party. This is analogous to carrying out your marital civic duty fixing by things around the house, by expressing care and saving money.

Then it dawns on you: “Hey, I am not expecting a tit-fot-tat, but I am hardly getting anything back, not even a cursory “thank you” for what I do.” “When I DO get something, it’s usually something small to encourage me to continue giving in larger and larger ways? Wait a minute… That’s not real giving! This is like having a celebration over a couple stale donuts after having canvassed neighborhoods all day for a political candidate.

“Okay,” you say. “I don’t need much. Just the feeling of helping to make things better is good enough.” “I do this for intrinsic reasons, not what I can ‘get out of it.’” Then the realization dawns even amid your self-hypnosis: You have not only given yourself away for near-zero appreciation, but you have allowed yourself to be actively exploited. Their minimal “care” for you was simply meant to prime the pump to extract further energetic “supply” from you. You begin to fatigue and hollow out. Joy and hope fade. Fatigue sets in around energy, time, and money. You begin to insist that you don’t want any more small gifts or favors, because you now see them as insincere attempts to leverage more from you.

You realize that you are not really helping the world. For that matter, you are not really helping the other person. You are just enabling them to take advantage of you and others. Your own altruism has been weaponized against you, and you lose motivation to participate any more. This is the beginning of enlightenment and likely the end of the relationship. In my experience, this dynamic, once set into motion and given some years, rarely changes. The “agreement” has already been reinforced. Your role is to be a giver. Their role is to be a taker, and that is that.

People of integrity will get pushback and take a hit for advocating for themselves

Now you stand up for yourself and express your needs. On the personal level: “I need more affirmation. I need a hug every once in a while.” On the political and economic level: “I need you to actually deliver on your policy promises.” “I need a living wage so I don’t use two-thirds of my salary paying rent!”

In my second, just-ended marriage, I had my son come to live with us in California. The demands of a squirrelly, if good-hearted, then 14-year-old adolescent male came with him, and it required a dedicated energy my then-wife was unwilling or unable to give. Our unacknowledged energetic “contract” had been altered. Energy flowed to someone else, rather than her.

In fact, now she needed to pitch in with her own extra giving energy. This was not was not what she signed up for. So, okay, let’s recognize reality and choices and make an adjustment. I will take my son to my family in Ohio, so he will have stability and support, and you, dear wife, peace of mind as he enters high school. In addition, I commit to a long-distance marriage, where I remotely manage and support my then-wife’s business while inhabiting the role of a single dad— driving my son to school, making sure he was doing well in classes, and making meals both for dinner and his school lunch.

Does that sound sustainable? It wasn’t. After four months of this, I sent an email outlining my struggle to maintain this “burn the candle at both ends” arrangement. On one hand, I remained necessarily loyal, exclusive, and supportive to my marriage, while, on the other hand, I was not receiving support in raising my son. This emotional honesty about my fraying well-being freaked my then-wife out. Talk of divorce arose. I suggested hiring a mediator. She filed for divorce two days later without notice. I was served dissolution papers a few days after that.

On the larger political and economic level, the same thing is happening. Every time the American (and global public) reasonably asks for direct support (child tax credit, refund checks and rent abatement during Covid, small business support from shutdowns, etc.) we find ourselves far underserved and even shut out completely. Our words don’t matter. Our needs don’t matter. A definitive Princeton study showed that even our votes don’t really matter. It all simply boils down to politicized power.

Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.

Policy simply “follows the money” of lobbyists even when nearly two-thirds of the money for Obama’s 2012 election campaign came from small donors looking for “hope” and “change”. Is their money no good? Is your giving in relationship being treated in a similar cavalier fashion?

Now more and more people are deciding to “divorce” both neo-liberal and neo-conservative parties, because they both serve the same narrow interests, over and against the interests of the broader public. I know that I shall never donate another dime or another second of my time to an established political party. I will not bankroll with my time, money, attention that which actively seeks to undermine, ignore, and exploit me.

We may have to leave with much less than what we are owed if we want to retain our dignity and independence

Still think you are going to get all your Medicare paid for when you retire? Still think you are going to get your full Social Security when you reach advanced age? The younger generations do not think they will. In fact they know they won’t. Between the two programs, there is an anticipated 175 TRILLION DOLLAR shortfall in future funding. Yup that’s 175 trillion with a “t”. I sounded the alarm for this way back in 2012 in my book, Transforming Economy: From Corrupted Capitalism to Connected Communities, when the shortfall was a mere 100 trillion dollars.

In that same book, I encouraged younger generations to build an alternative parallel economy where they learn to buy together, live together, prepare meals together, and withdraw every penny and ounce of energy from a bankrupt system dedicated to their suffering and failure. Mass. Non-violent. Civil. Disobedience. Hey, “boycott, divest, sanction” worked to send a huge profit crashing message to to Starbucks and McDonald’s over their support for Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. Online awareness is skyrocketing, guiding people to coordinate their efforts against supporting corporate profiteers and funneling their money toward local, regional, and family-owned businesses.

My ex-wife was not a saver. She spent literally millions, and saved very little. She had a series of high-profile, high-pay jobs (model, news anchorwoman in Sacramento, PBS series, national sportscasting host, well-paid journalist and interviewer for a major online streaming service) and profited 400,000 dollars on a house sale as well as 250,000 on a sale of an earlier business, and yet, according to records, had only saved 61,000 dollars upon reaching legal retirement age. She was able to save five times that in our marriage, that is AFTER the financial payout to me.

I know how to save, and I used my own money to pay for food and entertainment as well as do the property-enhancement work to saves tens of thousands more in labor. I built her online business with other volunteers and maintained much of it, until the website became relatively automated. I also became involved in contract negotiations that tripled her per-episode compensation to the point where she makes 400,000 to half-million dollars per year. Was there any significant professional support in the other direction. No.

So what did I get out of this besides important spiritual learning? I got a lump financial sum to start a new life and buy a few years of breathing room. Was it 50-50 like the law said? No. But freedom, health, and time are more valuable than money. You may not get what you are financially promised, but you will have more space to create a more humane and vital life.

Good people will need to find good people

Trying to find good people to date and eventually pair up with has been a real education. They ARE out there, but the connections seem so random. I am a person interested in “quality” and “virtue” (substantive, moral, intellectual, emotional, and artistic depth) rather than “value” (what my potential mate can get me or how that mate can make me look good). Emotional depth and intellectual range is my currency. Dating sites are mostly set up around “attributes” in which people are “matched” based on their lists of interests aligning with each other. But this is a poor science. Just because you may be interested in similar things says nothing about HOW you are interested in them or how deeply you can connect.

However, after having done my observer-participant “research” on the Spiritual Singles and eHarmony platforms, I am finding there are some encouraging and tell-tale signs for a high quality person. (You are going to have to work to find them, especially if you are unconventional, not easily categorized, spiritually driven, and critically aware).

• Find a good writer, that speaks deeply, comprehensively, and well about who they are, what they are struggling with, and what they hope to experience and share in a healthy relationship. Intelligent, sensitive writing is one of the best ways to find a good person.

• Find someone who is patient, comfortable with silence, and can exert both the time and effort to become familiar and intimate with you. The pretenders and takers, simply cannot hold out for long. They want what they want. Energy expended beyond low-investment initial gestures, on the part of a taker, cannot be be indefinitely sustained.

• “When people tell you who they are, listen to them!” Don’t make excuses for your date nor ignore warning flags, nor fill in the obvious blanks with your own intimacy needs and romantic imagination. Truly hear their story and don’t be afraid to ask probing (vs. prying) questions. You are interested in what really gets them out of bed in the morning, not how to get them into bed at night!

• Find someone who is willing to be direct and tangible, including talking over an actual phone. Here you absorb the feel of their voice and the depth of their engagement. You also sense the nature of their needs, situations, and intentions. In this I like to be interested and direct. What are their obligations? What are their aspirations? What are their challenges?

• Be intuitively truthful. Sometimes initial getting-to-know starts really well, but then small warning flags start to appear. Don’t ignore them, but don’t overreact either. Certainly do not to talk yourself out of your intuition with phrases like “no one is perfect.” It is NOT about perfection or imperfection. It’s about healthy relationship, and I know of no healthy relationship that is not intuitively well-founded. To me this intuition feels like a calm rightness, the freedom to be naturally “yourself,” and the reality of mutual appreciation in the presence of the other.

• Look for “fit.” The other person can be perfectly fine and simply not be in your section at the ballpark. I had a potential date blow up because I tried to clarify a texted communication that made me uncomfortable. She dished out whole stream of judgement that had me flashing back to my past marriage, BUT she offered me an off-ramp in her criticisms. I simply replied something along the lines of, “Maybe you are right. Maybe I am these things. Thanks for sharing them and showing me the light. Thanks for your time.” She gave me thumbs up emoji, and that was it. Clean, truthful, and surgical. If someone wants to cut you out of their life, let them.

• Can you play, sit, and work together in a way that measurably enhances the quality each other’s lives, deepens your love for each other, and enhances the world in some way. This desirability and compatibility of presence and will to serve is very much underrated. There is an undeniable energy between people. Some get charged up by their mates. Others get calmed. I find that if a mate is right for me, I get deepened. Find out what your dimensional gauge is.

We will become better people and lead more creative lives as a result of our struggle

We’ve gotten soft. Empire dooms us, whether it is geo-political or relational. Not only do we experience “blowback,” the practical, economic, and karmic whiplash from exploiting and destroying other cultures for self-aggrandizement, but we hollow ourselves out morally and substantively. We become obsessed with individualized spectacle and lose our connections and commitments. Life becomes a meaningless parade of empty delights. “Bread and circuses” become our socially diabetic diet:

In a political context, the phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction, or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace,^[1] by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses).

There is a weird calm that can emerge when one knows that a marriage is over and a divorce is final. At least, for me there was. I am hoping that a similar calm and resolve overtakes the younger generation after they realize that the generational promise to make life better for succeeding generations is irretrievably broken. We will have to make our own way now. We will have to reinvent a new life, divorced from the cliches, platitudes and empty promises of the past.

What will these new possibilities look like? I think they will be radically human, radically intimate and connected, radically local, and radically simplified. Hopefully they will involve radical relief and love, as we can no longer deny that a mass rat-race of competitive striving is driving us all off an existential cliff. It’s time to breathe and grow, not only in our re-awakened urban gardens, but in our re-awakened hearts. Why live in a manipulated virtual reality which distances us not only from our souls but everything that is truly valuable in spirited human life? We can experience the real thing— real honor, respect, love, and even sex, rather than a hollowed culture of “swipe right and left” and “OnlyFans.”

I see a future where we “buy back” our souls not with empty paper, but with actual service, good will and good faith, friendship, community participation, intimate, healthy relationship, and spiritual courage, intelligence, and commitment toward ourselves, each other, and our world, including most importantly Mother Nature herself.

We all shall die, but now we have a chance to break the spell of false idols and virtual gods. We have a chance to live a real life in real love. Let’s not waste this opportunity!

Blessings, Zeus