The Virtue & Power of Ignorance
The Virtue & Power of Ignorance
The most important thing you’ll read before 2026
I haven’t written anything for a while.
I haven’t really been “online” for a while either.
I stopped listening to podcasts, using X, IG, Substack and Nostr, and really ceased caring about anything that’s going on in the world beyond my family, business and my home.
It’s a beautiful feeling.
The last time I posted anything was about three months ago and I can quite proudly say that I have no idea what’s going on in the world, what the current thing is, what flavour of hysteria is tending today, whether the right is mogging the left or vice versa, whether the trannies or trads are winning, or what Musk or Trump recently said or did.
I have no fucking clue. And it’s amazing. It’s one of the best feelings I’ve had in many, many years.
I was sent a podcast by a good friend of mine with the assumption that I had listened to it because it’s the kind of work that’s usually up my alley. It was Johann Kurtz on Marty Bent’s TFTC.
Marty is a friend whose show I’ve been on many times, and while Johann and I haven’t spoken properly, I respect his work a lot. He’s a brilliant thinker and a great writer. That being said, my response to my friend was not only “no”, but that “I would rather have my balls in a vice while being dragged across the gravel than sit down and listen to it.”
Why?
Because that’s how little I give a shit about any of these topics anymore, or anything that’s happening in the world beyond my immediate sphere of influence.
Johann Kurtz & Marty Bent — I love you both, so this has nothing to do with your discussion. I’m sure I agree with 100% of what you covered.
But…I just don’t care.
My care factor right now is zero. No…actually, it’s more like minus 100 on a scale of zero to 100. At the same time, my desire to live life within the domain that I control is at an all time high. I don’t care about politics. I don’t care about philosophy. I don’t care about the right or the left, tradition, or any of these concepts or ideas.
I care about my family, my business, my team, making money, and creating beautiful moments in my life that I will remember on my deathbed.
Listening to another podcast is not only not something I’m likely to remember later on in life, but it’s more insidiously going to actively consume the limited time I have available to spend with either my newborn son or working on what I am interested in.
And for what? More iNfOrMaTiOn? No thankyou. My head is full of that already. More confirmation of my already-strongly-held beliefs? What a waste of time that would be.
When I think about all the time I spent engaging in politics, listening to podcasts, scrolling on X, and arguing with people who I will never meet or know, I am beyond embarrassed. I coped by telling myself I was “staying informed” or “learning.” But in reality, it was a tragic waste.
Never again will I be so stupid.
From here on out, my focus is going toward that which I love. That which matters to me. I’m committed to treating my time and attention like the precious commodity that it is, and not a cheap trinket that I trade for whatever the algo or this ever-pervasive media-machine wants to draw my attention to.
Perhaps one day I will be called again to speak about something. But it feels so remote, and so futile now that I’ve consciously chosen to step out of the noise.
Mental Obesity
We are drowning in information and data. So much so that we’re obese in the mind. The same way the human body was not prepared for a world of abundant food, and we thus transformed our cities into feeding zones full of fat people, the human mind is not prepared for a world with infinite content and information. Less than two decades into social media and the world is already full of morbidly obese minds that cannot think or focus, let alone produce anything novel anymore.
Even the best of us are mentally overweight! There are few, if any, original ideas anywhere. Everyone, everywhere is in a constant, social-media induced mimetic trance, mistaking repetition for thought while parroting the same words as those in our little echo chamber.
It’s all so fake and ghey. All of it. The so-called “good” content and the rage-bait alike. It’s all bullshit. It’s all a show. It’s all a LARP. None of it is real. It’s just people afraid to actually live in the present. Too afraid to look in the mirror, so they look at the screen or the camera instead.
They spend their lives talking about shit they don’t understand, instead of actually living any of it. It’s all truly so fake, ghey and retarded.
The only solution is to shut it all out.
Deliberate Ignorance is the True Bliss
I always thought Ignorance was a sin, and that those who called it bliss were somehow blind, stupid or weak.
And perhaps this is true for some. The NPC-normie-type of ignoramus. Sure.
But…I’ve come to the realisation that ***selective ignorance ***on the other hand; I;m talking actual wilful, intentional ignorance, is not only blissful, but is a holy virtue.
This is the kind of ignorance that soars above the clouds of mass hypnosis and hysteria formed by the latrine of empty minds, cheap content, fake news and ghey media that is hUmAn sOciEtY and its flashing notice board: the ‘world wide web’.
It’s the kind of ignorance that is deliberately oblivious to what is going on in the world because none of it matters an iota in the grand scheme of one’s life.
It’s the kind of noble, savage and ruthless ignorance that doesn’t even waste energy saying: “I don’t care.” It’s just blissfully above to the noise, present only with what matters, here and now.
A quality of ignoring that is higher, more real, more raw, more pure and more holy.
I can only imagine that this was the sort of high-brow ignorance the most regal of royalty had in the feudal and ancient world. They could be faced with famine, plague, war or invasion — but first; the royal bath, because cleanliness is next to godliness.
They knew that there is time for war and there is a time for peace. That there is a time for ignorance and there is a time for action, attention and attack. The trick, as I am slowly learning, is to know which time is when.
The Lion is the ideal archetypical creature in this regard. When it’s time to feed, he hunts and he feeds. When it’s time to fuck, he fucks. When it’s time to play he plays. And then when it’s time to relax, nothing in the world can bother him.
Switching Off
In 2020 I became somewhat of a public figure. Since that time, I always had something to say, and because I was perhaps articulate in saying it, people listened.
But, as the pace of things accelerates and the never ending cycle of hysteria continues, it’s dawned on me that none of it really matters. Sure, individual events may matter to some people, but because of how we’re wired and how the internet and social media have connected us all, the number of events that can (a) happen and also (b) be brought to our attention is infinite.
Which in short means that everything matters all the time. But when everything matters all of the time, then the only reaction for the mind and body is to become numb. In other words, nothing means anything or matters any more.
This is not a way to live.
A few months ago when Iryna and Charlie were murdered, something snapped in me. I lost my shit online, for what I didn’t know at the time, would be the last time.
I had actually been offline for about a week, welcoming my first born son to this world. I logged in quickly (and ironically) to reschedule a podcast appointment so I could stay offline longer.
I was immediately sucked into the shitstorm. I went on a tirade, I called for blood, and wasted a bunch of mental energy and attention all so I could…vent? give my opinion? get some followers or likes? yell at the clouds? exercise my thumbs? lose sleep?
Did anything I say change anything at all? Does anyone even remember what I said? Do I even remember what I said?
Within a week or two, people had forgotten these incidents and replaced them with a new hysteria or outrage. Another reason to ‘chimp out’ — and my bet is that since then, another 500 hysterias have come and gone, like farts in the wind. Huffed and puffed by the lemmings like oxygen, who are all too desperate for the next whiff of shit.
When you step back a little, it’s all so obviously a self-perpetuating scam.
Attention, at the end of the day, is all we really have. It’s finite. It’s super super super finite. We have so little time. We have only so much energy. It’s hard to focus at the best of times, and here we are, on a daily basis, being either:
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Distracted by things inside of a phone-size shopfront that most of us will either never have (picture-perfect women, hotels, cars, etc), or
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Inflamed by things on that same stupid screen which we have no relationship to or influence over, happening in other parts of the world, thousands of miles away.
The end result of all this stupidity (for 99.9999% of people) is just a LOSS of attention.
I say loss specifically because this time, energy and attention cannot be reclaimed. It’s gone. It’s wasted. Your precious life-blood was poured into things you don’t or can’t have, or shit you cannot do anything about.
It took up space in your psyche and left you with a void that you cannot fill — which in turn causes you to go back and spend more time distracting and inflaming yourself online to keep the feeling going.
And yes, I’m sure some of you have found inspiration or motivation from these screens (this can happen), but if we’re all being TRULY honest with ourselves here, we can admit the truth: we can be just as inspired by a walk on the beach or a conversation with a loved one too.
The real reason we choose the phone is because the little dopamine bump is easier to get with the flick of your thumb. Doing stuff in the real world requires more effort.
That being said — we forget the cost. Because instead of acting on our inspiration or motivation, we satisfy the desire through the digital simulacra by…scrolling…again..
So in other words, we LARP for a moment on our phone, 10,000 miles away from the prize or the danger…and then to fill the subsequent vacuum, we do the same thing… again…and again…and again…
Meanwhile, REAL moments of our REAL lives pass us by.
What a tragedy..
Solutions?
I don’t think there is a ‘solution’ to any of this. There is no panacea. The world has changed and we have to adapt. But there is some things we can do..
The black & white pill is that the world is going to get faster, noisier and more distracting than it’s ever been — and it will happen at an ever-increasing pace.
The mind is a curious thing and since these technologies hijack the parts of the mind that direct our attention, they will forever be powerful. So as far as ‘solutions’ go, the best thing to do is to switch off and tune out as much as possible.
I saw that Med Gold is on a similar track (which is a good sign — he’s one of the few people I consistently agree with). His suggestion: to tune out of American Politics. Mine? The same. Perhaps just tune out altogether.
Doesn’t mean you go Amish (although that might be the right thing for you), but doing something to get offline AND ALSO AWAY FROM THE FUCKING CAMERA IF YOU’RE LARPING AS A CREATOR, is probably a good idea.
For me, being more deliberate is the goal. If I had to sum up my resolution for the coming year it is to be more “present” and “deliberate” in my “real life”.
Doesn’t mean I’ll go entirely dark (yet)
I’ve always enjoyed writing, and while I probably won’t write as frequently here on Substack because it involves having to look at a screen and post things, I’ll probably drop a piece or two here and there.
But IG / X / Nostr / Social Media ?
Fuck that. No more.
My time on earth is too short, and I want to pack this life with as many beautiful, deep relationships and lasting memories as possible.
When I’m on my deathbed, I won’t remember wtf I saw on Twitter or Instagram from all those endless hours of looking at the screen. But I will remember the time I spent with the people who I truly loved.
What a tragedy it would be to leave this life without having maximised my time with them.
So…
Expect less from me next year.
When I write, I will write for me. I might share my thoughts and lessons from the businesses I’m building. I might even begin writing about more controversial topics, under a pseudonym, because those things that interest me.
Beyond that….I’ll be mostly offline, enjoying my life, my family and building things.
Final note…
Speak for yourself
Since I’m slaying some sacred cows, allow me to slay this last one..
I used to quote this poem a lot to justify my rants online. Now, being a little older and wiser, I am certain it was a psyop, designed to get people like you and I, involved and interested in things that have nothing to do with us.
So here’s my message and poem instead:
First they came for the commies — and I didn’t speak out — because I they should round up all the commies anyway.
Then they came for everyone else — and I didn’t speak out — because I was too busy focusing on my own life and it was all just propaganda anyway.
Then when my time came, I realised there was no ‘they’ — but that it was just my time, and it was ok, because I had lived my life already. I didn’t need anyone to speak for me, because I had already spoken for myself.
Aleksandar Svetski
Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for 2026!
Aleksandar Svetski
Highlights (4)
Attention, at the end of the day, is all we really have. It’s finite. It’s super super super finite. We have so little time. We have only so much energy. It’s hard to focus at the best of times, and here we are, on a daily basis, being either:
We are drowning in information and data. So much so that we’re obese in the mind. The same way the human body was not prepared for a world of abundant food, and we thus transformed our cities into feeding zones full of fat people, the human mind is not prepared for a world with infinite content and information. Less than two decades into social media and the world is already full of morbidly obese minds that cannot think or focus, let alone produce anything novel anymore.
I care about my family, my business, my team, making money, and creating beautiful moments in my life that I will remember on my deathbed.
I stopped listening to podcasts, using X, IG, Substack and Nostr, and really ceased caring about anything that’s going on in the world beyond my family, business and my home.