WEAK MIND VIRUS
WEAK MIND VIRUS
The only thing more powerful than a belief is an addiction to one
The first weeks of the new year found Elon Musk catching flak for his drug use and the associated “cringeworthy” behavior witnessed by the poor people who have to work for him. His response: “Whatever I’m doing, I should obviously keep doing it!” As if his absurd money should be the only measure that matters.
Sure, Musk has been brilliant enough to revolutionize the automobile industry and put rockets into space. And yet, he’s still a moron.
If you have the capacity for non-binary, holistic thinking, you can let him be both. A genius. And a moron. You don’t actually have to choose a side.
But these days, a lot of people feel compelled to take a side on everything. Musk included. He’s just one of the many seeking a simple answer, a definitive “actual truth.”
As if the truth is ever definitive or simple. As if there are two distinct sides to everything.
It’s no coincidence that we find someone like Musk prattling on about a “woke mind virus,” having chosen “a side” in “the culture wars.”
I don’t know about a woke mind virus. Or an anti-woke one for that matter. But there’s definitely another WMV going around: weak mind virus.
Weak mind virus is marked by dualistic thinking, a rejection of nuance, and an inability or unwillingness to define “right” versus “wrong” absent of “context” (i.e. everything is binary except the only binary that actually matters). The above ingredients come together like a twisted intellectual Long Island iced tea. And they’re just as obliterating.
Weak mind virus has been synthesized by a culture of addiction. A culture of self-indulgence, powered by a media designed to spike your dopamine with more outrage, more memes, and more provocation. Here, the medium is the message. The transmission is the transmission.
The information peddled is addictive. Thus, the information is toxic. Hence, the information isn’t making you smarter. It’s fragmenting you. And it’s killing your relationships. Just like any other addiction to any other substance.
But when you’ve got weak mind virus, you don’t care. You’re just out looking for a bigger hit of how f*cking right you are.
And you can always find lower companions to affirm your righteousness. If weak mind virus is anything like alcoholism, take it from me, it’ll only get worse. You’ll have to dig ever deeper to find people who still f*ck with you.
Weak mind virus tells you everyone is out to get you. That nothing is fair. That you know better than everyone else. That the best way to cover up the aching emptiness in the middle of your chest is to be provocative. It tells you that you’re actually really a nice guy.
Those suffering from weak mind virus are more susceptible to propaganda, psychobabble, and pseudoscience. It’s no coincidence that Alex Jones of Info Wars and Gwyneth Paltrow of Goop peddled the exact same miracle vitamins. The “deplorable” at a rally chanting “Stop the steal” and the faux revolutionary / future investment banker at a rally chanting “Globalize the Intifada” may not see eye-to-eye on too much but they do share a total disregard for the potential IRL consequences of their trendy, bad-faith ideologies and a penchant for “signaling” with politically-charged fashion accessories about their heads and necks.
One thing that struck me in the early days of the current Israel-Hamas conflict was how much calmer some people on the ground in both Tel Aviv and Gaza seemed than some of my safe-and-sated American social media acquaintances. Literally, WTF. Hysterical privilege (or privilege hysterical): yet another symptom of weak mind virus.
Additional symptoms of weak mind virus include oblivious entitlement, contempt before investigation, and moral relativism. And it seems to affect the MAGA right and the ideologue left, their elected officials, and their chosen media stooges—with their many memes and infographics—in equal measure.
This is all stuff a 12-step program can actually help vaccinate against. I don’t see a lot of my trudging buddies in recovery having a hard time defining right and wrong. We live and die by a code. Sharpening our minds requires being open to the possibility that we’re wrong about everything. That’s why there’s only one hill we’ll die on. No matter what.
It seems like so many others are ready to die on all of them, though. And for what?
Consumed by consumption and trapped in a culture of hedonism where everything—the way we eat, the way we date, the way we read, the way we watch—is designed to be addictive, it seems some people have stopped developing emotionally. As we say in recovery, “you stay stuck at the age you were when you started drinking.” Same goes for scrolling. These digital natives are f*cked.
For those suffering from weak mind virus, even expertise is problematic. That’s why they’ll happily sign off on the platforming of idiots. Idiots being agreeable and non-threatening as long as they never contradict you. Anyone who does? “Problematic.” Some on the right find expertise “elitist” and some on the left find it “oppressive.” And who will you always find scapegoated at the confluence where fringe right meets fringe left? Yes, you guessed it, Elon and friends, the original “oppressive elitists” themselves, the Jews! Honestly, can y’all be any more basic?
And that unassailable infallibility applies to your emotional reality, too. It’s “unacceptable” to think or feel what the weak minded don’t. (Or can’t. Or won’t.)
That’s why the anti-cancellation-culture and anti-doxxing narratives on the right and left, respectively, share the same underlying architecture: 1) I am entitled to say and do whatever I want and 2) You are not entitled to hold me accountable for it.
In recovery, taking accountability is at the core of everything we do. And it’s actually profoundly liberating.
Musk, of course, could have responded, “I’m sorry that my behavior disturbed my employees. I’m definitely going to examine that.” Instead, he responded with a laundry list of how correct he is to have disturbed them. But in a binary culture where intrinsic rightness always trumps basic politeness, why would he give a second thought to the impact his behavior has on others?
In 2024, the only thing more powerful than a belief is an addiction to one.
From a psychological development standpoint, most humans grow into their ability to really engage in non-binary thinking at the end of adolescence (i.e. their early-to-mid 20s). And Buddhists have been leveling up on this front—making room for more than two realities and attaching to none of them—for thousands of years.
But adults suffering from weak mind virus on social media? Not so much.
Could there be another reason they aren’t maturing? That they aren’t actually self-actualizing?
Maybe it’s not just our culture of addiction. Maybe it’s because all the drugs are f*cking with their brains.
A recent study conducted by Johns Hopkins University found that cocaine may cause brain cells to cannibalize themselves. Cocaine use rapidly ages the brain. And over time, it impairs your attention, memory, and ability to make good decisions.
But, if you really deserve it (like Elon apparently thinks he does) then it should be celebrated, right? You should be lauded for all of your instincts because they’re “yours,” and everything “yours” should be accepted unconditionally even if it’s blatantly hedonistic or unhealthy for you, your fellow man, and the planet. Like Musk sums it up, “If drugs actually helped improve my net productivity over time, I would definitely take them.” Never mind who the cartels had to carve up to get them here if your stock keeps rising.
So, if you use cocaine—ever—I’m not interested in your opinion on anything.
Snorting cocaine while fighting for the plight of the oppressed with your IG activism? Seriously? The cocaine trade infamously racks up tens of thousands of brown bodies every year. If you get gacked out of your mind every now and then, you are clearly demonstrating that you are totally comfortable doing harm if it makes you feel good.
Along those same lines, if you work in fashion and drive a Range Rover and cosplay as an anti-capitalist radical on the internet, data shows you’re 99% likely to be a f*cking idiot.
So, while the morally-challenged empathy failures dabble with ketamine and tantrum like toddlers all around me, I take solace in the words of David Lynch, “What a great time to be alive if you love the theater of the absurd.”
Of course, I could be wrong about all of this. WTF do I know? What the strong-minded understand is that the real power is in the not knowing. And there’s even more of it in accepting the not knowing. Radical acceptance requires a powerful mind. And that’s actually revolutionary.
Believe me. Weak mind virus is not a terminal thing. You can heal. I have.
Where to start? Stop scrolling. Meditate. Get some talk therapy. And consider the core precepts of Taoism, literally “the middle way,” and a brilliant path to be on at that. Be compassionate and loving. Be straightforward within and without. Always take from yourself to aid others. Be equanimous and of whole heart in all of your actions. Or don’t and be a c*nt. The choice is yours.