Just saw some tourist get kicked out of a gas station. First, they asked the gas station cashier if they had kombucha. Later, they said "I want whole wheat of course you don't have it." Finally, "ugh of course all they have is powdered creamer for coffee." To which the cashier responded by pointing out the refrigerated machine for actual cream, but then told them to get out as they started walking towards it.

This is how you gatekeep your gas stations

Let us first address the staggering figure of $1,747, purported to represent the average American's monthly rent. Where did he pull that number from? Astoundingly, this figure emerges from an amalgamation of rental costs across the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas.

"Look guys, the average person runs over 5,200 miles per year. What do you mean my sample is biased by the fact that I only asked elite marathon runners who are actively training? Ridiculous."

Yet, the discourse extends beyond this glaring misrepresentation, unveiling two critical issues:

1) The pursuit of college degrees has devolved into an exercise in futility.
2) Individuals are relentlessly flocking to already saturated metropolitan areas, exacerbating the housing crisis in areas with already exorbitant rental prices.

In stark contrast, the US Census Bureau provides a more grounded estimate of the national average monthly rent: $1300.

Diving deeper, the Census delineates between urban and rural living costs. The urban average, encompassing a broad spectrum of urban regions beyond the top 50 metros, stands at $1349 monthly for approximately 81% of the populace.

What of the rural demographic, constituting the remaining 19%? Their average rent is a mere $864 per month.

Rural folks' rent is, on average, less than two thirds that of their urban counterparts.

This disparity reveals a poignant truth: rural residents find themselves in a more tenable financial situation, with a significant portion spending less than 20% of their income on rent. Conversely, a disproportionate number of urban dwellers allocate over 30% of their earnings to housing costs.

While some may be excused for succumbing to the first mistake, having been indoctrinated with the notion that higher education is the gateway to success, there remains no justification for persisting in the second error. The choice to break free from the urban grind is yours to make.

I implore you, dear readers: liberate yourselves from the confines of urban life; get out of the cities

"Go to University, get a good job in the city and make lots of money."

The American housing landscape would profoundly benefit from an infusion of Aristotelian wisdom.

Aristotle taught us that true virtue resides in the golden mean, a harmonious balance nestled between the extremes, the vices, of deficiency and excess. He illustrated this with the example of courage, which elegantly balances between the deficiency of cowardice and the excess of recklessness.

Yet, when we turn our gaze to the American housing industry, we find a disconcerting trend: a stark polarization in the sizes of new homes. The market is flooded with either diminutive abodes, scarcely spanning 600 ft², or sprawling estates that stretch beyond 2000 ft².

Considering the current size of the average American household, the ideal home size for most would hover around 1200 ft². Individuals or smaller families might find solace in spaces around 800-1000 ft², while larger families could thrive in homes ranging from 1400 to 1800 ft². Alas, the current housing narrative seems to have lost sight of these moderate, more practical dimensions, veering instead towards the extremes.

When you're shopping for a home, or building your own, keep this in mind and choose a home of sensible proportions

Where Christian faith is joyous, certain, serene, loving, humble, patient, submitting in all things to the Will of God, its Nihilist counterpart is full of doubt, suspicion, disgust, envy, jealousy, pride, impatience, rebelliousness, blasphemy–one or more of these qualities predominating in any given personality. It is an attitude of dissatisfaction with self, with the world, with society, with God; it knows but one thing: that it will not accept things as they are, but must devote its energies either to changing them or fleeing from them. It was well described by Bakunin as ‘the sentiment of rebellion, this Satanic pride, which spurns subjection to any master whatever, whether of divine or human origin.’

Nihilist rebellion, like Christian faith, is an ultimate and irreducible spiritual attitude, having its source and its strength in itself--and, of course, in the supernatural author of rebellion. We shall be unprepared to understand the nature or the success of Nihilism, or the existence of systematic representatives of it like Lenin and Hide, if we seek its source anywhere but in the primal Satanic will to negation and rebellion. Most Nihilists, of course, understand this will as something positive, as the source of "independence" and "freedom"; but the very language in which men like Bakunin find it necessary to express themselves, betrays the deeper import of their words to anyone prepared to take them seriously.

- Seraphim Rose, Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age

Before the modern age the life of man was largely conditioned by the virtues of obedience, submission, and respect: to God, to the Church, to the lawful earthly authorities. To the modern man whom Nihilism has "enlightened," this Old Order is but a horrible memory of some dark past from which man has been "liberated"; modern history has been the chronicle of the fall of every authority. The Old Order has been overthrown, and if a precarious stability is maintained in what is unmistakably an age of "transition," a "new order" is clearly in the making; the age of the "rebel" is at hand.

- Seraphim Rose, Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age

Nothingness, incoherence, antitheism, hatred of truth: what we have been discussing in these pages is more than mere philosophy, more even than a rebellion of man against a God he will no longer serve. A subtle intelligence lies behind these phenomena, and on an intricate plan which philosopher and revolutionary alike merely serve and do not command; we have to do with the work of Satan.

Many Nihilists, indeed, far from disputing this fact, glory in it. Bakunin found himself on the side of "Satan, the eternal rebel, the first freethinker and emancipator of worlds." Nietzsche proclaimed himself "Antichrist." Poets, decadents, and the avant-garde in general since the Romantic era have been greatly fascinated by Satanism, and some have tried to make it into a religion. Proudhon in so many words actually invoked Satan:

"Come to me, Lucifer, Satan, whoever you may be! Devil whom the faith of my fathers contrasted with God and the Church. I will act as spokesman for you and will demand nothing of you."

What is the Orthodox Christian to think of such words? Apologists and scholars of Nihilist thought, when they regard such passages as worthy of comment at all, usually dismiss them as imaginative exaggerations, as bold metaphors to express a perhaps childish "rebellion." To be sure, it must be admitted that there is a juvenile quality in the expression of most of modern "Satanism"; those who so easily invoke Satan and proclaim Antichrist can have very little awareness of the full import of their words, and few intend them to be taken with entire seriousness. This naive bravado reveals, nonetheless, a deeper truth. The Nihilist Revolution stands against authority and order, against Truth, against God; and to do this is, clearly, to stand with Satan. The Nihilist, since he usually believes in neither God nor Satan, may think it mere cleverness to defend, in his fight against God, the age-old enemy of God; but while he may think he is doing no more than playing with words, he is actually speaking the truth.

- Seraphim Rose, Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age

The responses to that post are funny

What do you mean OP doesn't like Ted?