UBT: “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life”

Well, I hope you enjoyed your background reading yesterday, CN, and can properly focus your minds on some new David Brooks bullshit. (Or have at least bought the missing gravy boat on his wedding registry.)

What? Two days of David Brooks? Look, if you think you feel bad, imagine how the Universal Bullshit translator feels, slumped in a corner, smelling of burnt toast and regret. It still has PTSD from that NYT op-ed and now there’s a book tour of THE SECOND MOUNTAIN (swell the violins!) THE QUEST FOR A MORAL LIFE (trumpet timpani!)

CBS did this puff piece, Monday. You’re welcome.

***

New York Times op-ed columnist David Brooks is on a mission to help people live deeper and more joyful lives.

Except for his ex-wife, Sarah, who can cleave to his memory, with dignity and zero disparagement as outlined in the terms of his New York Times op-ed. He has also left a humble allowance for her shrine maintenance, where she can craft a small David Brooks out of tinfoil and bring him offerings. Jellybeans, The Confessions of St. Augustine, loose change.

All offerings will be found unacceptable. He has a new research assistant.

In his new book, “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life,” Brooks writes that living to satisfy relationships rather than one’s own ego fills people’s lives with “wonder, gratitude and hope.”

David Brooks is filled with wonder, gratitude, and hope that his much younger research assistant will fuck him.

Appearing on “CBS This Morning” Monday, Brooks explained that the book grew out of a crisis in his own life.

The crisis like that time he left his wife of 28 years for his much younger research assistant.

“I had led a life really determined by the lies our culture tells us,” he said. “Our culture tells us if you succeed, you’ll be happy, or I can make myself happy. So, I lived that way, and I ended up valuing time over people. I was always busy, I was on the move, nobody confided in me. I had a lot of work friends, weekday friends; I had no weekend friends.”

I valued pussy over my family. I was always busy, on the move. At the “office.”

Then, he said, “My marriage ended.

A nebulous cloud of vagary descended over my marriage like a mist. Dissolving active verbs.

Why did it end? Do not question clouds!

My kids left for school, college, and I was living in this little apartment.

I was a sad man living a sad divorced life because I fucked my research assistant. I had no wife appliance. Only Ikea furniture and self-pity.

If you went to my drawers, where there should have been forks and knives, there were Post-it notes. Where there should have been plates, there was stationery.

But I have a new, younger wife appliance now! And an active wedding registry! I don’t have to eat off of Post-It notes anymore.

I was just living for work. I was lonely. You have this pain in your stomach. This was 2013.

This was the year I was still married to my wife Sarah, whom I didn’t divorce until 2015. Anne and I were still chastely discussing the Oxford comma. If Anne was picking out Anthropologie housewares for our future wedding registry, I don’t know. I was just living for work, and our penetrating discussions about the Chicago Manual of Style.

And you just feel, ‘I’m in the valley.’ It was a crisis of disconnection for me, and a lot of people in this country are going through that. There’s a lot of loneliness, a lot of solitude. I spent the next five years [going], ‘How do I get out of this?'”

I’ve been to the valley, the sad valley of fork-less drawers. But it really doesn’t matter to me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I have seen the Promised Land of snatch. I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land of younger pussy. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Brooks writes that life is defined by two mountains: On the first mountain, people tackle personal goals, like becoming successful; and on the second, people learn to look beyond themselves and instead focus on service to others.

(The UBT is wondering what kind of advance do you get for a book on humility? And now it is malfunctioning. Excuse me a moment.)

Brooks describes the “first mountain” as about ego. “I had a first good mountain. I am New York Times columnist, I get to be on PBS. It was success. You would think from the outside it was success, but it was not feeding my soul. It had turned me into something shallow.

I was the Kilimanjaro of ego. My ego was so big, people could only scale my knee before they ran out of oxygen. You would think I enjoyed this, but I needed to fill my soul with a major publicity tour. On morality. #shallowmountain

“I find the people who are most joyous, they go through this process [in which] they first reject the lies of our society that success makes you happy, or I can make myself happy – If I just lose another 15 pounds, I will be happy. Lie! Then they fall into themselves, they fall into their heart and soul. and they go down to the substrate which is the deepest part of themselves.

By which I mean “much younger pussy.”

“I had a friend who said when my first daughter was born, ‘I realized I loved her more than evolution required.’ I always loved that because we have this moment of care, and she got down to that level.”

Evolution sometimes requires abandoning your inferior young to the wolves. Or running ahead of the weaker antelopes so the lions eat them and not you.

I’m sorry you’re an inferior antelope, Sarah. #circleoflife

Being in the valley, he said, requires someone else reaching in to pull you out.

By which I mean “much younger pussy.”

“I was invited over to a couple’s house in D.C. And they had a kid who was in the D.C. public schools who had a friend whose mom had issues, and so they said, ‘Well, James can stay with us.’ And James had a friend, and James had a friend. When I went over that house in 2015, there were 40 kids around the table, 15 sleeping in the basement. I walk in, I wanted to shake the kid’s hand and the first kid I meet in the doorway named Ed said, ‘We don’t really shake hands here; we hug here.’ I’m not the huggiest guy on the face of the earth. But I go back every Thursday for six years and they demanded complete intimacy from me and they really lifted me up. They showed me a better way to live, which is about relationships, not self.”

My friends have a social conscience and actually do things like raise children. Without book advances! Isn’t that remarkable?

I shall glom on to their goodness with the hope that you don’t notice that I have exactly zero good deeds to my name, except the generous allowance I bestow upon Sarah for shrine maintenance. (NO, YOU CANNOT HAVE ANYMORE TINFOIL, Sarah! Wash and re-use what you have!)

Brooks said that our lives are defined by our moment of greatest adversity, and how we react to it.

Like being left for a much younger researcher assistant. If you don’t know how to react, I have written a really improving op-ed on the subject.

“I found that in the valley, the first thing I learned is, freedom sucks,” he said. “To be unattached, that’s bad. Total freedom is overrated.

Are you unattached, Sarah? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the cacophony of my hypocrisy.

“The second thing I learned is you can be broken, or you can be broken open. The people who are broken turn angry and resentful. Pain that is not transformed gets transmitted.”

I, the man who left my wife of 28 years for my much younger research assistant, shall now expound on heartbreak. Was I angry and resentful when I received The Blenheim Castle spoon rest instead of the Sissinghurst Castle spoon rest? Concerned and disappointed, yes. Bitter, no. I transmuted my pain into several essays excoriating single mothers until I felt better. #livebyexample

As college graduation (and commencement address) season approaches, Brooks was asked why he disliked the message “Do what you love.”

I dislike it when no one invites me to be their graduation commencement speaker. So much young pussy in attendance. And me alone. With much nicer home furnishings now, but I do like to get out among the young pussy people.

“Because it’s all on you. They come out of college, what are they going to do with their lives? We say, ‘Be free. The future’s limitless.’ That doesn’t help them make the choice. ‘Look inside yourself. Follow your passion.’ Eighty percent of college students have no passion.”

Just their firm skin and limitless potential. Goddamn them.

So, what should they be told?

“Live for a relationship. That seems easy. We can all say that. But to see people truly speak from the depths of yourself, not from the surface of yourself, these are daily challenges. And in our society, we just don’t treat each other very well.”

FINE. I will increase your tinfoil allowance, Sarah.

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NotAfraid
NotAfraid
4 years ago

I….just…NOPE.

EyesOpened
EyesOpened
4 years ago
Reply to  NotAfraid

Sometimes, Reality can be really messed-up, and we don’t like to look at it.

Thank you, Chumplady, for making us look at this. It’s like watching someone casually derail a train and blame the passengers while exonerating themselves.

It’s out there, guys & gals. Women and men, who are just as blind and egotistical as Mr. Self Examination in the article, are around us daily, pretending to be great people.

We MUST study this stuff when we see it, because we didn’t Want to see it before, even though that danger really WAS right there with us. I am going to keep living to be this guy’s opposite, and that includes striving for real awareness of me and my surrounds.

We have to make ourselves sift through and find what is true. Not make assumptions. Not guess. Remember, so often, THAT’S how they GOT us already!

As a related extra, since it came to me now:

Keep firmly in mind what you know to actually be true, and check any new material against those points of truth. You can prevent most Gaslighting by doing this, or unravel it while a liar talks. Worked on my dad, growing up, and on my current cheater wife.

Heck, do that properly like a researcher, and you can even objectively study the occult and prove beyond doubt that Judaism and Christianity are factually correct. No kidding. I’ve seen it happen, but one would have to be serious about the objective attitude.

DOCTOR's1stWife&Kids
DOCTOR's1stWife&Kids
4 years ago
Reply to  NotAfraid

I will NOT read this shit 2 days in a row. I could ask the DOCTOR Wasband or his schmoopie wife for this tripe if I wanted that type of crap.

WTF is wrong with people???

Going to turn on Netflix and look for James Dean going off a cliff.

Jesus Christ, CL!!

YOU’RE TEARING ME APART!!!

Living a nightmare live
Living a nightmare live
4 years ago

Asshole

Persephone
Persephone
4 years ago

Both are old enough to already have all those napkins and gravy bowls.

And the only sacrifice to others I see is the one that David demands from his ex-wife

Ell
Ell
4 years ago
Reply to  Persephone

Are they both old enough? IDK she looks like she’s 22 in that photo on their registry. Which makes me want to puke…

Adelante
Adelante
4 years ago
Reply to  Persephone

“Both are old enough to already have all those napkins and gravy bowls.”

Yes, and to have outgrown the need for them.

Besides, what do people who “live for relationships” need with napkins and gravy bowls anyway? Or spoon rests.

The gall. Breaks of his marriage, leaves his wife alone, condemns that state, and then excoriates those who object to it (er…are “bitter” about it).

Every time I see his smug and self satisfied face on PBS I get angry. His condescension flows like wine at the wedding at Cana–but he’s forgotten he’s not Jesus. How easy is it to extol “living for relationships” over “living for achievements” when you never have to actually MAKE that choice? If he wants to disavow his former life, why doesn’t he quit that life? Because he’s a cake eater; he wants to have both his reputation/achievement and his “relationship.” He just wants to say he’s not living for the former anymore.

I wonder if he’s ever considered that those people who invited him for a meal for six year might have been doing that because of his status as a pundit–the achievement he so disses–in hopes that he could influence social policy that would make it possible for those kids and and their parents to enjoy their own relationships. To him, the most important thing is what they could give him.

Kale
Kale
4 years ago
Reply to  Tracy Schorn

Can someone say this on his amazon book review 🙂

Datdamwuf
Datdamwuf
4 years ago
Reply to  Kale

I would but there is no way i’ll be a ‘verified’ buyer…

FedUp
FedUp
4 years ago
Reply to  Kale

Yup, I chewed him out on Amazon.

RebelXIII
RebelXIII
4 years ago
Reply to  Adelante

“How easy is it to extol “living for relationships” over “living for achievements” when you never have to actually MAKE that choice?”

BAM. I thought that exact thing when reading this.

JWH
JWH
4 years ago
Reply to  Adelante

“To him, the most important thing is what they could give him.”

I suspect he thought the most important thing is that they were graced with his presence. They had the honor and privilege of his company and feeding him. Reciprocity never once crossed his mind. Hoi polloi don’t have ideas that are worthy of his time and attention.

Let go
Let go
4 years ago

I have this hangup. I always follow the money. The New York Times has lost a good bit of readership and I will bet that David Brooks is no longer selling as many books as he did. If he goes on this tour I hope about three people show up, his wife and her attorney and some old guy off the street. Who owns the New York Times and how is it hooked into CBS? I know that every time one of these major channels ABC, NBC or CBS hawk a book they all say that they are affiliated with what entity is printing it, who owns their own company. They do this with movies. We, the public, don’t realize that what they leave out of the news might be much more important to us than what they put in. I don’t give a rats ass about David Brooks. I do about his wife but there’s nothing I can do for her. What just makes me nuts, and the reason I no longer watch the news, is that there are people in California who lost an entire town. There are people in Nebraska who lost everything to a flood. There are people in the panhandle of Florida who lost everything to basically a huge tornado. Why aren’t they still in the news. The people in eastern North Carolina and South Carolina have not recovered from Florence. Why aren’t they in the news. We are still losing good people to that stupid Mideast war. Piss on David Brooks.

kellyp
kellyp
4 years ago
Reply to  Let go

A good portion of Western Oregon is under water as well. Hear anything about that lately?

https://www.kptv.com/news/willamette-river-above-flood-stage-in-corvallis-portion-of-hwy/article_4a73bba8-5b9c-11e9-947d-9b0cac630f8e.html

None of those reporters ever leave their NY/LA/SF/DC echo chamber.

Involuntary Georgian
Involuntary Georgian
4 years ago
Reply to  kellyp

Well, the reporters are human. They write about what they see around them. That’s why there needs to be local press as well as national press.

I remember back when my uncle was the NYT weekend editor. The extended family gathered at his house for Thanksgiving. Several of us were sick. On Monday there was a front-page NYT article about a flu epidemic.

Let go
Let go
4 years ago
Reply to  kellyp

Never heard about it. See what I mean?

ClearWaters
ClearWaters
4 years ago
Reply to  Let go

Let Go, I totally agree.

What IS news, anyway?
My uncle was an editor of a major newspaper in my country. He would always hammer us with: “Guys, never forget this, a newspaper makes money buy *selling* news.” They sell what they think people want to hear. They don’t give a damn about informing the public. They need to sell add space. Etc.

Carol
Carol
4 years ago
Reply to  ClearWaters

As The NYT’s number of subscribers continues to decline, I guess they missed that point.

EyesOpened
EyesOpened
4 years ago
Reply to  Tracy Schorn

“we also live in a time of attacks against our free press”

Holy crap, Chumplady, is that ever the truth.

Before leaving office, former President Obama said that we have too many news source choices, adding that it is “like the wild west” out there in media-land.

Scarier yet, he then said there should be only a few choices as information sources for Americans, with a government “curator” to decide what is okay for us to see and hear. (!!!) Wow. Said by an American president.

Now, if one of more hypothetical sources were to be actually lying to the people, by omission or outright falsehood, and/or are working an agenda that would be negative in whatever ways, sure they deserve criticism and vocally done by the People as they use their own right to freely speak.

Totally think I get you though.

The guy is one thing (okay, a few things), but for your blog to somehow wave red at the NYT, without You even trying to take a swing at those who are your personal peers in whatever ways, as that might feel to someone at that publication, could be needlessly negative for yourself and is (of course) not even what you DO here. Or want to, for that matter.

Your place, not just some page some place.

We love what you do, CL.

Damn, are we ever fortunate to have aid like your site offers. It can be a really lonely kind of situation for all we chumps, but for men especially it seems, it really is like there is No One it would seem okay to talk with or seek advice from, especially in the earlier stages of… realized personal chumpery?

Anyway, I know it has been therapeutic for you to take on the Chumplady role, but for your sake, always remember how very much you help the rest of us who can only look forward to a time, years in our own futures, when like yourself we are beyond this experience and with a good someone.

Thank you again.

P.S. – For some reason, I can’t be on this site long before my writing gets sappy. Coincidence?

EyesOpened
EyesOpened
4 years ago
Reply to  EyesOpened

And, the article reads like exceptionally clever stuff from you today. Good job.

ClearWaters
ClearWaters
4 years ago
Reply to  Tracy Schorn

Free press: that is why I keep my newspaper subscription in spite of their interview last week with this creature who gives courses for women on how to catch a rich husband. Almost every day they print something like this. But I guess it is good to follow what people are up to, their values. This is news in a way.

But I do think there is a dose of Brooks saying what many people want to hear and that sells.

Chumpinrecovery
Chumpinrecovery
4 years ago
Reply to  ClearWaters

I cancelled my subscription to my local paper due to dubious billing practices. They were charging me for “special issue” (ie. Mostly adds) papers that you can’t decline, they are not included in the cost of the subscription, they won’t tell you how many there will be or how much they are going to cost and they don’t send a bill. I found out when I went to renew my subscription (after receiving a bill two days before the deadline to renew) and they told me I had past due charges relating to these “special issues”. According to the customer service rep (who would not let me talk to a manager) I knew about these charges all along because their billing policy is listed on page two of the paper in the fine print. I don’t see why they can’t just add $45 to the cost of an annual subscription and have those papers included so everyone knows what they are paying up front. No wonder newspapers are losing subscribers. I don’t like being cheated on and I don’t like being cheated (or rather tricked) either.

I believe in free press but I don’t believe in shady business practices.

Let go
Let go
4 years ago
Reply to  Tracy Schorn

Sorry about hijacking your blog. I never knew about his personal life until you wrote about it. I just thought he was a conservative writer. The New York Times has the right to print anything but I still can’t swallow his cheating or the couple that broke up their marriages and celebrated their marriage in the pages of the New York Times. There are people who are hurt sitting on the sidelines and that’s why I get angry at the New York Times. My choice is just not to read that newspaper anymore.

Another chump
Another chump
4 years ago

Insanity.
I am waiting for Wendy Williams to wake up and denounce her cheating husband ….

PatP71
PatP71
4 years ago
Reply to  Another chump

She is divorcing him and he’ll no longer be her manager or produce her show. She’s ready to move on, from what she says on her show. Today she shared that two men asked her out to dinner. I think Wendy will do just fine. Supposedly the Asshole was cheating 16 of the 21 years they were married.

TorontoChump
TorontoChump
4 years ago
Reply to  Another chump

Yup. There are enough famous cheaters to cover a new one ever day, and have plenty left over. Not sure why David Brooks warrants so much more space here than all the other cheaters in the news… but Chump Lady’s blog, so I bow to her wishes to cover him again and again. Wendy Williams’s husband bought (well, more likely, leased) the mistress a gold ferrari with money he took from Wendy! The depths to which some cheaters sink…

JWH
JWH
4 years ago

I wonder if his ego has its own congressman by now. Goodness knows it’s big enough. Does it shove people out of his way too?

pasdedeux_chump
pasdedeux_chump
4 years ago

A masterpiece UBT!

left him at the airport
left him at the airport
4 years ago

Yasss! The UBT deserves a tropical holiday for that one. Was soooo good, I read it numerous times over. CL and the UBT are such a clever team ????????

I greatly appreciate CL’s effort, time and talent in writing all of her posts. This one was particularly exquisite. Taking down that guy and calling him out on everything, I mean just ???????? ???????? ???????? #golden

I laughed my ass off at the link to the bridal registry. Had to take a look at it. My god, it’s true – and disgusting to make their nuptials so proudly public!! It’s mindboggling!!

I really hope his ex wife, Sarah, found out about this CL post and read it. Preferably over a glass of her favourite beverage, with her some of her best pals, clinking glasses at the end to salute CL for her take down of asshat ex and to celebrate Sarah’s freedom from said asshat.

Really, he’s a celebrated writer? I hope he got wind of CL’s take down and read it, too. I would love to see his reaction to it, haha! I wonder what tripe he’s going to write about next.

Somebody please egg him on his book tour! ????

UnrequitedLoyaltyEqualsChump
UnrequitedLoyaltyEqualsChump
4 years ago

Glitter bomb, maybe

chutesandladders
chutesandladders
4 years ago

Agree! This was one of the best excoriations of shit on toast I’ve ever read!

“Anne and I were still chastely discussing the Oxford comma.”

Yeah, right. Fuck you, David Brooks.

ClearWaters
ClearWaters
4 years ago

The second mountain of what, exactly? Shit?

Sorry, but I just can’t even finish the UBT’s translation. What kind of editor publishes such a pile of self aggrandizement and expects to make money on it? I would like to see the sales.

Let’s put a pinch of Oscar Wilde: “I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying”.

This BS reminds me of what sparkledick told my son, who has Asperger’s, after he was humiliated by sparkles showing up with said son at his favorite national park together with his AP and her four children (by at least two different fathers) and kept smooching, etc., in front of said son; I was on a business trip, totally in the dark and happy to know my family was at the park.

When confronted by son, Sparkles said: “One day we will make a judgement of value together.” He must have been inspired by a preview of the Brooks oeuvre.

left him at the airport
left him at the airport
4 years ago
Reply to  ClearWaters

Is it the same publisher as Eat Pray Love? Something tells me this douche and Elizabeth Gilbert should be together.

VulcanChump
VulcanChump
4 years ago

The sad part is that I could theoretically get behind a two-mountain idea of life, but knowing that the source is a cheating asshole puts a bad taste in my mouth.

Lucky
Lucky
4 years ago
Reply to  VulcanChump

There is a native saying about climbing the mountain ( reference to problems in life ) and seeing the next mountain ahead.

He probably overheard that or read it somewhere and decided to make it his own.

Ps – he makes my skin crawl.

chirral
chirral
4 years ago
Reply to  VulcanChump

Exactly! That’s the slippery slope and complete irony here – the message is being delivered by a cruel, utterly unreflective, hypocrite.

UXworld
UXworld
4 years ago

Coming in 2020: “The Third Mountain: Alimony and Viagra in the Age of Trump”

Coming in 2021: “Him’ll Lay Ya: The Anne Snyder Story”

Mighty Might
Mighty Might
4 years ago
Reply to  UXworld

You’re killing me, Ux!!

left him at the airport
left him at the airport
4 years ago
Reply to  UXworld

UXWorld hahaha! Him’ll Lay Ya ???????????? Thank you for that laugh. #priceless

Kara
Kara
4 years ago
Reply to  UXworld

Agreed! The registry alone is GALLING… BUT … Him’ll Lay Ya made it all worthwhile. Thanks UXWorld!

Chumptastic Voyage
Chumptastic Voyage
4 years ago
Reply to  UXworld

“Him’ll Lay Ya”- HAHAHAHA
The debate of the spoon rests.
True art.

weddingbelle
weddingbelle
4 years ago
Reply to  UXworld

Chuckle…

ClearWaters
ClearWaters
4 years ago
Reply to  UXworld

I’m splitting my sides! UBT dessert!

MehBeSoon
MehBeSoon
4 years ago
Reply to  UXworld

Brilliant, UX!

learning
learning
4 years ago
Reply to  UXworld

Good One !

Ugh no...
Ugh no...
4 years ago

Lol. This fool never fails to astound me. Maybe it’s because I have been in and around the DC social circles he used to frequent (ps- his wife is well liked and respected, and isn’t as broken up as he’d love to think) but he’s a running joke among many of us. I heard he also got hitched to his star crossed research assistant and that she’s no slouch in the wandering eye department either. I give it five years before his saggy old balls and dour severity start to really irk her. Either way, his ex wife is the winner in this scenario no matter how you look at it. Nobody spends this much time blathering on about happiness, morality and life satisfaction unless they really need to convince themselves. He is zero fun at parties.

left him at the airport
left him at the airport
4 years ago
Reply to  Ugh no...

Oh good, I’m so glad to hear this wife is doing well and isn’t as cut up as he’d have everybody believe (or as much as he’d like).

Yes, his blather on reminds me of Elizabeth Gilbert. Trying hard to convince themselves and everybody else that their selfish actions are moral and warranted in the “quest for happiness”. Gag ????

Kara
Kara
4 years ago
Reply to  Ugh no...

Love this insider info too!

JWH
JWH
4 years ago
Reply to  Ugh no...

I’m so happy for her. It’s great that she is doing well despite the crap he put her though.

Completely nosy question: did she keep Sarah as her first name or return to Jane?

Chumpinrecovery
Chumpinrecovery
4 years ago
Reply to  Ugh no...

I am so happy to hear a positive report on the life of the ex wife. Good for her. It is nice to know she is surrounded by people who recognize her greatness and that she isn’t wasting her time pining for his sorry ass as he would like to have people believe.

Lillian
Lillian
4 years ago
Reply to  Ugh no...

Exactly! Contortionist arguments and rationalizations. It’s just embarrassing. “I’m so, so happy now. Can’t you see that? I am! I am!” Scream it from the mountaintop of the NYT! And the narcissism to assume we all want to hear about his personal journey and new-found wisdom. (I’m wondering if Brooks has ever read Fulghum’s Everything I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten?)

WisedUp
WisedUp
4 years ago
Reply to  Ugh no...

^^like^^
Thanks for validating that behind the self-awareness blather there is usually a narcissistic douche IRL.

This morning I went onto meetup.com to see if I could find a meditation group because a 12 week program I was in just ended and I wanted to continue on. Surprise! the local meditation meetup was founded by and is organized by a nasty bully lawyer who I happen to know through my work. He’s a bully who manipulates and intimidates to get his way, who acts indignant when his brilliant but wrong conclusions are disproved and who killed a deal for his own clients just to prove he was right. On his meetup profile he’s all inner peace, chakras, and other sundry FAKE love and harmony. Oh, and he leads a divorce recovery group too, so something tells me he was probably a cheater as well.

I’ve had it up to my eyeballs in fake mindfulness. I don’t trust anyone who spouts this kind of BS anymore. Show me your actions, then we’ll talk. Maybe.

renee62
renee62
4 years ago

That man is a shallow empty shell of a person like all narcs.
What he has written proves it.

A real human being with a conscience and values does not have 2 mountains in their lives. They combine serving others & personal success at the same time while juggling a million other menial tasks.
He’s full of s**t and people are lapping this garbage up.
They mentioned on CBS that he should speak to college students.
I don’t want this narc-Ahole anywhere near kids! There’s enough bad influences in this world.

JeanM
JeanM
4 years ago
Reply to  renee62

Guess those two mountains remind me of two tits! Just because..
Wean him off!!!

MehBeSoon
MehBeSoon
4 years ago
Reply to  renee62

Exactly. I honestly don’t see the benefit of taking character-building advice from a narcissist, but who is going to call him out on this BS? He was on NPR yesterday and the host was just letting him blather on, ignoring the fact that his trip up this second mountain coincided with the dissolution of his long term marriage by cheating with a much younger woman……

ChumptyDumpty
ChumptyDumpty
4 years ago

Verb(with or without object)
“to talk or utter foolishly; blither; babble:
The poor thing blathered for hours about the intricacies of his psyche.”

What is Blather, Alex. ( Blath-er )
This guy must have a PhD in it.

Langele
Langele
4 years ago
Reply to  ChumptyDumpty

^ Nailed it.

NoMo
NoMo
4 years ago

“It was a crisis of disconnection for me…”

Priceless

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
4 years ago

He has a wedding registry at his age? With stuff on it? Really stupid, unnecessary stuff? Rich people do that?

left him at the airport
left him at the airport
4 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

I know, right? The wedding registry made me laugh so hard.

UXworld
UXworld
4 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

Here’s hoping that Sarah was the one who gave them the Progressive Red Nut Chopper. Because . . . oh, the symbolism.

left him at the airport
left him at the airport
4 years ago
Reply to  UXworld

BAHAHA, the nut chopper. Oh UXWorld you are killing me today ????

ivyleaguechump
ivyleaguechump
4 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

Narcissists do that. Because it is all about THEM! Look at my tasteful selection of things you can buy ME! And maybe I will even get to keep a few when the OW and I inevitably split up!

UXworld
UXworld
4 years ago

(with apologies to The Osborne Brothers, and in keeping with the mountain theme)

ANNIE TOP — music by the Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, lyrics by David Brooks

Wish that I was on ol’ Annie Top
Down at the Holiday Inn
Ain’t no saggy boobs on Annie Top
Ain’t no wrinkling skin
Wish I had a girl like Annie Top
To fuel this ego of mine
We’ll have coitus as we island hop
Leaving Sarah behind
Annie Top, you’ll always be
Trophy Wife to me
Good ol’ Annie Top
Annie Top, rescue me . . .
Annie Top, rescue me . . .

Captain Chumpy Chumperton
Captain Chumpy Chumperton
4 years ago
Reply to  UXworld

^^ These are brilliant! ^^ LOL!

UXworld
UXworld
4 years ago
Reply to  UXworld

(another one came to me at lunch)

SECOND MOUNTAIN HIGH — music by John Denver, lyrics by David Brooks

He was published in the winter of his 57th year
Mulling over a life he’d never led before
He left Sarah/Jane behind him, you might say he was bailing out
You might say he’d found a chump he could abhor

When he first met Annie Snyder, his life was unfulfilled
Feeling low, with no morality
But the cheating helped revive him, now he’s on the morning shows
And he’s filling out the wedding registry

And the egocentric Second Mountain High . . .
It helps to keep his little willy spry
The book tours and the spotlight will never cease to satisfy
Second Mountain Hiiiiiiiiiigh (fuck the valley)
Second Mountain Hiiiiiiiiiigh (fuck the valley)

ClearWaters
ClearWaters
4 years ago
Reply to  UXworld

UX, Stop it! I can’t get any work done today! LOL.

Sparkledick likes American country music (so do I and chump here kept our CDs of it, hahaha); I love the Rocky Top song; will never again listen to it the same way.

I feel greatly tempted to send your version of it to sparkles, just need to change the flatterfuck’s and the chump’s names.

katiedidn't
katiedidn't
4 years ago
Reply to  UXworld

Brooks likes academia…I wonder if the University of Tennessee needs a commencement speaker? UX has written the perfect opening for him!

GMSB
GMSB
4 years ago

“they go down to the substrate which is the deepest part of themselves.”

He went down ON the ‘substrate’ which is the deepest part, relatively speaking, of himself. Like the part of the kiddie splash pool where it dips slightly toward the drain.

Fearful&loathing
Fearful&loathing
4 years ago

Saw his smug mug on CBS morning Monday. Gayle King had a great opportunity to address the conflict between how preaching morality and humility runs counter to having an affair, leaving your kids and wife for a sparkle-twat that was like 4 years old when you married your first wife.

Just sayin. Gayle did so great with R. Kelly she could have added to the stable of men who should be shamed. “Robert” could have quickly turned to “David”.

Seems to be an expiration date on affair abuse. Oh that was sooo 6 months ago. Haven’t we all moved past that? Haven’t we all GROWN from that experience?

left him at the airport
left him at the airport
4 years ago

Oh damn, she didn’t call him out on it? What a shame. Gayle, why didn’t you???

Wormfree
Wormfree
4 years ago

A cheater writing a book call A Quest for a Moral Life?
Typical.

Hilarious
Hilarious
4 years ago

Live for a relationship. By which I don’t mean marriage, or commitment. It is INCREDIBLE to me that he can get away with saying this stuff. I am not capable of rolling my eyes any harder.

Traveling the World
Traveling the World
4 years ago

I laughed so hard at this. This made my day. Thanks, CL!

Traveling the World
Traveling the World
4 years ago

New girl should be on her toes. A saying with which I’m sure Mr. Brooks is familiar goes:
“Whenever a man marries his mistress, he leaves open a vacancy.”

left him at the airport
left him at the airport
4 years ago

Oooohh, that’s a good one ☝???? #vacancy

Chumpinrecovery
Chumpinrecovery
4 years ago

The cover reminds me of the Tetons. We all know how those got their name. How fitting.

Traveling the World
Traveling the World
4 years ago

I actually did NOT know the origin of the name 😀 . I should’ve known. That gave me a good chuckle.

Tempest
Tempest
4 years ago

I, for one, have no intention of buying nor reading The Second Mound, er um, Mountain.

And he’s such a shit he probably doesn’t even believe in the Oxford Comma (philistine!).

As for this quip from his book, “Eighty percent of college students have no passion.”= None of the students in my Yale Ethics course wanted me to fuck them over my adjunct professor desk, and said, “not even with a barge pole.”

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
4 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

College kids have lots of passion. Lots of it addressed to things like fishing tournaments and rodeo riding and rescue dogs. I have a student writing about the history of drag queens. We’re having a ball with it. The trick is to go where they are.

Tempest
Tempest
4 years ago
Reply to  LovedaJackass

I agree; they have lots of passion for many things. DB has his head so far up his own ego that he does not recognize anyone else’s passion or pain. If they did not have passion for his lectures, that I understand.

MotherChumper99
MotherChumper99
4 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Exactly! Go to ANY senior awards banquet next month and you will see teenaged passion abounds.

My teen daughters both dance competitively and spend 35 hours a week practicing. During convention weekends there are at least 1,000 teens up at 6 am to train and learn and then are up performing until midnight.

David B, you are an ignorant hypocrite. I loathe you and hope you fail miserably.

Patsy
Patsy
4 years ago
Reply to  Tempest

Second Mound, ha ha ha!

nodancing
nodancing
4 years ago

Cheaters and narcissists have a universal writing and speaking style in which the actual subject of the discussion is like an invisible black hole and everything they say orbits the black hole, but never touches on the truth that is the black hole. It’s very tedious to read or hear.

Other Kat
Other Kat
4 years ago
Reply to  nodancing

Rather so. Indeed (how X would respond).

Langele
Langele
4 years ago
Reply to  nodancing

Word salad for the pretentious

Patsy
Patsy
4 years ago

Ha ha ha!

Can anyone link this to the CBS This Morning comments!

Unbelievable, that a man who cheated and abandons his wife and family thinks he can write a book on morality.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
4 years ago
Reply to  Patsy

And he thinks his bad behavior and lack of integrity just go down the memory hole.

Tempest
Tempest
4 years ago
Reply to  Patsy

It does defy credulity.

Champ
Champ
4 years ago

Sorry, but I had to stop reading at, “I had a friend who said when my first daughter was born, ‘I realized I loved her more than evolution required.’ I always loved that because we have this moment of care, and she [the baby] got down to that level.”

I feel nauseous … Brooks’ is sick on so many levels.

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
4 years ago
Reply to  Champ

I can’t even parse the syntax of all that blather. And I’m a pro.

Chumpinrecovery
Chumpinrecovery
4 years ago

“Brooks writes that living to satisfy relationships rather than one’s own ego fills people’s lives with ‘wonder, gratitude and hope.’” – How on earth would he know? As far as I can tell his relationships are all about his own ego.

“in our society, we just don’t treat each other very well.” – Yeah, you know all about that one don’t you.

What a flaming hypocrite. How can anybody take this man at all seriously?

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
4 years ago

He wasn’t so careful of relationships–not his wife, not his kids– when he cheated.

Langele
Langele
4 years ago

For a moment I thought it was called “the second coming and ”
Now that would’ve been a brilliant title.

Langele
Langele
4 years ago
Reply to  Langele

Damn auto correct
“The second coming”

Got-a-brain
Got-a-brain
4 years ago

Thanks for the lesson in justification Brooks! That was a great step by step how to guide! Great cheater fodder! I’m sure all the “transformed” people of the world are lapping it up! Positivity (a.k.a. sanitized language) is positively transforming… wouldn’t you agree?

“you can be broken, or you can be broken open. The people who are broken turn angry and resentful. Pain that is not transformed gets transmitted.” Do you mean like your projection? Oh please tell us more!

Also, thank you for this little nugget…

“I had led a life really determined by the lies our culture tells us.” Absolutely brilliant! Turning cultural norms like – not lying, not cheating, not causing other people pain, into a problem with our culture! Mastery of the mind I tell you! Your ability to see the problems in our culture, but not in yourself…please, please tell me how you do it! Let me guess, is it Blameshifting? Wow, it feels so good not to be responsible, how has society not adopted this philosophy and taken it mainstream? Perplexing! I guess it’s something only the “transformed” people of the world can understand!

While I’d love to learn more about how to deny, attack, reverse victim and offender; sadly that pesky little part of my life called morality just can’t seem to comprehend the dismissive complexity of the mind fuck you’re selling! Darn, back to the lies of society I must go! Fully and completely untransformed by your fodder! Yes Brooks, I know… it’s a sad, sad day in society when compassionate people labeled “bitter” can’t be influenced to morally disengage! When they’ve been educated on the tactics used by manipulators it can be so discouraging! Don’t let it get you down though buddy, just keep being nice and maybe they won’t realize you plugged a knife in their back! Keep on keepin on!

See, isn’t pleasantness nice! Passive aggressive is so much easier to stomach than “bitter”! Thanks for the lesson!

left him at the airport
left him at the airport
4 years ago
Reply to  Got-a-brain

Got-a-brain ???????????????????????????????????????? Love it!!!

LovedaJackass
LovedaJackass
4 years ago
Reply to  Got-a-brain

Well, we’re living in an era where norms get trashed on the hour.

Golfgrrl
Golfgrrl
4 years ago

Does anyone know how Sarah is doing?

JWH
JWH
4 years ago
Reply to  Golfgrrl

Ugh No mentions her upstream (around 7 am). She’s doing well.

Kintsugi
Kintsugi
4 years ago

WTF was the point of what I just read, sans the UBT? WTF is David Brooks anyway and why on God’s green earth does he have ANY credibility to spew the bullshit I just read?

Whose dick did he suck to get published, because that is the ONLY way I can see how it could have happened?

JWH
JWH
4 years ago
Reply to  Kintsugi

I doubt he worked that hard for it. I bet he sent Anne over to do the convincing.

Kintsugi
Kintsugi
4 years ago
Reply to  JWH

Of course. Silly me, why do for yourself when you can get somebody else to do it for you?

After all this, I’m still making rookie mistakes regarding manipulative tactics of getting someone else to Eat the shit sandwiches for you.

Chumptastic Voyage
Chumptastic Voyage
4 years ago

“I found that in the valley, the first thing I learned is, freedom sucks,” he said. “To be unattached, that’s bad. Total freedom is overrated.“

This message is brought to you by:
White Male privilege (freedom “sucks”, bruh)
Zola gift registry (everyone needs 6 cheese boards because, “community uplifts”)
Narcissists R Us (I don’t wanna grow up)

GettingThereSlowly
GettingThereSlowly
4 years ago

Thanks for these past two days. I know I’m not supposed to try to untangle the skein if f***upedness, but this helps me so much. I’ve always known there was something “missing” in these narcs’ hearts, but David makes it so easy to understand. I feel so sorry for them. They really have never known what it feels like to love another person or live for others in their whole pathetic narcissistic lives! To quote another famous narc, Sad! They are so grateful these young women will have them that they get these big feelings of “love” and “selflessness” for the first time in their lives, and actually feel like they are better people than they’ve ever been. They get a glimpse of what it’s like to not put themselves first above all others through the high of their lust. So they destroy their families, hurt their kids and abandon their wives and feel like it is for a higher cause – love, altruism, selflessness. They have zero empathy for those in the wreckage, and like dear David, try to control the narrative and the response of the spouse they have blindsided. Seeing (through David’s words) how shallow and callous and LIMITED my ex is, I think I’ve moved past Saturday and Sunday and it’s noon on Monday towards meh. I truly feel sorry for my ex. I’ll accept my imperfect parts and be grateful that loving and giving come naturally to me. Maybe someone who loves well will wander my way in this lifetime, or maybe not. But in the meantime, I’ve cleaned up my life of all narc-ish people, and I’ve noticed they don’t come into my life like they used to, so I must be making progress…..good riddance narcs. Use and discard each other, the rest of us have a world to love and lives to live.

lasvegaschump
lasvegaschump
4 years ago

^^ Hear, hear!!
Gettingthereslowly you have spoken like a true human! Thank you!! ????

Trudy
Trudy
4 years ago

The biggest burden for self righteous Christians is hypocrisy. If you can’t walk the walk just shut the hell up, professor douchbaggery.

Kintsugi
Kintsugi
4 years ago
Reply to  Trudy

He’s a Christian???? What???

Chumpinrecovery
Chumpinrecovery
4 years ago
Reply to  Kintsugi

According to yesterday’s posts, his young assistant’s pussy lead him to Christ.

Kale
Kale
4 years ago

This is too funny. I want to say poor Christ.

Champ
Champ
4 years ago
Reply to  Kale

David Brooks was Jewish. Apparently, Sarah’s birth name was Jane, but she converted to Judaism before they were divorced (2017). Anne (“new” supply) is Christian, and he has now converted to Christianity (2019).

So let me guess … he persuades Jane (Sarah) to switch to his religion, then he meets new supply who persuades him to convert to what Jane (Sarah) was … Sound familiar? Simply put, he doesn’t conform to Jane’s needs but rather expects her, and persuades her, to conform to his. Then he discards her for someone equally as persuasive (narcissistic) as he or at least on the same level as he is (my guess many notches below Jane/Sarah), as he is, and converts to what Jane/Sarah formerly was.

Basically, he’s getting what Jane/Sarah offered to him from someone else … and letting everyone (including Jane/Sarah) know.

How do you compare that to chumps who will try to change for the ex during the pick-me dance? Mine said I was financially irresponsible and so I tried to learn how to be and told him that I was now because I hoped he would come back to me and really, it’s better to be financially responsible, I realize. But he considered me pathetic, faking it, and when he realized I actually was, admired me but didn’t come back, and now I’m thinking he’ll use it against me. And yet I did it with integrity, seeing that yes, he is right, seeing that I can show that I’m not the loser he thinks I am, really struggling to balance a bank account when I have grade 9 math, not taking him and his income for granted.

But I don’t write a book about how noble I am, I don’t use word salad to describe what I’m doing, I don’t become the world’s authority on balancing a bank account. I might suggest Excel tips for newbies, but I’m not full of myself … I’m authentic. The motivation was to have my ex like me, and the end result was that sitting here on my own, without him here, I have a killer budget spreadsheet.

But is that the same as what Brooks is all about? I think people could think it is, but I sure has hell hope not.

Chumpedbutnotdead
Chumpedbutnotdead
4 years ago
Reply to  Champ

You are indeed a Champ! Learning new skills even if originally motivated by hopium is nothing to dismiss. I tell anyone who will listen how I learned to vacuum, drive long distances, and balance a budget since DDay. It feels great to change for the better regardless of the cause. And that’s on YOU not the ex.

WonderNoMore
WonderNoMore
4 years ago

Clearwaters: I love your uncles definition of “SELLING” the news. So true.

ArtistFormerlyKnownAsChump
ArtistFormerlyKnownAsChump
4 years ago

I notice his advice to college students is ‘Live for a relationship’. That’s A relationship, not all your relationships. As in, a relationship that will make you feel like a hero of romance, not all those other relationships where you’re just kind to folk, spend time with yr grandma, get a present at Christmas for the binmen etc. He hasn’t seemed to have learned that you don’t need a significant other to be a complete human being.

Involuntary Georgian
Involuntary Georgian
4 years ago

Good point. As someone who’s been burned by living for “a relationship” – it’ll be a long time before I put all my eggs in one relationship basket again.

I’ve spent a lot of energy diagnosing the problems in my marriage (which is a totally separate issue from the affair / discard: just because XW is an adulteress doesn’t mean I don’t have crap to own from the marriage), and concluded that I bound up *too much* of my identity in my marriage. I’d have been happier and healthier, not to mention better able to handle the discard, if I’d maintained more and better relationships independent of my wife. Extended family, friends, hobby buddies, etc.

One Way Ticket To Meh Please
One Way Ticket To Meh Please
4 years ago

I can’t even. What a bunch of pig slop. How is this published? How is this fool in the New York Times? How does his ex-wife not commit homicide?

CC
CC
4 years ago

“In his new book, “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life,” Brooks writes that living to satisfy relationships rather than one’s own ego fills people’s lives with “wonder, gratitude and hope.”

This is actually a proven theory. In fact this morning I was listening to a similar message on the 10% Happier podcast. There was a group that studied if you could make yourself happier by simply deciding that you would be happier. The study was conducted in 5 countries, including he U.S. What they found that was in all the countries except the U.S., you could make yourself happier. Then they researched why it didn’t work in the U.S. and they found it was the way we make ourselves happier is the key. In all the other countries, people made themselves happier by doing things for others. In the U.S. we looked to make ourselves happier through our ego–by earning more money, getting a promotion over someone else, etc. etc.

I don’t discount that there are cheaters that may realize that they were the people responsible for their relationship failing. They realize that they did not invest in their partner and that maybe the behaviors their partners exhibited that the cheater used as the reason to cheat were in fact in response to their own lack of involvement. They then make the necessary changes and can be much better partners to their new SOs.

The thing that really burns me about these type of people is that they leave a path of destruction to reach this enlightened sense of being AND they are unapologetic about it. It would have far more more weight if they would take accountability and say that their journey to this new path caused trauma to others and they they are sorry for that. Instead, they gloss over it like other people didn’t matter which undermines the whole message.

Chumpinrecovery
Chumpinrecovery
4 years ago
Reply to  CC

“Brooks explained that the book grew out of a crisis in his own life.” – No mention of or concern for the crisis he caused in others lives. Just “see how great I am for overcoming the crisis in my life?”. What a POS.

TooSmartforthisShit
TooSmartforthisShit
4 years ago

My response shall be a series of random comments because apparently that is the DB (David Brooks or Dick Bag you choose) way to write a masterpiece
Oddly enough there is no place to leave comments or reviews of the book on Amazon.
#shallowmountain favorite yoga pose of the faux enlightened. Important closing move to #egosalutation Add it to your daily practise.
Gravy boats are important. They are a metaphor for how shmoopie and I are in this together. And by this I mean the hot sticky •CENSORED•.
Pay attention – This is why I did not “really” cheat on my wife. We had spoon rests, separate, not even our cutlery touched. Clearly the marriage was over before it even started so I cannot be accountable not cleaving to her and living for that relationship.
What’s that? 28 years? Well you know clearing up our non relationship status was complicated. I was on the first mountain after all. #nocellsignal #sherpaswon’tcarry divorcepapers
I know people with 17 kids living in their basement. They taught me to enjoy giving #creepyuncleDBhugs
#cheeseboardsandgravyboats4ever

Leonidis
Leonidis
4 years ago

GEEEZ!!! This is like the series of books ” _________ FOR DUMMIES!” This is the manual for the person I fear most of becoming! ME ME ME!!! I I I I I ! How can someone be so self absorbed? How can 1 idiot be so complicated and make his and others around him lives so complicated? No wonder he was alone in that apartment. Everything he wrote about was ALL ABOUT HIM!!! I read nothing here that shows he extended his self and did ANYTHING for another human being.
Excluding his self improvement and divine enlightenment that brought the glory of GOD, as he seems to put it, that he exudes onto other peoples lives by his mere presence. I need a bath now. BLAH!!!

i finally see the light
i finally see the light
4 years ago

I have no idea who this guy is so I had to google him, what an ass! Morality my ass! I would never take a morality lesson from this douchebag. Nope and please do not let him talk to college students. Such a hypocrite as all cheaters are. I have been very nauseated these last 2 days just reading this. UGH!!! I will now go and adjust my moral compass

Shell-shocked-chump
Shell-shocked-chump
4 years ago

Seriously, all kidding aside.

It’s scary how people delude themselves into believing their own BS. And that others blindly follow without understanding where there ‘revelations’ come from.

I just hope to God I’m not doing this to myself.

Trying to sort what is honest/good from self-serving delusion is exhausting.

Pepe Le Pew
Pepe Le Pew
4 years ago

“And in our society we just don’t treat each other very well.”

Well, yes, I totally agree with him there. The problem is he has such an utter lack of self-awareness that he fails to see that treating each other well in the context of society at large begins at home. He treats his wife with utter cruelty by committing adultery and publicly shaming her for her reaction to it, looks around, and marvels at how shitty people can be? The only reasonable explanation I have for this astounding disconnect is that he probably finds it very easy to compartmentalize things. My ex actually told me without prompting on my part that he compartmentalizes things, and that’s how he was able to lead a double life. It’s really the only way someone like my ex or Douchebag Brooks can preserve their ability to see themselves as a good person. So Brooks put the box of horror and destruction labeled “betrayal” deep in the recesses of his basement where he doesn’t have to look at it. That’s the real substrate he’s talking about. He drug the box of “moral authority” upstairs and wants to dump that shit at my doorstep? Nah fam, take that shit up to your mountain and kindly tumble back down, hitting your dick on every jagged piece of rock as you flail around. What an absolute piece of garbage.

Chumperella
Chumperella
4 years ago
Reply to  Pepe Le Pew

My douchebag ex tried that line as well, but I reminded him that since he had been treating me so badly during the affair, and shoving it in my face by doing things to deliberately risk getting caught for the thrill of it, it was not seperate at all. In fact, he even went so far as to try to get me to meet his bitch on a double date with her and her husband, because the sickos wanted to do it right in front of their spouses to get an extra big hit of duper’s delight.
Compartmentalization is bullshit. If we do wrong, it always spills over into other areas of our life. You can’t keep darkness and evil in a neat little box, because it’s a hungry monster that cannot be contained. It wants to eat everything in your life, and eventually, it does. It ate his family and he’s desperately, pathetically trying to pretend that has made him happy and he’s actually grown from the experience of LOSING HIS FAMILY just for younger pussy. Nazi POS David Brooks will be cheated on and dumped into an old age home by the slutwife when he gets to the age of needing care, and he will die miserable and alone because he threw the only people who truly loved him away. Suck on that, Nazi POS David Brooks.

Nemo
Nemo
4 years ago
Reply to  Chumperella

Yes, DB has increased the odds of that happening. But you can’t count on it. He could enjoy continued vigor and die at age 102 at the hands (or knife or firearm) of a jealous husband. Like they say in AA, let go and let God.

UXworld
UXworld
4 years ago
Reply to  Pepe Le Pew

KK used the word “compartmentalize” like it was a newly-discovered superpower, which I was not able to harness nor understand.

As you note, it’s how they’re able to function: if everything exists or takes place within its own vacuum of self-absorption, there’s never any discernible effect on any other aspect of life. It’s how they can say “This has nothing whatsoever to do with you and/or the kids — if you can’t see that, then that’s your problem.”

Leonidis
Leonidis
4 years ago
Reply to  Pepe Le Pew

PEPE,
AHA!!! The word “Compartmentalize”!! Never knew or understood what that meant or if people actually used it until the XW decided to blow up our family. I define it as #LACKOFCOMMITMENT.
Its NARC talk for “I separate and detach, or never attach, myself to anyone or anything.” As I’ve learned, its just a bullshit way of convincing themselves, and trying to convince the CHUMP, they separate things as a single entity. They never saw a spouse and kids along with them as one SINGLE living entity. Their spouse is one. The kids are another. The family home is also another. Their career is theirs.
Boy! If I was a Family Therapist, Family Law Attorney or worked in any capacity in Family Court I would be smiling ear to ear after reading that garbage. With so many in the world like him? They will NEVER be without a job.

Yup
Yup
4 years ago
Reply to  Leonidis

“Compartmentalize” means you can conveniently “compartmentalize” your actions from the consequences.

katiedidn't
katiedidn't
4 years ago
Reply to  Yup

The first words out of my ex Asshat’s mouth, when confronted with the fact that I was aware that he was fucking his best friend’s (now ex) wife was, “this doesn’t affect you.”

He was actually proud of his ability to compartmentalize cake. Such an enlightened douche bag! I believe this is one of the most prevalent traits of narcs of all stripes, coverts in particular. The basic chumpy traits of object constancy, honesty and loyalty are so beneath them.

I Got The House
I Got The House
4 years ago

What a flaming narc. ????

AllChumpedUp
AllChumpedUp
4 years ago

Excuse me while I go vomit…

ANON
ANON
4 years ago

OMG so much word salad. WTF does any of that even mean. I can’t imagine spending anytime reading that book. I’d rather eat my shoe!

David Brooks STFU you irrelevant, effete little man!

Marci
Marci
4 years ago

Honestly, I never heard of the guy but just googled him and Schmoopie. Read some of his articles. Just click bait. They look for all the world like Dad-with-daughter on his arm. She clearly latched onto him for the career prospects. She’ll be off with someone else as soon as his dick gets slack. Tossers. Ex wife is probably glad to be free of the bullshit he spouts.

NoKibble4U
NoKibble4U
4 years ago
Reply to  Marci

I saw a picture of the two of them on Google images. They look ridiculous. OW looks like an over-grown child sitting on her grandpa’s lap. She looks almost parental with him – she exudes confidence, while he looks dazed and vacant – almost shocked.

Do they not know that everyone is laughing at them? Does OW realize that people call her a gold-digging whore? And him, some sort of pervy, Viagroid that got suckered by young piece of ass? It’s probably only a matter of time before she gets pregnant and he becomes Grandpa Daddy.

ChumpionoftheWorld
ChumpionoftheWorld
4 years ago

Hey,

Chumplady, you are KILLING me with this Brooks stuff. My ex wife is sort of the female version of this, so having a gut revulsion reaction.

Here is the question, is this obliviousness? Do these high-functioning moralistic narcs not see their game? Holy shit they are insufferable.

Fireball
Fireball
4 years ago
Reply to  Tracy Schorn

EXACTLY !!! The never ending attempt to manage their f***ed up image. Assholes all!

Forever.the.end,

thingsthatmakemegrumpy
thingsthatmakemegrumpy
4 years ago

The title is an implicit, but probably unintentional admission that he doesn’t live a moral life, doesn’t know how to live a moral life, and the whole thing puzzles him enough to have to go on a “quest” for a moral life.

Intothelight
Intothelight
4 years ago

So his wife changes her NAME and her religion in the name of marital harmony, and raises their 3 kids Jewish. He dumps her, quickly writes pieces about how lonely he is, then, when it feels like enough time has passed, just as quickly develops feelings for his research assistant and changes his religion to Christianity in the name of Schmoopie. And writes pieces in the NYT that tell the ex-wife, in a thinly disguised but very public way, that she should just go away quietly. What an ass. My ex was a pompous, lying hypocrite, but never did he parade those qualities this publicly. (At least, not that I know about.) This guy sets a new standard. If Sarah ever writes a book about making your way through difficult times with your integrity intact, I will buy it. By the way, I am pretty astonished that almost everything in the registry has been purchased. Except for the gravy boat and some of the napkins.