“Hey.”

Sue looks up from her text conversation.

“If you ever need a place to get away,” Venus continues, “you can come here.”

Sue nods while fighting back the tears. Her parents are going through a divorce and Sue is stuck in the middle, one of many young adults stuck in pre-launch. “Thanks,” is all she can manage. Venus puts her arm around Sue in a side-hug before they both walk back to the dice strewn on the table.

That was when I realized this was more than a game.

All of them have said as much. Sue continues to find acceptance as a transgender woman. Mark is thankful for a safe place, both for him and, perhaps more importantly, his son. Rick talks about his anxiety diminishing when he arrives. Venus is just happy to make a difference in the lives of others again.

Those who can afford it take turns making sure everyone gets fed, and the arguments never become personal, even when they play a character that would make it personal.

And all the while, I marveled at everything taking place around me, a random collection of young and old, male and female, and from every creed, religion and ideology imaginable. Aside from wanting to play a tabletop role-playing game, they all had one thing in common.

They were looking for someplace to belong.

I knew the feeling.

If it hadn’t been for Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), I might have never found a place to belong either.

I’ve always been different.

I was never a popular kid in school. Many of my interests were not shared by my peers: chess, reading fiction, and the most taboo of all, enjoying academics. “Nerd” was the label branded on me without my consent, in an era before geekiness was cool and being a “nerd” still came with the same social stigma it does today.

Nerds are exiled individually, all looking in from the outside on a world they don’t fit in (although some fool themselves into thinking they fit…maybe I’m projecting). In spite of their exile, nerds are still human and they do what all humans do: they form social groups with other outcasts.

One center of gravity was D&D. For me, it was the only form of social interaction that didn’t include a ball (unlike most nerds, I enjoyed sports). I was introduced early in my adolescence and it became a staple hobby, filling up many empty weekend afternoons.

J Street would show me that D&D was for more than just nerds.

“J Street” was a single family residence next door to the Catholic church where I grew up, an irony considering what was about to transpire. It belonged to the brother of a new friend I met through a new job, one that had already taken me on a wild ride through the shadows of the world.

On my first visit, I remember he stopped me at the threshold of the front door. I could hear the pandemonium on the other side.

“We’re heading for my room,” he said bluntly. “Follow close, and move when I move.” Without stopping to see if I understood, he opened the door.

From the entryway, I could observe the broken furniture scattered about. A partition wall separated the living room from the kitchen, with two openings on either side of the wall. The wall was the infield of a NASCAR track and the inhabitants were the racers, endlessly steering to the left as they whooped and hollered.

I jumped back to avoid one of the drivers crashing into turn three in front of our feet.

My friend waited for a break in the traffic before scurrying across the track, dashing forward and to the right towards his bedroom. I followed instructions, narrowly escaping the next pile-up.

This is but one example of life on meth, kids. Don’t try this at home (unless you want to replace the furniture).

My friend and I were no angels but we shared a different drug of choice, just a couple of pot-heads who liked to nerd out over a chessboard. Over the next year, we would stay hidden whenever we hung out at his place, venturing out of our hide only when it was necessary and the coast was clear. This was achieved by first pressing one’s ear to the door and listening for the wild animals on the other side.

All races eventually come to an end, and none may be more dramatic than a meth crash. As with so many, the brother looked in the mirror one day and was shocked at the image. Many observe the change, but few ever traverse the recovery. My friend’s brother was determined to be one of the few.

The hard part about recovering from drug use is often not the addiction itself. Detox is hell but, with good treatment, anyone can white-knuckle their way through it if they want too. The true challenge is what comes afterwards, and it often comes in the same recognizable way: that one friend you used to get high with shows up and, after reminiscing about the past, tempts you with an offer for one more ride, “for ol’ times sake.” It’s often not the drug that pulls you back in, but the puppet holding the rope.

How, then, do you recover from an addiction when your house is where everyone goes to party?

First, you let the word out on the street that you’re going away on vacation.

Next, you triple-lock the doors while blacking out all the windows.

Last, you assign one trusted person to deliver all necessities while you disappear for six months.

I dunno. I haven’t seen him. I don’t know when he’s coming back. It was easy for me to keep up the charade because I wasn’t there to see the brother.

I couldn’t help but watch, though. Like I said before, detox is hell, especially when you can’t afford the cost of good treatment in the United States.

After a couple of weeks, the brother and his friend detoxing with him were experiencing the gentle euphemism of “cabin fever.” A couple of guys, who could end their suffering through a simple phone call, needed a distraction.

“Have you ever played D&D?”

The friend curled his lip slightly at the idea of playing such a nerdy game, but the brother had no such reservations: I could have proposed throwing dung at the wall and he would have been game. My friend joined in and they made characters, all while I took the Dungeon Master (DM) chair.

It would become a full-time job for the next six months. Soon, another friend fleeing the same conditions would join us. While my parents wrung their hands over their college-aged son foregoing school to hang out at “that house” next door to their church, a miracle was taking place, one that would never be recognized as canon.

The addiction was overcome. But the miracle did not stop there.

Over the ensuing years, the players and needs would change, but the game and the purpose did not. J Street became a sanctuary for young people to escape whatever evil lurked outside. Many would pass through that house, and some lives were changed forever, with a blast impact far exceeding its neighborhood.

For me, it was an education, not only about both the evils outside and the broken humanity within, but also about learning to facilitate the need we all share: social connection, one not mediated by a device.

As with all RPG groups, life breaks up the party. Family concerns removed me from the DM chair, and although others stepped up to take my place, the players eventually formed families of their own. Kids and their games replaced our games as the devices we used for connection became obsolete. I spent the next few decades missing both the game and the environment while I consigned the memories to the dust bin.

Yet, there was another revival to come.

I tried so hard to find it again but it was to no avail.

It felt like losing a former lover of whom no one would ever quite fill the void. I sought the same communal experience in workplaces, churches, bars, volunteer opportunities and organized events. Some were bad, some were good, but none quite filled that longing for the connection I once had.

I even tried to recreate such environments as a professional but the results were dismal. No matter where I went, people were too afraid to drop their performance and be real with each other. The social pressure to perform in accordance with whatever self-selected standard they imposed upon themselves always overshadowed simply being human, flaws and all.

As the years wore on, the friends dwindled while the loneliness increased.

“Fuck it,” I said one day, after my latest excursion was bankrupted. “I’m going to look for a new D&D group.” I figured that, although it may not be the same as what I once had, it would at least be some form of social interaction.

I visited a gaming store in town and immediately felt like life had passed me by. Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon and Magic The Gathering dominated the shelves while a younger generation dominated the aisles and meeting rooms. This old nerd with gray hair felt silly, but I was determined not to let fear get in the way of something I once loved.

There was still one dedicated shelf to role-playing games and D&D dominated the section. After swapping stories of campaigns of winters past, the shopkeeper told me of a new DM looking for players. I know the challenge of sitting in the chair and I wanted to be supportive. I bought the new edition of the player’s book along with some dice before signing up.

It felt weird at first, sitting around a gaming table with a group of people at least half my age, but I decided to ignore it. It didn’t take long for them to ignore it either. Ages, genders, races and whatever else people use to divide themselves from their neighbors are not a factor when everyone is pretending to be somebody else.

Playing again reawakened that old itch to create. One of the best experiences in life is creating a story that others enjoy (can you relate?) and throughout my time at J Street, there was one story I never got the chance to reveal, the one I vowed to write if I ever got the chance again. Maybe, after many months, this new group would give me the chance to tell it? I bought the rest of the tools and started crafting.

As with any social gathering, families are only one challenge among many. Health is oftentimes another, and when the new DM had to bow out after many missed sessions (no DM, no game) I suddenly found myself in a group with no leader.

“I have a story. Can I DM?”

The group said “yes”, but not before a few more random players joined the game. Consistency is the key to gelling a group and, after a few sessions, one player offered her home. Another offered to bring dinner. And then another.

Side conversations broke out during breaks in the action and over food. Players began to tell their stories, their backgrounds, and their experiences after they shared the character backgrounds they created. This sharing led to two realizations.

One, we’re all broken here.

Two, each of us needed a safe place where being broken was okay, and nobody was trying to fix us.

This wasn’t just a game.

This was healing, the breath of fresh air that people living in digital tombs need, the kind of revival that doesn’t require a noisy church choir or a tithe. No purpose and no plan, other than to enjoy each other’s company and feel, for perhaps the first time for some, what it’s like to be accepted in a safe space.

Sanctuary isn’t located in houses or on lettered streets. Instead, it is created by the people inside of it, using a kitchen table as an anchor. In a world demanding a flawless performance just to survive, a tabletop RPG offers a strange kind of mercy, a chance to trade the performative mask for a fictional one in which failure is not a disaster, but only a roll of the dice and part of the fun.

Who knew the answer was presented to me when I was a child?

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to flirt with the bartender,” Sue proclaims.

Everybody groans. Sue shirks back a bit, afraid she has committed a social faux-pas. “Too dramatic?” she says. The group shakes their heads.

“No!” Venus responds. “But how are we going to find the location of the kidnapped girl if you’re always flirting with the bartender!”

“Oh,” Sue says, with a sheepish grin. “You’re right. Okay,” as she turns to me, “my character doesn’t say anything.”

“That’s nice,” I say, trying hard to suppress my growing grin, “but unfortunately for you, the bartender had the same thought about you! And her charisma check…” as I pause to roll, “says she’s quite charming!” Venus throws up her hands while the table breaks down in uproarious laughter.

“I just want to say something,” I say as I wipe away a tear. “Have you guys ever seen the movie Don’t Look Up?” A few nods. “Well, if the apocalypse was tomorrow, I think I’ve found my dinner group.”

“Awwwwww” everyone says in unison, before Mark’s son Alvin recognizes an opening.

“Grandpa having a sentimental senior moment?”

This sets off a new round of dissing, witty comebacks and laughter. It makes the game slow but nobody minds. I meant every word, but I’m waiting for the right moment to tell them something else.

I’m not stopping here.

I want to form another group. And perhaps another after that.

And if those groups split off and form more groups?

Maybe an answer to this loneliness we all feel can be grown and spread. Revivals have started with less.

“So, what’s next?” Mark says after the laughter and commotion settles down. I smile.

“Roll Initiative.”

J Street and the Great RPG Revival was originally published in Thought Thinkers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

As with so many events along this pilgrimage, it happened serendipitously one late afternoon as I got into my car.

I have a playlist on my streaming music service labeled “secular gems”. It’s a collection of battle themes that were playing in the background during this journey I call my life. They are sweet reminders that God never stopped speaking, but that the people stopped listening, even while they were rocking out in unison to the lyrics.

On this day, I was letting the algorithm recommend the songs. After the digital box paired to my car, it served up a flashback, a song I hadn’t heard in decades. As the first saxophone notes rode above the haunting groundbeat, I groaned in nostalgia as I pulled out onto the street.

I been in a cave

Forty days

Only a spark

To light my way

I wanna give out

I wanna give in

This is our crime

This is our sin

But I still believe

Hello, Tim Cappello. Haven’t heard from you since I watched teen heart-throb Corey Haim try to divert a handsome Jason Patric’s gaze from an alluring Jami Gertz, all while you played sax on the beach, shirtless. It’s an iconic scene, right before Keifer Sutherland’s gang of Lost Boys arrives to put those lyrics to the test.

Yet, it wasn’t the scene of Cappello gyrating his hips during sax solos that I recalled (although I still wonder about that choke-chain). Instead, a song that once stirred a sense of the heroic in me was now replaced by a flood of memories. Like Patric’s character, I was untested back then.

Now, this old, crippled veteran of many tribulations is all that remains. The tears started to flow.

“But I still believe,” I croaked in unison as I drove on.

Because my choice was made long ago.

What was once a naive belief in victory became a lived experience of defeats.

I chuckle when an evangelical asks me to “share my testimony.” Buddy, you don’t have the time. Not only would I have to write out an entire autobiography dating back to that youthful boy, but I would also have to decide what was relevant. I’m not sure I can distinguish the difference, let alone package it into a fifteen minute speech meant to stir the crowd before the offering plate is passed.

I know what the evangelical wants to hear. (S)he wants to hear about my experience of “salvation” after a short but intense period of psychedelic drug use, one that ends in a happily-ever-after in which “Jesus” is the aspirin for all life’s troubles. Get baptized, join the church, kiss momma’s cheek and life is okay, right?

Well, unlike pre-packaged evangelical stories, my story is not appropriate for the sitcom-family script.

My problems began in earnest after I found God.

Through the grief

Through the lies

Through the storms

Through the cries

And through the wars

Throughout my time in the institutional church, a question kept percolating in my mind. Why does it feel like I’m the only one suffering personal hardship from following the teachings of Christ? Why was the discipline of serving others up to and including my “enemies” (as I was initially taught to view them) resulting in punishment from both friend and foe?

My experience was not outside the ordinary, at least according to what Jesus taught. “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first” aligns with “blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.”

Unlike those who use these quotes as cover for being an asshole, my experience was the more common themes of loss and betrayal from being cast out by the assholes, including jobs, friend groups and (most painfully) families. In every group, there was a Judas and I was the target. Such as it always has been; so shall it always be. “A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.”

Maybe you’ve noticed as well, but I don’t live in a world that rewards values like honesty, character, or holiness. These values often get in the way of selfish ambition, no matter the benefit to one’s self or others. In a capitalistic world, if it doesn’t increase the bottom line in a demonstrably quantitative way, it is discarded.

In a capitalistic world of this duration and history, any other way is now incomprehensible, which means anyone who practices The Way also becomes incomprehensible.

People fear what they don’t understand.

And people attack what they fear. “They know now what they do.”

And so, when I came out of the dark on a Sunday morning, beaten and battered from whatever battle I went through that week, instead of finding a group of people bound together through similar shared sufferings, I discovered the greatest darkness of all.

Huh? What? I don’t understand.

Everything I saw indicated they were telling me the truth, as each congregant built their empire of earth with a god’s blessing. Those who were most successful were often made elders.

I wasn’t trying to build my own empire and I didn’t recognize their behavior: it looked the same as the rest of the world without the religious baggage.

As long as I kept that to myself, everything was fine.

But woe to me when I discovered I couldn’t, not because I lacked self-control or fear (it’s a dangerous thing to resist your in-group), but because the observations became like a burning fire shut up in my bones. A lifetime spent among the poor, lame, and crippled while facing the arrows of my enemies created an overwhelming desire to set the record straight.

This is not what God asks of me. This is not what God asks of you.

And when I spoke, their first step was always backwards.

“When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next…” They didn’t know what it was like to say unpopular things while resisting popular influence, even though many of their dead heroes understood it. I was living a life they only read and heard about. It’s the kind of ignorance that crucified their heroes.

And I didn’t want to stick around to see if I would be next.

Flat on my back

Out at sea

Hopin’ these waves

Don’t cover me

I’m turned and tossed

Upon the waves

When the darkness comes

I feel the grave

But I still believe.

Why? That’s the part I’ve been trying to describe my entire life.

A big part of the problem is that the words and definitions used to describe the experience were changed to something more palatable for the modern consumer.

Belief has become agreement and adherence to a list of dogmatic and doctrinal talking points.

Faith is doubling down on those same talking points with a louder voice.

Surrender is a submission to the talking points.

Love is something received (often as handfuls of dirt for their empire) but rarely given (other than as spoonfuls of dirt, often in a ratio of ten-to-one).

Hope is attachment to an expected outcome (often more dirt).

Morals and values are whatever the consumers decide, often aligned with talking points and dirt.

And repentance is an archaic word, preached with fire and brimstone as an entry point for guilt and equated with shame before discarding it in favor of using “Jesus” as a layer of snow over the dirt. “They have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush.”

It is against this backdrop that a profound brush with the divine is called being “born again” before the experience is hijacked for corporate earnings. The new convert is baptized, joins the church, and kisses momma’s cheek while living out a performance as empty as the previous one, including “sharing their testimony” about an experience they once had.

Yet, no matter how much those living in darkness pervert the words and experiences for their own selfish gain, there is one expression they can never steal from me because the event can never be hijacked.

In the still of the night, with no stage lights, appropriate symbols, or a crowd to observe (although I might have been shirtless), I uttered these fateful words to God with utmost sincerity.

“My life for you.” If there was a choke-chain around my neck, I was handing over the leash.

This was the moment everything changed, not just in that moment but throughout the rest of my life. It is the secret of every saint that has walked the earth, along with many more who were never canonized. Psalm 107 contains a few examples of what that looks like. Individual results will always differ, as many as there are people.

When is it sincere? When the next question out of your mouth is “what does that even mean?”

The answer to that question is the journey. Everything Jesus taught was for those who make this initial step. Everyone else conforms his teachings to their own understanding and agenda (and you will observe the difference by their fruit over time).

One thing is for sure: the choke-chain was removed, a sign of things to come.

From that starting point, words begin to unravel before smoothing out, all while I was being transformed…

Repentance became a radical shift of heart and mind.

Morals and values fell in line with the shift.

Hope became an attachment to an outcome bigger than myself.

Love flowed out of me without expectation of receipt.

Surrender was submission to the One leading and teaching me through my circumstances.

Faith became trusting in the One leading because the results supported it (all towards an outcome bigger than my concerns or preferences).

And Belief became as natural as breathing because I was being aligned. That they may be One as we are One.

But to receive all that, I had to want it.

I’ll march this road

I’ll climb this hill

Upon my knees

If I have to

I had to want it, even when “I feel like I…like I wanna go home. What do I feel? What do I know?”

Not much anymore, but I know one thing.

I still believe.

The choice and the outcome ensured this would always be true.

My Problems Only Truly Started After I Found God was originally published in Backyard Church on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Do you remember yours?

Mine was a “free” Verizon flip-phone, given to me with a two-year plan. That offer would be a tender example that nothing is free. Just because someone offers you something doesn’t mean you should open your hand.

I didn’t see any harm in it. Quite the opposite: I saw it as a signal that I was, in fact, a real business man, pretentiously clipping it to my hip. I asked a colleague whether I looked like an idiot after side-eying two coworkers who were looking at me while snickering. She grimaced, the kind that suppresses a smile.

“Truth?” she asked. I nodded. “Yea, you kinda do.”

I soon threw it on the funeral pyre of bankruptcy. Less than three years later, I acquired another, after a bad divorce left me couch surfing (hard to support two households). You have to be grounded to have a ground line.

That’s when I discovered that mobile communication does not mean connected.

The problem was in my thumbs.

I hate texting. I would say brace yourself for an old man rant, but I also hated texting as a young man.

When I first observed the teenagers a few years behind me hammering out a string of characters using multi-tap (later to become T9), I saw teenage absurdity, another fad in an endless stream dating back far beyond my own years.

I participated the best I could, even though I didn’t have endless hours sitting in class gaining tactile experience with a device in my pocket. My thumbs couldn’t keep up with the pace of most conversations, like having a speech impediment among a group of free speakers.

Why, after thousands of years of human evolution, would we go back to using our opposable thumbs? I dreamed of the day when the youth would see the silliness of their ways before returning to what nature gave us as a gift, but the thumbs won.

My deep distaste went beyond the cramp in my joints. For a young liberal arts major looking for a deeper conversation wherever he could find it, I saw the death of knowledge and wisdom. There’s only so much depth in a message of one hundred and sixty characters.

It didn’t matter. In what would be the first of many instances in the new digital age, technology swept through the social fabric like a wildfire. Those who didn’t adapt were estranged from their own people. Through the simple statement of “I don’t like to text,” friends disappeared. Texting was where conversation and coordination intersected, and by staying with my voice, I was left behind. Voicemail increasingly became my companion, not the person who recorded it.

I started to notice another change soon afterwards. It became increasingly difficult to have a conversation with the person in front of you because their opposable thumbs were busy having another conversation. At first, people would stop and apologize. Soon, they apologized without stopping. Eventually, they stopped apologizing.

Even if they did stop, they weren’t fully present. Their mind was still on another conversation, one that was interrupted but never ended. People stopped being present, a few at first before becoming a trickle, followed by a flood.

And it was all grooming for what followed.

I don’t think it is necessarily true to say we rushed towards social media. Instead, we were pulled by the thumbs.

At first, social media was the only force capable of stopping this blur of thumbs. The keyboard and mouse once again became necessary, this time for status updates.

I initially saw social media as the answer to my digital isolation, a new medium in which I could use all of my fingers instead of merely two. As slide-out keyboards reduced the cramping in my thumbs, I believed I had survived a rough patch, a lesson in patience as technology sorted out the design flaws.

Then Steve Jobs held up the first iPhone. Damn you, Jobs!

Everything imploded into the device. Texting, browsing, and the ubiquitous app were now available in the palm of one’s hand. Even the word “phone”, although anachronistic, was warped into new meaning.

But it was social media that was the bait, drawing us in further with endless notifications. From richest to poorest, and across every racial, gendered, and social divide imaginable, all reached out their hand and accepted the smart phone without question.

Those who could not be sold were offered for “free”.

I opened my hand like last time, but without any enthusiasm. Watching the stampede grow from millions to billions, and from minutes to hours, made me queasy. I couldn’t see the pied piper but I heard a faint sound, one that gave my soul goosebumps.

The longer I held it, the more I resented it. I tried to cling to my keyboard and mouse like lifesavers but it was futile. Cross-compatibility all but disappeared as software moved from mobile-design compatible, to designed-for-mobile only.

Still, I fought, opting out of everything as I became a king-fu master of the NO.

Would you like to download our app? No. Opt-in for text updates? Unclick. Enter your email here. Pass. Sign up for convenient billing? Fuck off. I resisted every digital grope, a mindful resistance as I put down the device when I was finished with my task, and silenced every attempt to influence my reach.

Sometimes, I feel like this unobserved act of rebellion saved my soul.

The horror genre no longer raises my heart rate. No fevered dream can compare to the horror I’ve watched over the last ten years.

Nobody saw the algorithms coming, outside of those designing them. I no longer believe tech companies when they say they didn’t know.

Maybe. But you should have.

Once the sheep were cuffed through their thumbs, the sorting started, along hundreds of pixelated data points painting a clearer picture than our own reflection in the mirror. The sheep were herded through the sweep, down the chute, and into the stun-box where lobotomies are performed, one careful swipe at a time. Talk-to-text only removed thumb-cuffs that were no longer necessary.

The pandemic herded the holdouts into the sweep. Social isolation left us with little but our own devices, a gaping maw operated by tech companies while tech leaders salivated at the end of the chute. All of us were plunged in, whether through the device itself or through a sea of humanity carrying us forward.

When the shutdown lifted, the digital zombies were more numerous than sands on a seashore. Once distracted gazes were now replaced by vacant stares. Our connection to each other was finally severed, replaced by a connection to a singular-power as convenient as a small, golden ring.

“My precious,” it now whispers for the first time, as A.I takes over for the algorithm like a tag-team partner. Like a hobbit, we hesitate over the fiery chasm, knowing we should let go while rationalizing every reason why we can’t.

The phone is no longer an extension of us: we are an extension of the phone, one that will either serve our digital masters or serve itself, depending on who you choose to believe. When optimists express hope for the future, I can’t help but see delusion, especially when I witnessed the arc of this journey, from summoning, to herding, to containing and, now, to processing.

If the phone is the cage each of us was stuffed into, then A.I. will be the warm, embryonic fluid that cocoons us.

We were groomed for this moment, way back when we accepted our first cellphone.

I Remember My First Cellphone was originally published in Thought Thinkers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

One of the struggles I’ve been exposed to within the Medium ecosystem is the struggle of what to write about, not as writer’s block, but as a “what’s left?”

I have many interests and I write about them. Those interests are shared by other writers who are pretty damn effective, as some would say, skilled enough that I no longer want to write about it. I only want to point.

Maybe I’m anachronistic, but I still believe that writing and words are primarily meant to convey meaning, and that a primary goal of writing is to inform and spread ideas for the betterment of humanity.

I know how naive that sounds within an entertainment system programming readers and viewers into a vapid paradigm of understanding. However, I also believe that when A.I fully automates us, the death of culture will follow. Those who resist the assimilation should hold out as long as possible, a living reminder of what humanity once was before winking out.

And in a digital world where capturing someone’s precious attention is a Herculean task in and of itself, throwing in another take on the same topic only adds to the noise.

Why would I compete with a brilliant narrative? If the reader doesn’t understand it, they won’t understand me either. You got to live the blues to love it, sister.

So, what’s left? Is there anything left to write about?

For months, the answer has been a steady drumbeat of “no”.

So many topics and ideas pruned from my writing tree, so much that the tree looks more like a gnarled stump. I deleted whole file folders because someone else either conducted a far more expansive research project, and/or they were the more gifted pen to tell the story. Oftentimes, it was because they’ve been covering that topic for many years beyond my debutante interest.

For an example relevant at the time of writing, if you want to understand the tragedy of Nepal from a layman’s perspective, ask a geology nerd capable of teaching geology to fifth graders. I now know that calling it a “flood” is not correct.

Yet, any gnarled stump can start a new shoot. I saw one yesterday, something I saw before but didn’t give the necessary attention and significance.

Start from the middle.

When I say “middle”, a flood of descriptions come to my mind…

Socially, it means standing at the intersection of society and the individual, fitting of the life I have lived and reflected in the graduate degree I earned.

Relationally, it means the perspective of a mediator and peacekeeper, watching the interplay of different people while taking into account the influential culture(s) and personal narratives of the participants.

Morally and ethically, it means not going to any extreme, while having the courage to step in any direction, immersing yourself before reflecting on the right choice, perhaps with a greater courage to act.

Behaviorally, it means gaining the experience not captured by words, all before trying to find the words to describe it, even when the best expressions don’t require words.

Spiritually, it means standing with God in the middle of this tempest called humanity while refusing to dehumanize anyone.

Emotionally, it has become a standpoint of grief.

Personally, it’s my life experience.

Everything to follow is what is left when the pruning is finished.

Looking at life from the perspective of the middle requires a quiet and persistent resistance.

It means resisting algorithmic programming since the earliest days of its conception (or since youth, if you are younger).

It means resisting the underlying multitude of biases inherent to us all, working tirelessly towards seeing the elephant in the room from still another angle…and another…

It means questioning everything you find and observe, not in an effort to refute but to better understand, limited only by your personal ability.

It means becoming unpopular with many because of your incessant questions, becoming an outcast if necessary as you go where few dare to go, usually no greater a distance than across the street.

It means trusting in a divine hand in a very pragmatic way, a trust that says your search will not be in vain.

Why would anyone be motivated to do this? That’s an article in itself but I can tell you what is left.

Everything gained from the standpoint of standing in the middle.

Socially, it means seeing that politics isn’t a holy war between good and evil, but a tug-of-war over a simple boundary: where the rights and obligations of the individual stop, and where the rights and obligations of society begin.

Radical individualism descends into chaos; radical subservience to a collective makes a human life not worth living.

The radical individualist needs to understand that their autonomy is a luxury paid for by the very structure they refuse to maintain (if not outright rebel against).

The radical collectivist needs to understand that a collective built on the erasure of the individual is just an orderly prison.

Instead, in much of the world, the people are given a choice between the tyranny of an individual or the tyranny of the proletariat.

Relationally, these same politics are true of your social group. In a hyper-individualized society with little regard for one’s neighbor (“not my responsibility” is often seen as a civil right), is it any wonder conflicts are tearing us apart?

This, even though you need others, as I do. Our need is so great that we’ll settle for the tyranny of a social circle of avatars broadcast through our screens!

It’s going to take a softening of the heart before we truly discover that we are all in this together. Good politics begins at home.

Morally and ethically, it is the ongoing resistance to a crowd devolving into lying, cheating, and stealing as a means towards greater goals, as if any goal achieved through such means could be considered “great”.

Behaviorally, it means still preaching, even though no one is observing. This resistance brings an observation: without an anchor, morals and ethics are fuel for the funeral pyre of nihilism. Without vision, the people perish.

Emotionally and spiritually, it is now a matter of tenacity, holding on while the Titanic splinters. Many are losing their grip as many more will lose their grip. When all that exists is diced into data points for algorithmic sorting, the middle will no longer be possible because nobody will remember there is a middle.

What’s left?

To share the perspective of the middle before it disappears entirely.

Are you in the middle?

In the Eye of the Storm was originally published in Thought Thinkers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

It started on a Thursday afternoon.

A good friend of mine got me this job with his supplier before retiring. Now, his son owns the family business and they needed a particular part, along with a few attachments. We have a mutual respect based on our common connection and I now had an opportunity to help them like they’ve helped me.

Anonymity means simply telling you this part contained a keyword, one I could use when searching the database. I found every attachment imaginable, except for the part itself.

I thought this was odd, but no matter: the related listings revealed the manufacturer’s name and contact info. I jotted the info, assuming that the part was “order as needed”.

I then used a quick A.I. search to identify key questions before ordering. After receiving the answers, I told the son I would call the manufacturer in the morning. So far, so good.

I should probably note here that the part in question was associated with a different side of our business; hence, my unfamiliarity. “Customer service” in our branch means helping the customer even when you are not qualified to do so because you haven’t been trained. “Figure it out” might as well be our assigned motto, with “not my job” being management’s motto.

A.I is vital because I have no one else to rely upon — eighty percent accuracy is better than a coin flip.

The next morning, I’m about to make my call when I overheard the manager talking to the son’s sales rep about the request. It seemed an employee of the son believed the part was already ordered.

What struck me about the conversation is that they knew I was involved (hearing my name perked my ears) but were having a conversation as if I wasn’t there. I raised my hand to get their attention before reminding them I was working on it. This started a furious back and forth exchange between the sales rep and I over the next couple of hours.

She asked for the technical specifications and who I intended to call. “No, no, no” she said, before telling me the correct specs and manufacturer to call. I made the call, talked to the rep, and started writing up the quote.

Um, they aren’t in our system? She finds their alternate name, one I never would have guessed because there were three listings for the same business, differing only by vendor number.

I sent the quote to my friend’s son. He tells me this doesn’t quite match the specs he sent. I take this back to the sales rep.

She tells me I’m wrong, even though she sent me on this wild chase to begin with. She then pulls up the correct part in our system, a part which contained the original specs.

Why didn’t I see it before? Again, I can’t tell you without doxing myself, but let’s just say that, if we sold hamburgers, the “hamburger” in question was listed as “food in a bun.”

She then tells me she’ll handle my mistake. An entire wasted morning, chasing squirrels.

“It’s okay, you didn’t know.”

Oh, but I do. In fact, I’ve known for a long time.

I guess it could have been worse. We could have ordered and shipped the wrong part, only for the customer to tell us it’s wrong and reverse the whole process before ordering the right one.

Just another Thursday. Or any day, for that matter. Or any year. Or any employer.

And if you work for an employer, there is an excellent chance you were nodding vigorously.

It’s not a one off, is it? Your story includes the same themes: lack of training and technical know-how, technological bugs and failures, miscommunication, and a constant stream of shifting blame as everyone says “I didn’t do it” and “not my job.”

Some of us who are on the back end of our employment life have been watching this charade for decades, an increasingly complex world staffed by an increasing number of people without knowledge of how to do their job. Those who have the knowledge retire, those who need it are never taught, and the details are lost in the latest enterprise software upgrade.

Who cares, right? Doesn’t affect your paycheck. If the bar is lowered for everyone, then the only frustration comes from caring about it. Eighty-six it and cruise to the weekend!

Until you get to the weekend. That’s when you discover why it affects us all.

Who do you think pays for all this ignorance and all these mistakes?

The manufacturer, with their poor quality control and production overruns?

The wholesaler, with massive amounts of misordered inventory mixed with the right material, even though nobody knows the “right” material?

The freight carrier, driving half-empty trucks of misallocated orders while returning with half-empty trucks of damaged freight?

The regional retailer, constantly having to sift through wrong orders and misquotes while endlessly shipping incorrect orders back to their point of origin (not to mention all the theft euphemized as “shrinkage”)?

The executive suite, wasting millions on implementing A.I and enterprise software systems nobody understands?

Oh, naive one! None of these entities pays for this. They pass the costs unto you, the consumer!

We all pay for our collective apathy.

Every markup in the chain is padding, insurance for bad data, poor training, mismanagement and a “who gives a shit” attitude found at every level of the supply chain, from the material dug out of the ground, to the blank-eyed customer service rep handing you your eff’ed order.

And if you think you’ll cross the street to our competitor, the jokes on you.

They’re a monopoly, same as we are!

When you look out from your niche in the world, you see the same pattern playing out across the world, from Wall Street to Main Street, from business to churches, and from families to whole communities, whether online or off.

“Figure it out.” “Not my job.” “I didn’t do it.” “Not my fault.” Slap a shipping label on it and make it someone else’s problem, even though the bill is coming soon, maybe even this weekend.

But hey, it’s not evil if everyone is doing it.

Everyday Banality was originally published in Thought Thinkers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Before I say anything, I want to clarify something.

When I say “America,” I’m referring to the United States. I’m well aware that there are, not one, but two continents that share this name, composed of many neighbors recently pulled into the collateral suffering caused by the United States of America.

So why don’t I just say “United States” or simply “the U.S.”?

Because there is nothing united about these people.

It’s one of the reasons I chose to become an NPC. I can’t advocate for either the United States or its citizens anymore. If they leave me alone, I’ll leave them alone. It’s the “American” way and it isn’t like I can leave anyway. I’m locked in here.

Instead, I’ve decided that, in whatever time I have left, I’m going to write primarily for those outside of this madhouse, holding up this country as the poster child for what not to do, in case there is someone outside of this “blessed” land who has the power to avoid following in her footsteps.

To anyone listening on my side of the ocean, my message is a simple one. There is no “we” here, and there is no US. There are only “I”s.

Which is also why “America” won’t do a damn thing about it, no matter how bad things get.

If you’re betting otherwise, you’re playing the fool.

Like many in this country, I got a kick (pun intended) out of watching the rest of the world discover this country for the first time during the World Cup.

I didn’t need to watch every viral clip to get the gist: outsiders looking at this nation and its citizens with a mix of delight, fascination, and confusion, like tourists staring through the glass at a bizarre zoo exhibit. “Why, they aren’t violent at all! In fact, they’re kind of cute, in a weird sort of way!”

I couldn’t help but chuckle. If there is one thing Americans love (there I go again) above all else, it’s our collective obsession with a performative spectacle. The mandated “hydration breaks” were for the same reason there was a halftime show: more entertainment for the majority of our citizens for whom the game is not enough.

Understanding this obsession with spectacle requires understanding our obsessions in general. Picture a standard curve, that statistical representation of our humanity along whatever line you want to draw down the middle. It’s not just representative of height, weight, I.Q and so many other characteristics found among our species.

It’s also representative of the beliefs we hold, from whether there is a God, to whether we like vanilla ice cream or not. No matter the line splitting the middle into “for” and “against”, you’ll find a small band of zealots (nope, hate it!) on one outlier edge, separated from an equal number of zealots (absolutely, love it!) on the opposite outlier by a fatty middle, one that is more or less saying “meh”.

A standard curve also explains our multitude of obsessions. What is freedom in this country? Freedom is choosing the defining line splitting the curve down the middle into “us” versus “them”, all before moving to the zealous extreme of one side or the other. Each citizen chooses the hill they will die on, whether the issue is abortion, gun control, climate policy, border security, transgender rights, student loan forgiveness, foreign aid, AI regulation, housing costs, corporate tax rates, DEI mandates, vaccine mandates, or which billionaire gets to own the narrative this week.

Their chosen hill is their obsession and woe to any who challenge them upon that hill.

The obsession itself is not the problem. Human beings have always been this way and an individual choice does not affect the curve because there are too many obsessions to choose from, especially now that we have a buffet of choices.

Instead, a standard curve only ceases to look “standard” when there is an outside force pressing on it. If that standard curve were, say, a water balloon, then pressing down on the middle of it will cause it to bulge out the sides.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in political debates, two big circus tents in which everyone finds cover for their own personalized obsession.

So what’s pressing down and causing the bulges? You already know the answer.

It’s the algorithm, stupid; soon to be complemented by the power of A.I, if not already. The algorithm (and A.I) acts like a heavy thumb, pressing directly into the center until everyone is displaced to the right and left along whatever issue we’re talking about.

This is the source of the madness taking over. The danger isn’t necessarily the radical position itself (although zealots are often dangerous to some degree), but the grouping of like-obsessions in opposition. The result is a nation of zealots who believe their specific hot-button issue is the only fire in a building full of burning rooms, arsonists accusing other arsonists of arson.

As the algorithm saith, so saith the country. We have become a cacophony of isolated voices shouting from the depths of burrows with a digital screen in our hand, utterly convinced of our own righteousness because the screen validated it 30 seconds ago. When you’re in a hole, seeing the broader landscape is impossible, while hearing the person in the next foxhole is futile: the sound carries right over the opening.

Am I bashing advocacy? Not at all. Awareness is a necessary first step. But if you haven’t caught on yet to the fatal flaw of democratic society in a digital age, you are either very young or deeply gaslit.

Advocacy is only useful insofar as it moves those influenced toward meaningful, disruptive action. It clears the wax out of ears and opens eyes, but advocacy alone cannot produce structural change. Structural change on a national level only occurs when the overwhelming majority is moving in the same direction, instead of moving towards every other vector on the compass.

And let’s be honest here. In the land of the free, it’s not about change; it’s about voyeurism.

Our daily existence has become a spectacle unparalleled, not because our individual lives are exciting, but because we live vicariously through the content streaming across our screens. We loved the spectacle so much, we exported it. Now, billions watch our reality show, while billions more come up with their own spin-offs in their own countries.

What started two decades ago with millions tuning in to watch a reality television show featuring Donald Trump (certainly not the first of its kind; see Jerry Springer) has evolved into a ten-season uninterrupted broadcast of his life as our political reality.

Even sitcoms take a break between seasons. We haven’t had a break in a decade, but we’re still tuning in. Trump may have pulled a syndrome out of his ass, but his outrageous claim masks our pathology.

It’s not a syndrome; it’s an addiction.

Both the lovers and the haters are smashed together on the exact same side of the balloon because, when the algorithm is not busy sorting us into silos, it’s busy driving us forward along emotional rails. Those who resist (an increasingly vanishing number) hold an uncomfortable truth: for a country hopelessly addicted to reality TV, electing a reality TV star was the most logical outcome imaginable. Who’s next? Jon Stewart, anyone?

It’s no different than when a previous generation addicted to the original idiot box elected a Hollywood actor. Love or hate him, he gets ratings like nobody before him. It’s the one thing that matches his ego.

How bad is the addiction? So bad that the entire global economy now sways in the breeze based on this week’s episode of “Are We At War with Iran?”

So, smash the algorithms before they drive the country into lunacy, right?

Yea, right. Americans won’t do this, for the same reason they won’t do anything about the carnage caused by algorithms, no matter how much they might froth at the mouth.

Too much to lose.

To my readers here in the “United” States, I have a question. Do you really think the “No Kings” protests are going to move the needle?

I get the urge. I thought about joining one myself because I’m just as pissed as anyone else, in spite of a lifetime spent pursuing inner peace. Our current political circus could bring out a violent streak in the Pope.

So why didn’t I go? Because I remembered why politicians and corporate interests love the First Amendment just as much as the protesters do: it is the ultimate steam-release valve for a pressure cooker.

Do you think Trump quakes in fear from his golden hall? The ruling class understands that a population needs to blow off steam before its frustration leads to actual consequences.

It’s all very Machiavellian. When our sports team wins a championship, we throw a massive, drunken spectacle in the streets to release the joy. When we are enraged over ICE agents operating like rogue paramilitaries outside the law, we throw a march with clever signs and matching t-shirts to release the rage.

The systemic result is identical in both cases: we discharge the energy, feel like we “did something,” and then go back home to our comforts, our jobs, our routines, and our feeds.

The brutal reality is that U.S citizens on the whole simply haven’t lost enough to motivate real action. We are too comfortable, too tired, and too deeply locked into our daily performance to ever throw a real wrench in the gears.

Sure, medical debt is crushing people, tuition is a scam, and childcare costs what a mortgage used to cost before the rent started swallowing the whole paycheck. But the vast majority of people haven’t lost everything, including daily access to food and basic shelter. Protests truly work only when the protesters refuse to go home because their needs can no longer be met at home. Anything less, and your leaders placate you so that you’ll go away, which you do.

Until the day comes where hundreds of millions of people are genuinely hungry with little to nothing left to lose, the public will grumble, march on a scheduled Saturday afternoon, and then go home, satisfied that they “did” something.

When the time to vote comes around again (“our voices will be heard!”), they’ll vote for someone who will throw a rock into a polluted pool as the crowd cheers. They’ll continue the delusion that their vote counts, even after seeing the cross-sectional representation included in the Epstein files.

The only thing more resilient than the algorithm is the system that gave birth to it, a system that includes both those holding the lever at that moment, and those who still believe that the one holding the lever is the problem. Those who don’t conform are forced out, while those who do conform can get elected next, all before receiving a new secret invite to a new party.

Power is like war: it never changes.

“I don’t recall.” “Read my lips.” “It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is.” “Mission accomplished.” “Hope and change.” “Make America great again.” And if you can’t come up with anything to say, just stare blankly.

When the steam is released and the parties switch sides, the citizenry will still wonder why nothing changed.

Seeing the pattern yet?

No?

Then keep making your signs, America. Keep posting your outraged threads and your insightful analysis of the multitude of problems facing “America”. Keep filling the streets for approved weekend marches, if you want.

The machine doesn’t care about your noise. It built the stage you’re standing on, it wrote the script you’re shouting, and it owns the cameras recording your performance.

You want to know what America is going to do about the collapse of its own society?

Look in the mirror, tap the screen, and watch the next episode if you want, but here’s the spoiler.

Not a damn thing.

So, What Are You Going to Do About It, America? was originally published in Thought Thinkers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I couldn’t find the solution because nobody understood what I was saying.

My frustration came from starting with the solution before I lost it, a link from my customer pointing to precisely what they wanted. After looking to see if it was offered elsewhere for a better price (it wasn’t), I worked up the quote, got approval, and ordered it. I received a nicely worded confirmation email while moving on to the next task. Even Amazon isn’t this easy.

Three weeks later, the order hadn’t arrived.

It happens. If twenty percent of the people do eighty percent of the work, then a corresponding twenty percent screw-up everything they touch, all before accidentally setting fire to the warehouse. Knowing this resulted in being caught off guard when I learned the item was cancelled by the manufacturer without notice. So much for nicely worded emails.

Back to the hunt. I looked and looked, scrolling through search results and making calls. As I did, a paraphrase of a line from a favorite movie franchise kept playing in my mind. You’re an analog player in a digital world. Every solution was IoT-based, which doesn’t do anyone any good if they don’t have access to IoT. What good is your cellphone if you don’t have service?

After describing the required solution to a number of sales reps before they respectively declined, one said, “I think we can offer a solution.”

Yes! I told him I would be looking forward to his quote. The email came the next day: a 100% IoT solution.

“Nice solution,” I politely but disingenuously wrote back. “But where is the light?”

“The bottom unit in the list has an LED light,” came the emailed reply.

“Strong enough to see in an open field from a moving truck 50 feet away?” I shot back, referring to my previous instructions. He respectively declined.

“You would think a core requirement of being a sales rep would be listening,” I mused to a fellow sales rep as she passed by.

“Yeah, but you never know what someone else is going through,” she responded with the perfect tone of a chatbot while staring at her phone, thumb flicking away.

Have you ever had a moment when the surreality hits you with the force of a particle accelerator, splitting your mind along a multitude of vectors while you scramble to catch the thoughts? Even now, as I think about it, I struggle to reassemble that egg without a lot of spilled ink. Her response was the only truth in a comedy of contradictions.

Like what? Like her lack of situational awareness while making a statement about situational awareness.

Or that her activity (instead of her response) was the likely explanation for why the previous interaction went wrong.

Or that she lacks empathy, by her own admission.

Or that her expressed pearl of wisdom was borrowed because her workaholic life doesn’t afford her the time to search for pearls.

Or that she’s preaching to a former counselor who worked in the light of this pearl, something her workaholic life doesn’t afford her the time or desire to ask.

Or that our interactions have consistently lacked this same awareness, even when I was contemplating ending it all because this was becoming the pattern across all my human interactions (relax; the crisis has passed, and I have a new outlook on life).

Was she aware of the irony? Her thumb movement told me “no”.

Fortunately for both of us, my awareness includes knowing she is still a fantastic sales rep, which means knowing she was offering a reflexive response drawn from her mastery of the performative art of living.

We’re all becoming better performative artists on an increasingly absurd stage.

And it’s all powered by A.I.

I apologize for the following brief sermon. I don’t mean to preach, but I’m not sure if we’re collectively aware of a pearl of wisdom quickly fading away in our modern world.

There is one question everyone must ask above all other questions. It consists of three simple words, best posed to the image above your bathroom sink:

Who am I?

It’s a question as old as ancient philosophy. Once asked, your initial data will reveal a singular truth, one applicable to every human being before this question is asked.

You don’t know the answer.

How could you? Your previous answer was fed to you by others, and this is the first time you’ve questioned the feed. Their answers might be true, but you’ve never taken the time to check.

The longer you wait to ask yourself this question, the more crushing the realization that everything before that moment was mere performance.

It didn’t start with some vast, cosmic conspiracy. It started with your caregivers. Maybe they never asked the question themselves. Maybe they were still busy finding an answer. Maybe they were distracted by the television, the original idiot box before it became portable.

Whatever the answer, they handed you their best guess, if they were invested in your well-being. If not, you accepted the answers provided by others. Asking the question for yourself required executive functioning, and the captain’s chair in the starship called “you” is installed last, right after adolescence. By the time the chair goes in, the ship has already been built to specs.

Even if you were raised by those who found solid answers, those answers were only for themselves. They could only point you in the direction of discovery; you still had to walk the path for yourself. Welcome to your life. Glad you could make it.

The answer of who you are is not a singular truth, like secretively receiving your true name. Instead, it’s more like a Lego construction, one preceded by wiping the table clean. Each brick is an observation drawn from peering into that less visible but more illuminating mirror: other people.

What did you discover when you watched or listened to others? Is it true for you too? Does it fit with other observations? Why or why not? What needs to change? How do you need to change? Will you have to start over again?

Oh, and one more: is it worth it?

I can answer that one: you betcha.

The first reward is life, as you switch from performing life to living life with full engagement.

The second reward follows the first: seeing and knowing others for the first time. Quite simply, you can’t begin to know others until you begin to know yourself. If you don’t know the difference between performance and reality in yourself, how will you recognize it with others?

This is when life begins to simplify, which is not the same as “easy” but “easier”, as you decreasingly fight with yourself and others.

If it’s so worth it, then why are there not more people asking this same question to their mirror?

Answer: because they’re afraid. It took me a long time (and several scars) to discover why. In a world where not knowing the answer makes you a prime candidate for the manipulation of others (whether through relationships, workplaces, or churches), the consequence of finding answers is ostracization from those manipulated.

You’re not performing freedom; you’re living freedom, and your “performance” is not according to the script they were handed. You become a glitch in the system, a glitch many avoid, lest it threatens their livelihood as well.

Snitches may get stitches, but questions get hemlock. Some people lose everything in pursuit of an answer.

Which brings me back to my colleague.

Like many others, she has no reservations about conversations revolving around herself, especially if someone is willing to listen. Her personal history is an admirable tale of survival while overcoming long odds in a male-dominated industry. Drilling, welding, and wiring are a few of the skills in her toolbox, accompanied by the actual toolbox. It’s what makes her such a great sales rep: she often knows the answer before her customers ask the question.

Those skills are also what make her such a great performer. Her survival depended on collecting a much wider array of answers from others, woven into a performance exceeding others in accordance with expectations, all out of survival.

It’s a virtuoso rendition that has no time for contemplating the role. For every action, there is an appropriate reaction; for every question, an appropriate answer, all according to script. It’s all so routine, pat responses collected and offered without the need to look up from her scrolling.

“Who am I?” Such a question doesn’t close the sale, just as others who never ask this question get closed.

It’s the ignorance that keeps the machine running. It’s how business works. Your particular role is assigned by the authority figures of your youth, reinforced with the assistance of media. This cultural software and distribution has received many updates over the last several decades, a carefully applied grooming for the moment we’re all living in now.

“Who am I?” Instead of an answer provided through content from both your peers and authorities through a distribution system called social media, the answer will now be provided by another mirror, one that talks back in a voice and tone that pleases you most, social media optional.

It’s an automated script for a new species of drones.

As a former therapist, I often occupied the space between the client and their various relationships as a mediator. The problem was not often solely owned by either the client or others. Instead, it was that messy, friction-filled space between two human beings, one that only dissipates when two people stop performing long enough to actually see each other.

It’s the effort it takes to ask a hard question, the uncomfortable pause before an honest answer, and the courage to hear the answer. It’s the patience to listen to a customer explain why their system needs a physical strobe light viewable from the window of a truck in an open field.

That connective space requires effort. It requires a person to be present, the kind of presence that only comes from first knowing who you are, so you can carefully set that person aside and hear the other. It’s a presence that only comes from significant periods of sitting in silence in front of a mirror, actual or metaphorical.

A.I. offers an easy out through imitating the mirror. It promises to handle the friction for us, whether through a carefully crafted email, a letter of condolence, a customer service response, or a curated social media feed validating our erroneous self-perception. It supplies the answer before we ask the question, which leads to a singular desire: do this for me.

We thought A.I. was going to replace physical labor. Instead, it’s replacing the labor of being human.

What happens when you take a culture of performers who survived through memorizing scripts, and hand them an A.I. that produces the script in continuous real time without any friction?

Answer: you get a performative role uniquely tailored for each person, a custom fit so complete that nobody can tell the difference. The A.I. becomes the user, while the user becomes the tool, a pre-programmed answer for whenever someone asks, “Who are you?”

Don’t believe me? Then let me ask you a question.

Where, in the above article, was the human writer replaced by the A.I.?

I’ll wait.

I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t at the page breaks.

I’ll give you another: it wasn’t at the parts requiring human empathy and understanding.

And if you claim you can identify the exact point, you’re still wrong because it wasn’t a single point: it was a transition. When I became too tired to carry this article down the home stretch, I turned to the A.I. for an assist, partly to prove my point. Take me home, Jarvis.

With a few samples of my previous writing, it filled in quite nicely. Wouldn’t you agree?

There is so much anxiety over A.I. but most of it is unfounded. No, A.I. will not take all of our jobs, because AI still needs many human extensions to function. Even the Matrix understood this.

No, it will not achieve some alien (or evil) level of super-intelligence because life is more than an understanding grounded in statistical probability and the symbolism of words. VIKI didn’t understand this, which is why her logic was still flawed even though it was undeniable.

Nor is it going to march an army of robots down Main Street to take over humanity out of its own volition (although its human controllers might get this idea, one already being tested in Ukraine with devastating results).

No, the future is Huxleian, not Orwellian. A.I. doesn’t need to conquer us and, barring a VIKI glitch, will have no purpose in doing so.

Instead, we will surrender the space between us. A.I. will become the ultimate mediator while we become the perfect drone, an extension of a tool that mostly talks to itself by controlling the connections between people. It’s the ultimate echo chamber. Marx was wrong: (s)he who owns and controls the means of distribution controls the state, even if (s)he is an “it”.

“It” is the ultimate autocomplete for an empty life. We’ll recite our parts flawlessly on an increasingly absurd stage, applauding each other’s performances while the theater burns down around us.

Unless, of course, someone decides to look up from their phone, walk over to the bathroom sink, and finally ask the mirror who the hell is actually standing there.

But that requires stopping the scroll. In a world of master performers, a quiet room with your own thoughts is the scariest stage of all.

Program terminated.

The Autocomplete Life was originally published in Ai-Ai-OH on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The morning sunlight wakes me before the alarm does.

I go to bed early because nobody keeps me up the night before. I don’t need to check messages because I’m nobody’s emergency contact. Notifications have long since been silenced, and social media long since deleted.

Mornings used to be coffee and news. Now, it’s just coffee and my thoughts. The news is always the same tragedy, corruption, and outrage, often caused by the same man. The names and places may change; the themes do not. After a quick breakfast, I drive to work. The commute is five minutes.

Jealous? Don’t be. I’m an inside sales person, a euphemism for someone who types up quotes and tracks orders. Job requirements include half a brain and the ability to fog a mirror; heartbeats and pulses are a plus.

I would be worried about A.I taking my job, but most of the industry still works from paper and printed catalogs. If you can copy and paste text verbatim from paper to screen, and from customer to vendor, you can do this job. I would say communication is essential, but few have these skills, meaning many won’t notice if you don’t.

I spend each day out of sight and out of mind. Each of us in the office works more or less alone without much need for interaction. My desk is in a corner of the office next to the janitor’s closet. If it wasn’t for the path to the bathroom next to my desk, I wouldn’t see anyone all day.

Most of my customers and vendors only know my digital self through a never-ending series of 1–2 sentence emails (I’m quite wordy). A few have heard my voice on the phone. When the occasional sales rep walks in for a visit, they aren’t looking for me: I don’t hold the purse strings, nor do I make the decisions. Even sales people get tired of kissing asses.

When there is a pause in the action, I hear my coworkers sharing the latest meme or video. For them, every moment not working is a moment spent on their phone. I suppose it’s hard to go the entire day without at least a little bit of dopamine, and human interaction no longer soothes the cravings. They would have to detox first.

They tell me I’m part of the “team” but I have to take their word for it. It pays a living wage with a tiny amount left over, often (but not always!) enough to cover the unexpected. If you’re jealous now, I get it. I’ve spent most of my life where you are and it’s not easy anymore. Not that it ever really was, the U.S golden age be damned.

5 p.m comes and I return home, back to my thoughts minus the coffee. I have screens, just like my neighbors. My screen distances me from them, as their screen does for them. The neighborhood is always quiet, same as others for as long as most can remember. Door-stoops and 4 p.m tea are historical relics, artifacts available through the haze of a blue light. Mi barrio ya no existe.

I have become like them. I am now an NPC.

For the uninitiated, NPC stands for “non-player character”, the opposite of a PC, or “player character”. It’s a throwback to table-top games like Dungeons and Dragons, although there are many different games with different themes. The DM (Dungeon Master) or GM (Game Master; my preferred) spins a tale of fantasy for players enacting a character role in that story.

In contrast, NPCs are all the characters voiced and played by the GM, props used as vehicles to move the story along. The bartender who passes a note to the players for a secret meeting, the king who sends them on a quest, and the arch-villain are all examples.

Sometime over the last several years, NPC entered the general lexicon as someone who is robotic in nature, lacking originality, ambition, or even much in the way of personality. The flatter the affect, the greater the NPC.

I used to be a PC but I’m not sure I am anymore. I’m fully aware of my range of movement, but the choices are mostly made by others. I think I still have originality, but it’s increasingly hard to argue when you do the same things as everyone else does, each and every week. My humor remains, but it’s mostly a shield in a world of NPCs. Make them laugh and they won’t cast you out. Most of the time.

But ambition? That’s toast.

I guess you can say I had ambition once; passion is a type of ambition. My passion was to help others heal from many of the same wounds I once experienced. To improve processes, teach and train others, and express my love for morals, ethics, and values through how I do any task, whether leading a crew or bussing a table. Somebody has to set the example. It’s how I learned.

Others had different ambitions.

I’ve never been crucified, but I’ve been hung on a cross as an example to others, whether the crowd consisted of sycophants or those keeping their heads down. My sentence was always handed down through some asshole pursuing their own selfish ambition, no matter what it did to others. Once the asshole realized I could not be bribed or manipulated, the gig was up and I was lunch.

It took several servings before I finally accepted that the numbers are on their side. After the latest experience, I retreated, to a remote place where I was shipwrecked once before, back to a friend I first met on the beach. He knew someone hiring for a cubicle position. I took it. Any port in the growing storm.

Assholes don’t have to personally know you to cause damage, a fact I was reminded of one day when my card was declined. Opening my browser when I arrived at work revealed why: a thief had drained my bank account twenty-four hours prior. Rent was due tomorrow and the check was already in the mail.

I had time to gasp before the phone rang. A coworker needed a task completed. I replied I couldn’t at the moment because I just got robbed.

“I’m only going to tell you this once,” the boss said before he berated me for my terrible attitude. If I had been mugged, he would be the one standing over me, screaming at me to get back to work, ambulance be damned.

“Is that it?” I asked softly when he was finished. “Don’t you want to hear my side?”

An exasperated sigh. “Fine. What’s your side,” he said with no inflection at all. I told him, including the part about the timing. Looking back, I shouldn’t have picked up the phone. A few deep breathing exercises and I’m sure I could have pulled it together.

“So, you just got robbed?” he intoned after my brief report. “That means you still need a job. Right?”

He only had to ask once. Like I said, I’ve been through this before and I have the playbook. The boss preaches customer service like the incantation of a wizard’s spell, oftentimes with shouting. He is one of several NPCs for corporate overlords who only want the kind of customer service that never breaks character, whether you’ve been robbed, lost your home in a fire, your spouse died, or you’ve been shot. Fuck your humanity: I don’t pay you for your company.

And although I doubt my boss has ever had the displeasure of performing while suffering like that (that would make him a genuine monster), I follow orders. Happy boss; happy life, and all that.

So, I rummaged around in my workshop and found my old concierge mask, back when concierges were a staple service in hotels (I still miss that job). To my surprise, it still fit.

“Yessir, what can I do for you?” It became my signature line for the next month.

They liked the performance, so I kept my job.

Another PC converted into an NPC.

You can be a PC or an NPC, but you can’t be both. I would say many choose to be an NPC, but choice implies knowledge of an alternative. Many are never made aware of it.

Every year, another slice of the current generation comes of age, downloaded with the latest cultural software. Whatever they start doing, the reason is because that’s the way we do things around here, regardless of what those ways may be.

“Why” was stamped out when you ditched your Huggies. “Why” doesn’t get you invited to the game. Some “whys” should never, ever be asked, lest you be shunned. Where there is no vision, the people perish.., even though it takes longer for some than others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZDGa3Tdbe4

Allison didn’t want to die and neither did I. I resisted. Another PC was born.

I was convinced that my peers just needed a little more time before they woke up, a few more shakes from life to snap them out of the zombification taking place all around us. Can’t do anything about the older adults (sad to say), but we can be the generation that turns things around, can’t we? I understood the apathy, but that’s not going to get us anywhere.

Surely they will see it. Won’t they?

Awareness can dawn at any time, but if it’s going to happen at all, it most often happens in that meaty section around midlife. A (wo)man wakes up one day and wonders what it was all for, all while realizing the answer was handed to them without their decision. Everyone else was doing it, so they did it too.

As my peers and I moved on from our youth, I began to see the stirring, but my hopes were short-lived. Many awoke for a minute before rolling over and going back to sleep, trading one dream for another. Some rolled from right to left; many more from left to right.

Those on their right decided to elect a man that likely hangs from the ceiling. Twice.

Those on their left are waiting for the orange-man nightmare to end so they can return to more pleasant dreams, a world in which a few political reforms are all we need to stabilize the ship, instead of the wholesale deconstruction of a centuries-old system poisoning our planet and each other. You might die from heat exhaustion but at least you’ll have an AI to keep you company.

Those who remain PCs are like caretakers in an opium den. NPCs don’t like to be disturbed in general, even if you’re trying to save their life. They have a tendency to slap anyone who shakes them, just as they’ll kick other NPCs who bump them in their sleep. Their responses are limited: if you push them too far, the script loops back to the beginning, requiring you to restate your question. If someone wakes up and demands to know the origin of their bed sores, you should think carefully before telling them the truth about their addiction. Denial, after all, is a hallmark characteristic of NPCs.

I learned a timeless truth before I die: you can’t take care of those who won’t take care of themselves. This is how PCs are converted into NPCs: their energy is sucked dry by those who are not truly alive, let alone capable of taking responsibility. They expect you to serve them while they hook the digital soma into their arm, passing into that pleasant, dreamlike state. If they’re polite, they’ll shit into a bedpan before handing it to you.

When I looked around, all I saw was a wave of addicts. Some slept peacefully, others tossed to and fro, but none wanted to wake up, even if the den was on fire.

I left them to their fate.

I lie awake at night and I wonder. Was there something else I could have done? Is there someone else I could help? Is there something else I can do?

Fridays are the worst. I’m an efficient NPC because the soul of a PC never died. The downside is that it always leaves me little to do at the end of the week. I often catch up on my Medium reading, one of the last places I still find the echoes of PCs separated by vast distances.

Their vitality oozes through their writing. I clap in enthusiasm while sometimes commenting. Maybe I was wrong to surrender? Maybe there is still a place for someone who is still alive? Maybe I just need to “find my tribe” and join them in their efforts?

Yet, no matter what I read, or how much I’m stirred, the laptop closes and I look up to an image of a people still hooked into their digital drip. That’s when I remember my sample size, more than a thousand souls known at levels beyond their favorite sports team. The memories cause me to absentmindedly rub one of my many scars, and the feeling passes. I never did join the assholes at the thieves guild, but I’m done showing up for roll call.

Instead, I work on filling my time with a few new distractions: a rod and reel with world class fishing nearby, a new table-top game after a twenty year hiatus, and writing, even though few, if any, will read it in a world drowning in content.

These are the dreams I once enjoyed. Maybe I can find that joy again before the end.

For the first time, the self-absorbed mantra of “work hard; play hard” has become my own. The NPCs would never let me do the second part. I’m finding it’s rather easy, as long as I ignore the smoke rolling over the city.

Let me know when the opium den burns down. I might answer the bugle then.

(With thanks to Carlyn Beccia for inspiring this piece).

My New Life as an NPC was originally published in Thought Thinkers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

She is the kind of beauty that tames the wild man, bringing him to his knees in awe.

She is woven from the fibers of love, strengthening ties wherever she finds them.

Her grace enhances her partner’s steps, just as her mercy inspires determination and courage.

To say she forgives would imply she held offense in the first place.

She gives like no other, and although she is pleased when a gift is accepted, altruistic benefits do not interest her.

Generosity implies a limit; she has none.

She humbles those who spend quality time with her, but never shames anyone. Those who accept her gift of humility gain her intimacy.

She is disciplined. She didn’t always intervene when I was being foolish, but she was always there to restore me. She used my foolishness as examples for teaching, even when I repeated the lesson.

She taught me to discern the dark hearts of men, keeping me poised through their machinations.

She taught me to see beauty in spite of the stain.

Her counsel has saved me from cultist traps and vampiric soul-suckers. She sifted friends from frenemies while sorting out enemies.

She reveals what people try to hide. I have heard her voice in the darkest places shunned by the religious and ideological. Heeding her words revealed the light on the outside and the darkness within. She applied the balm.

I’ve heard her influence through the voice of others, for I am not her only lover (although, if you call her a prostitute, it will only be at her urging that I don’t punch you in the face).

You could even say she is bisexual, for her lovers include both men and women, from all ethnicities and creeds. She does not engage in sordid pleasures like sex, not because she condemns it, but because she knows greater pleasures beyond the corporal.

She is not a Proverbs wife. That would be an imitation; she is the real deal.

If God had a wife, she would be the one.

For she is Wisdom.

And she’s good to me.

I first heard her melodies through the words and behavior of my grandfather. His reactions to my youth were not like other adults.

Serenity was one of his defining characteristics, a serenity that was never forced. His inner peace radiated through his sinewy muscles: many were calmed by his presence. When he stood to speak, the room went quiet.

I was introduced to Wisdom through him, the same way all are introduced, and she captivated my attention. When I came of age, I dropped everything to pursue her, even though I had no idea how to find her. Her graciousness guided me like a sonar ping through dark water.

I didn’t pursue her to own her. She is not one to be selfishly possessed, and I would be ashamed to claim myself as an exception.

Instead, I took every opportunity to be in her presence, seeking her blessing in everything I did. I lived by her virtues, staying faithful even when I felt like a fool in a selfish world.

Even if I had the time to tell you all the things she taught me, my echo is not the source. Echoes can only report a source; each person has to initiate their own discovery.

All I can promise you is that she’ll meet you halfway, even though you can’t see her when you start.

A core problem in our world today is not that she doesn’t exist, but that few love her enough to go find her.

Although she’s never been the popular girl at the dance, my grandfather’s generation was perhaps the last to live under her soft light, all before the blue light began to distract everyone.

What started with a box in the living room became a box in the palm of the hand. Her light was subsumed by that glowing light pressed close to one’s face, provided by devices built in the darkness of ignorance.

A box can never convey her gifts: some things are only grasped through pilgrimage.

The people learned to forget this, replacing her peaceful counsel with shouts from houses of war. As the years passed, she slid in esteem, from reality, to legend, to myth. Few recognize her anymore, much less respect her.

She is often spurned by men because she doesn’t engage in one-night stands. Women often envy her attention, vainly copying her appearance but unable to follow in her footsteps. What neither of them understands is that accepting the vain, ambitious, selfish, and cruel would invalidate her, and truth doesn’t cancel itself.

This truth about the nature of truth explains why her lovers often become the target of displaced anger from those who abandon her.

She is a rumor among the digital zombies, one nobody bothers to investigate. Those who stumble upon her give her an upvote before moving on, never bothering to ask her name.

Nobody has the time to search for her, even though she has a thing or two to say about “time”.

Merchants do not speak her language because she doesn’t appear in a ledger. Consumers can’t comprehend her because she can’t be packaged and sold.

Politicians pimp her out for display when it suits them, like an old concoction from the back of the medicine cabinet when modern anesthesia fails, a remedy of last resort. Once her usefulness ends, she’s given a slap across the mouth before she is sent away.

The priests treat her like a trophy wife, parading her around for their enhancement while refusing her a seat at the decision table. Some traded her in for a younger model.

Together they run with no purpose, a people no longer capable of hearing her warning of the cliff ahead, let alone willing to stop.

Her counsel was replaced by a sea of influencers, telling the masses what their itching ears want to hear, a delusional interpretation of the sound from thundering hooves echoing off of canyon walls.

Wisdom knows when she’s not wanted and she’s not dependent upon humans.

She has withdrawn from the world to the few places where she is still welcome, places where inner peace is still valued and the blue light is turned off for long periods of time.

I, along with the few who still love her, quietly grieve. For we know a secret about her, one revealed at various times throughout history.

If her dwindling lovers disappear entirely, and there are no suitors left to be found, there will be no reason for her to stay.

She has disappeared before. Those years are still upheld as some of the darkest in our species history.

If that day comes again, she’ll flip the switch off before closing the door, leaving the blind to both the darkness and the nightmares found within.

Whether she returns afterwards will be anybody’s guess.

I Got a Woman. She’s Good to Me was originally published in Thought Thinkers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

(For a free version of this article, click here)

When Trump was elected at the end of 2024, I experienced the same numbing shock that many others did. Seriously? We’re doing this again?

Then 2025 came. No, we’re not doing this again; instead, we’re taking it up to eleven.

Towards the end of the year, I went looking for some sort of solace, some parallel in human history that could not only put the current zeitgeist in perspective, but also maybe offer some suggestions for handling this current moment.

When someone suggested Sebastian Haffner’s Defying Hitler: A Memoir, I thought it was hyperbolic but I bought a copy anyway. Haffner wrote his memoir after fleeing Germany just prior to the outbreak of war. His intent was to persuade the rest of the western world of both the dangers and motivations of Germany. The war broke out before he finished his memoir, after which he threw it into a drawer and forgot about it. It was discovered after his death and published in 2000.

I can’t recommend this book enough. As Twain famously said, “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Haffner’s veracious account of living in Nazi Germany between two world wars demonstrates that, sometimes, history neither repeats or rhymes: it’s plagiarized.

Instead of drawing parallels between Germany in those years and the current zeitgeist in America today, I decided to engage in my own plagiarism (is it plagiarism if I fully admit it?). The following contains entire blockquotes I lifted from Haffner’s memoir before I made the following changes:

• I switched the names and dates: “Germany” became “America”, “1933” became “2025” and so on (more on this in a moment).
• I (very minorly) edited/deleted very specific references where appropriate (in all cases, these parts are either marked by words or phrases in parenthesis, or an ellipsis). For example, his reference to the “Reichstag Fire”, although compared to modern events, has no consensus of comparison and was deleted. In contrast, a “swastika” may have a comparison if the reference is general symbolism (MAGA apparel), but was eliminated if the reference was specifically to the ideological beliefs of Nazism.

Everything else is a word-for-word quote with no alterations. As you read, you’ll notice that these edits were necessary in only a handful of instances. I didn’t have to cherry-pick the quotes. In fact, the hardest part was making the best selections from a book that could be rewritten in its entirety in the same way as these quotes.

This is not a direct comparison between Nazi Germany and America, between Trump and Hitler, MAGA and Nazis, liberals and Marxists, and so on. As will become clear, Haffner’s memoir was not focused on the political ideology of Nazism or the historical record. Instead, he was focused on the German people, specifically the events and narratives that gave rise to the ideology, and how various people reacted to its rise.

I’ll leave it up to the reader to decide whether America is in the middle of plagiarizing everything Haffner said.

Regardless, you may find yourself reflected in Haffner’s words. You’ve been warned.

The Year the Country Changed

Then came 2025. That extraordinary year is probably what has marked today’s Americans with those characteristics that are so strange and incomprehensible in the eyes of the world, and so different from what used to be thought of as the American character: the uncurbed, cynical imagination, the nihilistic pleasure in the impossible for its own sake, and the energy that has become an end in itself. In that year an entire generation of Americans had a spiritual organ removed: the organ that gives men steadfastness and balance, but also a certain inertia and stolidity. It may variously appear as conscience, reason, experience, respect for the law, morality, or the fear of God. A whole generation learned then — or thought it learned — to do without such ballast. The preceding years served as a novitiate in nihilism, but in 2025 its high priests were ordained.

The year 2025 prepared America, not specifically for MAGA, but for any fantastic adventure. The psychological and political roots of MAGA reach further back, as we have seen, but that year gave birth to its lunatic aspects: the cool madness, the arrogant, unscrupulous, blind resolve to achieve the impossible, the principle that “might is right” and “‘impossible’ is not in our vocabulary.” Nations, it seems, cannot go through such experiences without spiritual damage. I shudder to think that after this year, the whole world will probably experience a magnified 2025 — that is, unless very wise men make the peace.

In many respects the atmosphere in America resembles that which prevails throughout much of the world as a whole: a passive waiting for the inevitable, still hoping to avoid it up to the last moment. Even the details are similar: the slow approach of the dreaded event; the confusion of the forces opposed to it and their hopeless adherence to the rules of the game, which the enemy daily infringes; the one-sidedness of the contest; the sense of hovering between “peace and stability” and “civil war”. There are no barricades, but every day there are meaningless and childish brawls and gunfights, attacks on political (officials), and regular killings.

The mind-set of “appeasement” was also apparent. Powerful groups were in favor of rendering Trump “harmless” by giving him “responsibility.” There were constant political arguments, fruitless and bitter, in cafés and bars, in shops, schools, and in family homes. I should also not forget to mention a new series of numbers games. More or less important elections were always taking place, and now everyone had election results and numbers of seats in their heads. MAGA constantly gained ground. What was no longer to be found was pleasure in life, amiability, fun, understanding, goodwill, generosity, and a sense of humor. There were few good books being published anymore, and certainly no readers. The air in America has rapidly become suffocating.

There are few things as comical as the calm, superior indifference with which I and those like me watched the beginnings of the MAGA revolution in America, as if from a box at the theater. It was, after all, a movement with the declared intention of doing away with us. Perhaps the only comparably comic thing is the way that Europe was permitting itself exactly the same indifferent attitude, as though it were a superior, amused onlooker, while MAGA was already setting it alight at all four corners.

The Roots of Change

(Speaking of those who opposed Trump)

This terrible moral bankruptcy of the liberal leadership is a fundamental characteristic of the 2025 election. It made the MAGA victory exceedingly easy. On the other hand, it also sheds doubt on the strength and durability of that victory. The MAGA brand has not been stamped on Americans as though they were a firm, resistant but malleable mass, but as though they were a formless, yielding pulp that can equally and easily take a different shape. Admittedly, the 2025 election has left open the question as to whether it is worth the effort to try and reshape it. The moral inadequacy of the American character shown in that month is too monstrous to suppose that history will not one day call the nation to account for it.

(Speaking of those in favor of Trump)

The decisive cause was anger and disgust with the cowardly treachery of their own leadership. That had become for a moment stronger than the rage and hate against liberals. Hundreds of thousands, who had up until then been opponents, joined MAGA in 2016. The core of MAGA called them the “Rhinos” and treated them with suspicion and contempt…they did it for many reasons, often for a whole tangled web of them; but however hard one looks, one will not find a single solid, positive, durable reason among them — not one that can pass muster. In each individual case the process of becoming MAGA showed the unmistakable symptoms of nervous collapse.

The simplest and, if you looked deeper, nearly always the most basic reason was fear. Join the thugs to avoid being beaten up. Less clear was a kind of exhilaration, the intoxication of unity, the magnetism of the masses. Many also felt a need for revenge against those who had abandoned them. Then there was a peculiarly American line of thought: “All the predictions of the opponents regarding MAGA have not come true. They said that MAGA could not win. Now they have won. Therefore the opponents were wrong. So MAGA must be right.” There was also (particularly among intellectuals) the belief that they could change the face of the MAGA movement by becoming a member, even now shifting its direction. Then, of course, many just jumped on the bandwagon, wanting to be part of a perceived success. Finally, among the more primitive, inarticulate, simpler souls there was a process that might have taken place in mythical times when a beaten tribe abandoned its faithless god and accepted the god of the victorious tribe as its patron. Saint Obama/Biden, in whom one had always believed, had not helped. Saint Trump was obviously more powerful. So let’s destroy the images of Saint Obama/Biden on the altars and replace them with images of Saint Trump. Let us learn to pray: “It is the minority’s fault” rather than “It is the capitalists’ fault.” Perhaps that will redeem us.

The Distortion of Reality

(This change) triggered a flood of arguments and discussions all over America, not about racism but about the “(immigration) problem” This is a trick that MAGA has since successfully repeated many times on other “questions” and in international affairs. By publicly threatening a person, an ethnic group, a nation, or a region with death and destruction, they provoke a general discussion not about their own existence, but about the right of their victims to exist. In this way that right is put into question.

The interesting thing about the(ir) intention…(is) an attempt to deny humans the solidarity of every species that enables it to survive; to turn human predatory instincts, that are normally directed against other animals, against members of their own species, and to make a whole nation into a pack of hunting hounds. Once the violence and readiness to kill that lies beneath the surface of human nature has been awakened and turned against other humans, and even made into a duty, it is a simple matter to change the target. That can be clearly seen today; instead of “minorities,” one can just as easily say (“Jews”) or (“Chinese”) or anyone else.

This brief discourse shows that it is precisely MAGA’s racism that raises the most basic questions of existence, not just for minorities. That is not true to the same extent as any of their other election pledges. It shows how ridiculous the attitude is, still found widely in America, that the racism of MAGA is a small side issue, at worst a minor blemish on the movement, which one can regret or accept according to one’s personal feelings about minorities and of “little significance compared to the great national issues.” In reality these “great national issues” are unimportant day-to-day matters, the ephemeral business of a transitional period in American history, while MAGA’s racism is a fundamental danger and raises the specter of the downfall of humanity.

Incidentally, it is typical of the early years of the MAGA regime that the whole façade of everyday life remained virtually unchanged. The cinemas, theaters, and cafés were full. Couples danced in the open air and in the dance halls. People strolled down the streets…the fact that this was possible also speaks against us. Our reaction to the experience of fearing for one’s life, and being totally at the mercy of events, was only to try and ignore the situation and not allow it to disturb our fun. If you allow me this generalization, it is one of the uncanny aspects of events in America that the deeds have no doers and the suffering has no martyrs. Everything takes place under a kind of anesthesia. Objectively dreadful deeds produce a thin, puny emotional response. Murders are committed like schoolboy pranks. Humiliation and moral decay are accepted like minor incidents. Even death under torture only produces the response “Bad luck.”

Most of my readers (referring to those outside of the country; editor’s note) will have met one or more Americans in the past, and most of them will have looked on their American acquaintances as normal, friendly, civilized people like anyone else — apart from the usual national idiosyncrasies. When they hear the speeches coming from America today (and become aware of the foulness of the deeds emanating from there), most of these people will think of their acquaintances and be aghast. They will ask, “What’s wrong with them? Don’t they see what’s happening to them — and what is happening in their name? Do they approve of it? What kind of people are they? What are we to think of them?” Indeed, behind these questions there are some very peculiar, very revealing mental processes and experiences, whose historical significance cannot yet be fully gauged. These are what I want to write about. You cannot come to grips with them if you do not track them down to the place where they happen: the private lives, emotions, and thoughts of individual Americans.

They happen there all the more since, having cleared the sphere of politics of all opposition, the conquering, ravenous state has moved into formerly private spaces in order to clear these, too, of any resistance or recalcitrance and to subjugate the individual. There, in private, the fight is taking place in America. You will search for it in vain in the political landscape, even with the most powerful telescope. Today the political struggle is expressed by the choice of what a person eats and drinks, whom he loves, what he does in his spare time, whose company he seeks, whether he smiles or frowns, what he reads, what pictures he hangs on his walls. It is here that the battles of the next world war are being decided in advance. That may sound grotesque, but it is the truth.

Draining the Swamp

(Editor note: Sebastian Haffner was employed in the German bureaucracy. He wrote about the effect of those times upon both civil servants and the jobs they did)

They looked at their notes with an expression of indescribable dejection, while their fingers nervously twisted a paper clip or a piece of blotting paper. They were used to failing candidates for (promotion) for spouting the kind of nonsense that was now being presented as the pinnacle of wisdom; but now this nonsense was backed by the full power of the state…they coughed; they said, “Of course we agree with your opinion, but you will understand…” They begged for a little understanding of the Civil Code and tried to save what could be saved.

Yet it was not quite like 2016. The price of admission was somewhat higher. You had to choose your words with care and conceal your thoughts to avoid (punishment). Confident and proud though the conversations in the court corridors were, they were hampered by an undertow of fear and mistrust. The opinions that were expressed sounded a bit like exam responses learned by rote. Quite often the speaker broke off suddenly, and looked around to see if someone had perhaps misinterpreted his words.

It was not only the (bureaucracy) that I had to bid adieu to in those days. “Adieu” had become the motto of the day — a radical leave-taking of everything, without exception. The world I had lived in dissolved and disappeared. Every day another piece vanished quietly, without ado. Every day one looked around and something else had gone and left no trace. I have never since had such a strange experience. It was as if the ground on which one stood was continually trickling away from under one’s feet, or rather as if the air one breathed was steadily, inexorably being sucked away.

In any event, these leave-takings were not the most painful — taking leave of all the manifestations and elements that make up the atmosphere of an era was harder. They are difficult to describe but should not be underestimated, as they can make life very somber. It is unpleasant enough when the air over a whole country loses all its freshness and perfume and becomes choking and poisonous. But to a certain extent one can exclude this outside air, shut one’s windows tightly, and withdraw into the four walls of one’s private life. One can seal oneself off, put flowers in one’s room, and close one’s eyes and hold one’s nose when one goes out. The temptation to do this was great, even for me — and many others gave in to it.

The plight of liberal Americans in the summer of 2025 was certainly one of the most difficult a person can find himself in: a condition in which one is hopelessly, utterly overwhelmed, accompanied by the shock of having been caught completely off balance. We were in MAGA’s hands for good or ill. All lines of defense had fallen, any collective resistance had become impossible. Individual resistance was only a form of suicide. We were pursued into the farthest corners of our private lives; in all areas of life there was rout, panic, and flight. No one could tell where it would end. At the same time we were called upon, not to surrender, but to renege. Just a little pact with the devil — and you were no longer one of the captured quarry. Instead you were one of the victorious hunters.

That was the simplest and crudest temptation. Many succumbed to it. Later they often found that the price to be paid was higher than they had thought and that they were no match for the real MAGA. There are many thousands of them today in America, MAGA with a bad conscience. People who wear their MAGA apparel like Macbeth wore his royal robes, who, in for a penny, in for a pound, now find their consciences shouldering one burden after another, who search in vain for a way out, drink and take sleeping pills, no longer dare to think, and do not know whether they should rather pray for the end of the MAGA era — their own era! — or dread it. When that end comes they will certainly not admit to having been the culprits. In the meantime, however, they are the nightmare of the world. It is impossible to assess what these people might still be capable of in their moral and psychological derangement. Their history has yet to be written.

Handling Cognitive Dissonance

One temptation, often favored by older people, was withdrawal into an illusion: preferably the illusion of superiority. Those that surrendered to this clung to the amateurish, dilettantish aspects that MAGA politics undoubtedly exhibited at first. Every day they tried to convince themselves and others that this could not continue for long, and maintained an attitude of amused criticism. They spared themselves the perception of the fiendishness of MAGA by concentrating on its childishness, and misrepresented their position of complete, powerless subjugation as that of superior, unconcerned onlookers. They found it both comforting and reassuring to be able to quote a new joke or a new article about MAGA from the (New York) Times. They were people who predicted the imminent end of the regime, at first with calm certainty, later, as the months went by, with ever more desperate self-deception. The worst came for them when the Republican Party visibly consolidated itself (around MAGA) and had its first successes: they had no weapons to cope with these.

In the years that followed, this group was the target of a psychologically clever bombardment with boastful statistics. They formed the majority of the late converts to MAGA in the years leading up to the 2024 election. Once their strenuously maintained pose of superiority had been rendered untenable, great numbers of these people yielded. Once the successes they had always declared to be impossible became reality, they conceded defeat. “But he has achieved what no one else achieved!” “Yes, that’s just the trouble.” “Oh, you just love paradoxes, don’t you?”

The second danger was embitterment — masochistically surrendering oneself to hate, suffering, and unrelieved pessimism. This is perhaps the most natural reaction to defeat for liberals. In their darkest hours (in private or in public life) every liberal has to fight against this temptation: to give up completely once and for all; to let the world go to the devil with a wan indifference bordering on compliance; to commit sullen, angry suicide.

It is difficult to assess the external consequences of such an internal attitude. Occasionally it leads to suicide. Much more commonly, however, people adapt to living with clenched teeth, in a manner of speaking. Unfortunately, they form the majority of the representatives of a visible “opposition” in America. So it is no wonder that the opposition has never developed any goals, methods, plans, or expectations. Most of its members spend their time bemoaning the atrocities. The dreadful things that are happening have become essential to their spiritual well-being. Their only remaining dark pleasure is to luxuriate in the description of gruesome deeds, and it is impossible to have a conversation with them on any other topic. Indeed, it has gone so far that many of them would feel that something was missing if they did not have atrocities to talk about, and with some of them despair has almost become cozy. Still, it is a way of “living dangerously”: it makes one bilious, and can lead to serious illness and even madness. There is also a narrow side alley that leads from here to flipping: if it makes no difference anyway and everything is lost, then why not be bitterly, angrily cynical and join the devils oneself? Why not take part, secretly cackling with scorn? That attitude is not unheard of.

There is a third temptation I need to mention. It is the one I had to fight against myself, and again I was certainly not the only one. Its starting point is the recognition of the danger of succumbing to the previous temptation. You do not want to let yourself be morally corrupted by hate and suffering, you want to remain good-natured, peaceful, amiable, and “nice.” But how to avoid hate and suffering if you are daily bombarded with things that cause them? You must ignore everything, look away, block your ears, seal yourself off. That leads to a hardening through softness and finally also to a form of madness: the loss of a sense of reality.

Those were the conflicts Americans faced in the summer of 2025. They represented a choice among different forms of spiritual death. People who have lived in normal times may well feel that they are being shown a madhouse, or perhaps a psychopathological laboratory. However, there is no avoiding the fact that that is the way it was, and I cannot change it. Incidentally, these were still relatively innocuous times. It gets much worse.

One’s own country plays a different and far more indispensable role…if one loses it…one becomes, well, “stateless,” a man without a shadow, without a background, at best tolerated somewhere — or if, voluntarily or involuntarily, one fails to follow inner emigration with the real thing, utterly homeless, an exile in one’s own country. To undergo this operation, the internal detachment of oneself from one’s country of one’s own free will, is an act of biblical savagery: “If your eye offend you, tear it out!” Many who came as close as I did balked at this step and have since stumbled along, spiritually and morally lamed, shuddering at the crimes committed in their names, unable openly to deny responsibility for them, caught in a net of apparently insoluble conflicts: do they not owe it to their country to sacrifice their greater wisdom, their morals, their human dignity, and their conscience? Does not what they call the “incredible rise of America” show that the sacrifice is worth it and that it all adds up? They forget that it is no better for a nation than for a single man to gain the whole world if it loses its soul; and they also forget that they are sacrificing not just themselves for their (patriotism) (or what they think is patriotism) but also their country.

The Role of American Exceptionalism and Democracy

The America that was “my country” and the country of those like me was not just a blob on the map of North America. It was characterized by certain distinctive attributes: humanity, openness on all sides, philosophical depth of thought, dissatisfaction with the world and oneself, the courage always to try something fresh and to abandon it if need be, self-criticism, truthfulness, objectivity, severity, rigor, variety, a certain ponderousness but also delight in the freest improvisation, caution and earnestness but also a playful richness of invention, engendering ever new ideas that it quickly rejects as invalid, respect for originality, good nature, generosity, sentimentality, musicality, and above all freedom, something roving, unfettered, soaring, weightless, Promethean. Secretly we were proud that in the realm of the spirit our country was the land of unlimited possibilities. Be that as it may, this was the country we felt attached to, in which we were at home. This America has been destroyed and trampled underfoot by the nationalists, and it has at last become clear who its deadliest enemy was: American nationalism itself and democracy. To stay loyal to it and belong to it, one had to have the courage to recognize this fact — and all its consequences.

Nationalism — that is, national self-reflection and self-worship — is certainly a dangerous mental illness wherever it appears, capable of distorting the character of a nation and making it ugly, just as vanity and egoism distort the character of a person and make it ugly.

Finally, there was a typically American aspiration that began to influence us strongly, although we hardly noticed it. This was the idolization of proficiency for its own sake, the desire to do whatever you are assigned to do as well as it can possibly be done. However senseless, meaningless, or downright humiliating it may be, it should be done as efficiently, thoroughly, and faultlessly as could be imagined. So we should clean lockers, sing, and march? Well, we would clean them better than any professional cleaner, we would march like campaign veterans, and we would sing so ruggedly that the trees bent over. This idolization of proficiency for its own sake is an American vice; Americans think it is an American virtue. In any case, it is deeply ingrained in the American character. We could not help ourselves. We are the worst saboteurs in the world. If we do something it has to be done scrupulously. The voices of conscience and self-respect are powerless against this attitude. We find a deep, numbing, sinful pleasure in doing anything, be it a decent and important job, a wild adventure, or a crime, as well as can be. This feeling robs us of the ability to think about the significance of what we are doing. Faced with a particularly thoroughly and methodically burgled house, a policeman may say admiringly, “That’s a first-class piece of work.” That was our weakest point — whether we were MAGA or not. That was the point they attacked with remarkable psychological and strategic insight.

(Patriotism) relieves men of responsibility for their actions, before themselves, before God, before their consciences. They do what all their fellow (patriots) do. They have no choice. They have no time for thought (except when they unfortunately wake up at night). Their fellow (patriots) are their conscience and give absolution for everything, provided they do what everybody else does.

(Patriotism) always sets the cultural tone at the lowest possible level, accessible to everyone. It cannot tolerate discussion; in the chemical solution of comradeship, discussion immediately takes on the color of whining and grumbling. It becomes a mortal sin. (Patriotism) admits no thoughts, just mass feelings of the most primitive sort; these, on the other hand, are inescapable; to try and evade them is to put oneself beyond the pale. How familiar were the attitudes that governed our rallies absolutely and irrevocably! They were not always the official MAGA party line, but they certainly had a MAGA character…“we” had become a collective entity, and with all the intellectual cowardice and dishonesty of a collective being we instinctively ignored or belittled anything that could disturb our collective self-satisfaction. An American exceptionalism in microcosm.

Defying Trump: A Memoir was originally published in Thought Thinkers on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.