The Barrow

XLVII. Some days you may do the bare minimum, but do not do less than that.

I wrote this in my notebook today, and it's true. I had a long day yesterday in which I really only accomplished the bare minimum necessary to keep my life afloat. I said this to myself as I forced my exhausted body to brush my teeth before passing out asleep.

I think it's good advice. Obviously we don't want to make a habit of doing the bare minimum, but we never do less than that.

It just struck me how some things stay perennially the same while so many others change.

Right now, I am sitting in bed on my laptop while stupid History Channel shows play on the TV. In world news, a massively-unpopular Republican president has dragged us into an illegal and fraudulent war in the Middle East at the behest of his Israeli masters. The economy seems at the brink of collapse and people are unsure of the future.

Is it 2026 or 2007?

One of the biggest reasons I feel more attuned to our native pagan spirituality is that the Abrahamic cults banish away many natural parts of being human. They shove things like sexuality or even physical violence and the warrior ethos down into the pit of darkness, where it becomes dark in turn. Then, those who are attracted to sexuality or the warrior ethos are in turn drawn into the murkiness of the deep, exposing them to many corrupting influences.

Some things belong down there, but no natural part of human life should be thrown into the dark. In fact, bringing these out into the light would make us less susceptible to temptation by other dark things.

Recently I was asked to come up with five songs for an office playlist. I agonized over this choice until I could whittle the list down to five songs I felt wouldn't alienate my coworkers too much. Even as I sent the songs to the office manager, I felt self-conscious.

Then, several songs into the playlist, “Smooth” by Rob Thomas played.

I agonized over this and someone else picked one of the worst songs ever recorded.

My self-consciousness was completely unfounded.

Though, this also made me realize: I shouldn't have felt so self-conscious even if for some reason everyone would have hated me for my music choices.

I'd rather be honest and hated than dishonest and loved.

We can disagree about exactly where the line lies between the darkness and the light, we can disagree about the existence of a neutral earthly realm between the two antipodes, and we can disagree about how prevalent evil is. We can no longer, however, disagree about the existence of evil and its stranglehold on the world. We can no longer disagree about which side of this divide we should find ourselves on.

I made a remark many years ago that I enjoyed when fictional conflicts which begin with nuance distill into a cosmic battle of good vs. evil. Well, here we go.

In the wake of the disgusting, vile revelations of the past few weeks, there will be a feverish response all over the world which will take generations to soothe.

Unfortunately, the primary reaction has been antisemitism and extreme sex-negativity (which are both trends that have been going on for some time now)

We can focus on the evil of Israel, the billionaire class, human trafficking, and the horrific things which have been taking place without devolving into these though-terminating stupidities.

I know I'm not the first one to have this thought, but it's kind of fucked that as the world burns around us, we still have to go to work, pay our bills, and play nice. There is a part of me that appreciates this, but another part that would prefer the whole system to just come tumbling down already.

Instead, we have to try to focus at work while facing the great unknowable void of the future.

I feel like I live in a completely different world than I did two months ago. I had always suspected that the rulers of our world were bunker-dwelling, child-sacrificing, cannibalistic, pedophilic lizard people, but it's a very strange feeling to have these suspicions, which were always the most frige of ideas, espoused by tinfoil-hat-wearing weirdoes on late-night conspiracy AM radio, confirmed.

If anything, though, it's somewhat of a return to form, for me. Before college, I was a very spiritual believer in these types of things. My time in college brainwashed me into the woke crowd as is so often the case, but since leaving college, as if a spell had been lifted, I found myself slowly returning to my senses, just like the slow return of feeling after a dental procedure.

However, I digress. The revelations of the past month alone have been world-shattering in an almost Lovecraftian way. It is almost more confusing now that this information is out. In this way, it's not dissimilar to the UFO-related revelations that came to light several years ago. Hearing a sitting member of Congress ask in a hearing about the death of Boeing contractors who were working on a mysterious “cube” sent shudders down my spine. Not only because some of my worst fears have now been somewhat confirmed, but because of the new questions which have emerged.

Back when we all knew the powers-that-be were covering lots of things up, things were almost simpler. However, now that they've let a lot of this information out, it begs the question: why? In addition, the fact that these world-changing confirmations have changed nothing seems to be the most disturbing piece of information of all. What's their angle?

In days long past, I would have consulted the very same tilfoil-hat-wearing weirdoes on late night AM radio. I lament to say that this seems to have been such a Boomer phenomenon that these people are so stuck in their ways that they would rather discuss Mothman than these truly horrific conspiracies which have been confirmed before our very eyes.

Perhaps I'll find something good online, but I remain skeptical.

I wanted to believe until things were confirmed. Now I want to forget.

Over the past few days I have been exploring the internet in general but also Geminispace in particular quite heavily in a revival of my love of internet exploration. This has been quite nice and has helped reconnect me to my younger self quite a lot.

I first became a heavy internet user in 2004. Obviously the internet was very different then. I always felt that perhaps the coolest, most interesting thing I had ever seen would just be one or two links away. I did find a lot of cool things, some of which remain relevant but most of which do not. For example, Elfwood is gone, while DeviantArt remains a large art community (though it too is quite different from how it was in 2004...) Most of the gaming and anime fansites I used to frequent in the 2000s are gone, yet Reddit remains (though it is a ridiculous caricature of its former self).

There's still a lot out there. Not everything is on five or six sites.

Here's a good jumping-off point...

That's what 'Zeitgeist' means, by the way.

I spend a lot of time thinking about how various places and times felt. Today this was prompted by discovering the album Lair of the Dragon by Wolf and Raven. It took me into an oldschool weeb place I really enjoy that got me thinking about how awesome it was to be a nerdy weeb in 2004. Maybe that's just nostalgia, but it seemed to be the peak of that subculture, before oversaturation and collapse.

This is but one timeghost I frequently miss. I miss being an optimistic schoolchild in the 90s, a bearded hipster in the 2010s. Who knows what I've been in the 2020s. This timeghost has been hostile and difficult.

Maybe I'll miss it too?