2025-03-04 #
I added a moodboard of images that make me feel alienation. If this world is all there is, it's a sad reality. Even if there's something more than this world, this world would still be all that matters, here and now.
It is very difficult to go through life without wearing a mask, so much that those who are truthful are punished. It can take a certain degree of dishonesty to get a job, almost mandatory for politicians and bureaucrats. Relationships can be built on manipulation, misunderstanding the other person's motives. The parasite class depends on deception: rent-seeking and rent extraction, so much that entire economies can be built on contributing nothing of value (FIRE economy).
It just never made sense to me to seek status, or hoard fiat currency, or try to assert dominance over others. These zero-sum or even negative-sum games actively harm the losers of these games, the only winning move is not to play. Poor political systems don't promote the most capable, meritous, and ethical people to leadership, just the most ruthless. There's a word for how most of the Western world is run: Kakistocracy, it's the Peter principle taken to the logical conclusion.
2025-02-27 #
I've been studying the Bible and going to church lately, arriving at the same perspective as when I first read the Bible: I believe that much of it is a distortion of truth but it is a foundational text anyways. It has left me with little to no answers or comfort, on the contrary, many narratives I find highly disagreeable such as moral law handed down from a deity, or the necessity of blood sacrifice to atone for sin. God creates both the problem (sin) and the solution (accepting Jesus's blood sacrifice), which I see as a logical tautology. The usual answer is that one has to abandon reason and resort to faith, which I can not truly accept.
Gnosticism seems more intuitively true, but it is obvious why it could not be a mainstream religion: people would prefer to believe in pretty lies, over truth or divine knowledge. Having blind faith as the path to salvation, is a lot easier than understanding anything. The assumption that this is a deeply flawed realm resonates with me. There is a whole train of thought, philosophical pessimism, elaborated upon by Arthur Schopenhauer, Emil Cioran, Peter Zapffe, Philipp Mainländer, et al. which challenge innate biases towards the world, even the notion that life has positive value.
Every virtue, such as love, can only exist within ourselves. One can not experience love from the perspective of another person, it can only be known experientially from the first person. Even when receiving undeserved love or agapic love, one must project or imagine what it may be like to be so selfless. The golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, holds when we understand that we are part of the same consciousness, it is the same as treating oneself well, but many people are evidently quite self-destructive.
There's a survival video game, Rust where the player can't customize their character's appearance at all. This is a great design decision that reflects reality, nobody chooses the body they spawn into. The prejudice that people face regarding physical beauty, ethnicity, gender, is unnecessary cruelty. However, this is an unnecessarily cruel world that will trap people into remaining at lower levels of consciousness.
2025-02-23 #
I've been going to a local antique faire for a while now, I never buy anything but it calms me down to know that most things are essentially junk waiting to be pawned off or trashed at some indefinite time. Material things can seem so sentimental, nostalgic for a better time that may have never existed.
Multiple vendors were selling metallic Buddha statues, I was tempted to take one home with me. The chance of escaping reincarnation through enlightenment seems infinitesimally small in each lifetime, that it would make more sense that the cessation of life on Earth would be more beneficial than continuing to exist. If I had the ultimate power, I would choose to do the most noble thing for humanity, which would be carrying out human extinction.
It never ceases to astonish me that I've made it this far in life, that I haven't died from some horrible accident, murder, or disease. Perhaps I've died many times already, but I'm just experiencing the timeline in which I survive, until I can survive no longer. I think that most spirituality is about giving one strength to be laughing at the gallows before their own execution. People can seem so happy on the outside, but no matter what, life always finds a way to crush one's spirit.
2025-02-21 #
There's the idea that complex systems won't survive the competence crisis, but I think it is largely unproven. Technological society only spirals into exponential complexity, with no sign of ever slowing down. Rules only get more complex on purpose so that you're always in violation of something, it's just up to the enemy to enforce strict compliance in their heavily bureaucratic, totalitarian system.
One way to define a social collapse is a rapid simplification in everything. During a real collapse, there won't be electronic payments, just-in-time delivery, Byzantine rules and regulations, homeowner associations, busybody institutions... things would simply devolve into lowest common denominators. Nothing short of a major military conflict, natural disaster, or economic turmoil would cause the USA to collapse.
The people are yearning for change, but for change to happen, they need to change themselves. Nothing short of truly austere conditions is going to change hearts and minds, and by then it would be too late. There is no rationale for the oppressed to pay taxes to the same government which oppresses them with their own tax money, other than the implicit threat of violence.
2025-02-19 #
The modern world just seems to churn out nothing but NPCs. I have lived for nothing, and my death may be for nothing, as in I'll just die alone in some dwelling by myself. Something about how the world is run, rewards nothing but conformity in every domain.
Someone I used to love once described me as overly pessimistic, I think I would agree. My will-to-die motivates me more than my will-to-live, living in fear, the void beckons to me. I can't be gaslighted into believing that life has positive value, I would crawl back into the womb and die there if I could.
I have come to despise not just consumerism but even owning things. You will own nothing and be happy was actually something I could get along with. The lifecycle of most stuff is that it ends up in a landfill, not owning stuff prevents being responsible for that. This Japanese minimalist guy was right.
2025-02-17 #
The white-collar wageslave experience: paying rent and bills, staring at a screen all day long. Does it get any better? It can certainly be a lot worse. What did Jesus mean by "the Father's kingdom is within you and it is outside you" (Thomas 3)? Heaven in this realm, within me and outside of me... sounds a bit like panpsychism.
I am profoundly dissatisfied with this life, but not quite enough to have an exit plan. There's the possibility of being happy while being broke and homeless, how do I manifest the heavenly state of mind? What is really meant by not tasting death?
Did Jacobo Grinberg have the answer, and was able to exercise his knowledge? Or was he forced into disappearance?
2025-02-15 #
I've read the apocryphal text, the Gospel of Thomas, after knowing about it since I was a teenager. It challenges the reader with this opening:
Whoever discovers what these sayings mean will not taste death.
There is so much in here which is meant to elicit the truth, but the truth can not be simply told in words, it must be understood in the spirit, it must be internalized.
But the kingdom is inside you and it is outside you. When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you dwell in poverty and you are poverty.
This passage is very similar to Luke 17:20-21; the esoteric is present in the exoteric. What I had intuitively known since I was a child, having known other denominations like Jehovah's witnesses, is that Jesus had esoteric, mystical messages which were only meant to be heard by those willing to hear it. It can't just be read and understood, as a literal reading would make no sense, nor could it be expressed purely in human language. His teachings have been intentionally obscured by followers, persecutors, and authorities to mask the truth to suit their teleological ends.
2025-02-12 #
It is futile to resist atomization, one must embrace it headfirst by staring into screens for all waking hours, surviving on nutrient sludge and dwelling in a tiny bugman living quarter by oneself. There is a reason why totalitarians are so obsessed with destroying communal, social, familial bonds: so that the state can intrude in every aspect of one's life.
I think that the AI surveillance state (2024) is already the present. I have had visions of this since around 2012-2013, before the Snowden leaks, but was anyone really surprised? Corporate oligarchs are promoting such technology because of the lucrative government contracts that they may secure to trample over privacy and abusing citizens.
2025-02-11 #
I find myself agreeing with Henry David Thoreau's politics and worldview, but even after de jure slavery was abolished, we now have economic slavery. I feel more and more determined that detachment from worldly possessions, relationships, is necessary to reduce suffering. It is the same reason why Thoreau lived such a simple life, to have less to lose, and contribute less to a system that necessarily abuses people to perpetuate itself.
Men have resisted immoral authority since the earliest civilizations, and have been persecuted unjustly, and will continue to do so in the indefinite future. It's the curse of the most intelligent, moral, conscious to bear the burden of resisting evil. What defines a normie is the strong desire for conformity to social norms for the safety it brings, at the expense of both liberty and safety.
So much popular media is portrayed from the perspective of "terrorists" as protagonists: Morpheus's crew was hunted by agents in the Matrix, the rebels in Star Wars were fighting against the empire, activists are hunted by secret police in V for Vendetta. But in reality? Conformity and obedience to all forms of corruption.
What is even the endgame of the dark powers of this world? Just to become more powerful, so that they may abuse their power even more? There is no end to megalomania.
2025-02-08 #
I visited ████████ (bugman central of the world) for a few days, and it was what I had expected. There is something deeply unsettling about the hive cities of this world, one can't help but think that any random bugman could be squashed and nobody would care or notice. It really gives the sense that everyone is dependent on a system, that needs to abuse everyone to keep the system functioning.
In fact the inhabitants of bugman central seem to not care or think about life beyond the material, life is all about work, investments, material possessions, and slaving away for the system. I really can't help but feel like an alien in these artificial high density environments. The bugmen aren't even aware that they are trapped not only in a metal cage, but a materialist, secular state of mind.
To be fair, most religion and spirituality is woo-woo and lies intended to placate the masses. It's so strange to think that some random farmer in 19th century Joseon dynasty Korea who could have never heard of the Bible lived their entire life and died, and would be judged and sentenced to eternal damnation for their ignorance of Jesus Christ. Only Christian missionaries and the American military taking over their country in the 20th century could have saved them. This doesn't seem like a benevolent God who wants everyone to be saved.
Submitting to authority, even when one doesn't agree, has never sat right with me. Submission to the status quo foregoes the possibility of a better world. A world where humanity doesn't serve dominance hierarchies, or live in the pod and eat goyslop. Bringing children into this Hell realm feels morally wrong, despite what any religion may say. My parents don't see it, they want me to reproduce, perhaps they won't budge on their worldview until I am crucified.
2025-02-02 #
I've been reading this guy's blog lately, Beneath the Pavement. Modern life is unjust and cruel in ways that we're unable to fully express. I particularly resonate with this article To Conform and To Perform, one can do no harm to any person, hurt no one, steal nothing, but by refusing to surrender to the status quo, one will be crushed by the system. There's no exit, everyone is trapped in this techno-feudal society. One commenter writes:
The system spares no resources in trampling down any dissent. There is no justice, no separation of powers - there is rampant abuse of power and secrecy.
I find fault in mainstream Christian thought that one must submit to and obey their government no matter how arbitrary and oppressive it is, claiming divine authority (Romans 13:1). It's passages from the Bible like Colossians 3:22 which tells slaves to be good slaves, that earns the pejorative slave morality as Nietzsche calls it.
This is an equivocation that justifies how life on Earth can't be good for so many people, because it grants tyrants carte blanche, and invalidates resistance against tyranny as rebellion against God. In this regard, I think that Christianity has held humanity back by providing the moral and spiritual basis for tyranny. The teachings of Paul point in the direction of a God that wants its people to allow oppression and death as long as it is ordained by the state. The decline of the Christian faith in modern times is deserved, but most dangerous without a viable alternative, as people end up worshipping science, technology, money or material things in an increasingly secular world.
By deferring any retribution for Earthly sins to a hypothetical afterlife, one can justify any immoral behavior. What is so appealing about Christianity to authority figures is that they can abuse their subjects with an absolute moral and spiritual self-righteousness, knowing that they will be saved by grace for their abuses of power at the end. I pray for a better cosmic justice, but all seems hopeless in this world.
2025-01-29 #
When I read about NKVD Troika, and how recently that happened in human history, it makes me realize that humanity hasn't changed at all as a species for millenia. Across cultures, across time, bad governments are brutal. Nobody ever teaches one to resist, it's all about producing obedient slaves.
We have to look inward, why are humans innately driven to submission to authority, just out of personal benefit? This fractal pattern is omnipresent in human institutions from religion, government, corporations, academia, and so on. When the system no longer benefits those who obey, they quickly fall apart. The price of submission is to be ruled by evil people, the price of rebellion is to be vanquished by evil people. We are forced into this ultimatum from birth, sentenced to death from the start.
What is even my goal in life, to resist the dark powers of this world and pay with my life? Isn't this what living like Christ means, to be a sacrificial lamb for humanity? I am by no means perfect, but I seek the truth and for that I may be punished. My divine spark challenges systems of oppression and may inspire others to do the same, those who submit to manipulation may cower in fear.
2025-01-26 #
"I have led a toothless life," he thought. "A toothless life. I have never bitten into anything. I was waiting. I was reserving myself for later on–and I have just noticed that my teeth have gone. What’s to be done?" - Jean-Paul Sartre, The Age of Reason (1945)
Am I living a toothless life? It seems that in order to live true to a belief system, one must make sacrifices, sometimes sacrifing one's own life. Rebel against tyrants, and they may very well take your life. To give one's life to Christ, living like Christ, used to mean persecution, when false believers face persecution because of the word, they quickly fall away (Mark 4:17). Actual tyrants are never alone, they have entire systems of government to enforce their rule.
The authorities of this Earth like to play God, human systems are corrupt and almost universally promote the wrong people to power: narcissistic sociopaths. They want to surveil everyone with AI on the Internet and backdoored operating systems and hardware, regulate everything and make laws so cryptic that everyone is breaking multiple legalisms a day. The only true solace is that of the mind (and even there, they want to invade the sanctity of the mind with things like Neuralink). Most of all, they want to play the role of the righteous God who smites people, but for arbitrary reasons since they lack moral authority.
They want to equate rebellion against government with rebellion against God, because from their perspective they might as well be God. I truly think that this is an upside-down world, where things are in truth, an inversion of their face value.
2025-01-23 #
I find myself agreeing with the Gnostic worldview, about divine knowledge or gnosis over blind faith. A personal path to spiritual enlightenment over institutions. The God of the Old Testament being the demiurge intuitively makes more sense than that entity being a benovolent God. At the same time, I can't help but think these are unknowable, and it's insane to think that people fought wars over religion, and are still doing so and will do so until the end of humanity.
I think that the decline in spirituality is inextricably linked to the decline in Western hegemony. There's no moral authority for their rules-based order, which has no rules, isn't orderly, and definitely isn't based.
2025-01-19 #
I'm mentally exhausted, my belly is full but my mind is empty. So much of the US economy is fake, it is being propped up by rent-seeking, real estate, and fake jobs. The AI grifters are scamming not just the public but Western governments. Cryptocurrency which still has a real chance to overthrow government-issued fiat, is also full of scammers and clueless normies. Meanwhile the average young American can't afford to live.
“An honest man falls in love with an honest woman; he wishes, therefore to marry her, to be the father of her children, to secure her and himself. All systems of government should be tested by whether he can do this. If any system—feudal, servile, or barbaric—does, in fact, give him so large a cabbage-field that he can do it, there is the essence of liberty and justice. If any system—republican, mercantile, or Eugenist—does, in fact, give him so small a salary that he can't do it, there is the essence of eternal tyranny and shame.” ― G.K. Chesterton
Seems like some people are learning via Little Red Book （小红书） that the American system they live in is one of tyranny and shame, but most people are subtarded, thanks to the abysmal American education system and propaganda.
2025-01-16 #
The government wants you to be a good upstanding citizen, or in other words, an idiot. The better you are, the more they can abuse you with impunity. Good men are cowards and slaves. The price of good men doing nothing is to be ruled by evil people.
I think about that meme, only those who disobeyed, survived. Those who disobey first get themselves killed. They are often the most courageous and intelligent, like Aaron Swartz. Most of the Apostles of Christ died for their belief, most of today's followers of Christ are just following the herd. Modern society is dysgenic by killing their best, not just by force, but via IQ shredders.
Will I be forced to die as a martyr with no cause? The total likelihood that I will die by a meat automaton's hands is fairly small, but non-zero, and it certainly wouldn't be on my terms. Will I die like a dog, like the nameless protagonist in Kafka's "The Trial"? I can't foresee my own death, but before I die I would like to finish my work, then I can be at peace with death. I can't help but fear being someone else's sacrificial lamb.
2025-01-14 #
I am humbled that my thoughts on civilization are not original, Rousseau had the same ideas centuries earlier, in Discourse on Inequality. I never agreed with the ideas presented in Hobbes's Leviathan. He was persecuted for his writings, which were radical and heretical for his time.
2025-01-11 #
Updated the webbed site, now that I have a better sense of what the information architecture looks like. The old homepage is still available here. Making 3D art has given me profound joy, it was spurred on by one comment on Neocities. I have chosen this as my medium because I suck at drawing, sculpting, things which I work on with my hands. The advantage is that it's immediately accessible via the web, and leverages my strongest skill: programming. I like to focus more on the composition, but I'll improve my craft and execution on the technical side.
It's funny how much of a curse it is to tell people about what you're doing. If I mention that I'm working on an artwork, chances are I'll scrap it or never finish it. Silence is sometimes necessary.
2025-01-09 #
Recall the Book of Job, in which a man's faith is tested by Satan and God when everything he has is taken away from him. From this parable, it seems that the benevolent God makes himself known by allowing Satan to cause tragedy after tragedy, taking away his wealth, daughters, and painfully disfiguring him. Job questions God, suggesting that the wicked go unpunished while the good suffer. Remind anyone of the problems of judicial systems today?
The epilogue of Job's health being restored and things returned to him, is somehow more unrealistic and implausible than God making himself known to Job. Perhaps it takes away from the lesson of this parable, that good people have to suffer, and people of even stronger moral character suffer more.
2025-01-07 #
What is The Truth™? There's the misconception that truth prevails over falsity. What the truth is in practice:
- What the average of your closest peers think.
- Consensus by self-proclaimed experts, bureaucrats, and the political class.
- Behind closed doors, the truth is what the most powerful person in the room believes.
- Information which may harm those in power.
There are narratives which in all likelihood don't tell the whole story, but the people are powerless to challenge it: might makes right.
2025-01-04 #
Hell is other people. The interpretation of this Sartre quote at face value is almost always wrong, it doesn't mean that other people make life miserable (but this is also the case). Once one is dead, the perception of that person is fixed, it can no longer change, hence that person is trapped in Hell on Earth. A person is truly dead when they are forgotten, often this happens before the physical death. I keep reminding myself of this as I think about my own mortality.
2025-01-01 #
Time is a flat circle. The same things keep happening over and over. What did I want to do differently in this life? It's absurd yet also realistic to think that today could be my last day, or it could be years from now. I think not about how I wish to be remembered, but how I may be judged by God. Not really sure why I'm here at all, though my art gives me some sense of fulfillment, and my writing at least puts my worldview out in the æther. This is for sure a Hell realm we inhabit here on Earth.
While kings may be buried with their lavish possessions, I may as well leave nothing behind but this webbed site. Most people depart this Earth with nothing but relationships to others, I have relatively few of those. I don't intend to unalive myself, but I'm pre-occupied with the thought that life is so short.
There is this concept of the death drive which manifests itself in self-destructive behavior. Some might even argue that a will-to-death is what motivates human behavior. Becoming a martyr, whether one chooses to or not, is a noble death. I disrespect people who mock how people died, especially their enemies, it reflects that they live for no values at all.