One morning.
Then another.
Philosophy, consciousness, culture, and the strange business of being human.
More Than a Menu
Yesterday morning I watched a video about artificial intelligence, scientific discovery, and what happens when machines become capable of doing work humans have historically considered uniquely ours. Yesterday afternoon, my daughter ca…
The Wet Truth
For most of my adult life, I have been intellectually aware of sweat. I have seen sweat. I have heard people complain about sweat. I have watched athletes on television drip onto basketball courts and runners finish races looking as if…
Imagination Is Infrastructure
This morning I had the strange pleasure of reading someone else articulate an idea I have been circling for more than a year.Not in the someone stole my idea sense. Jack Clark, cofounder of Anthropic, has almost certainly never encount…
The Morning After the Koan
Yesterday I posted the thirteenth case of The Gateless Gate, “Tokusan Holds His Bowls,” without commentary. That was intentional.Usually, when I share something that matters to me, my instinct is to engage with it—to turn it over, conn…
Tokusan Holds His Bowls
Tokusan came into the dining hall carrying his bowls. Seppō, the cook, said, “The bell hasn’t rung and the drum hasn’t sounded. Where are you going with your bowls?”Tokusan immediately returned to his room.Seppō later told Gantō about …
Still Arriving Today
I woke up at 3:30 this morning, and before I had even fully gotten out of bed, I checked the tracking page to make sure my new iPhone was still arriving today. Nothing had happened overnight to suggest otherwise. There had been no seve…
Let the Old Man Go Home
I watched the video of Mitch McConnell in the Capitol yesterday and felt sick. Not angry, amused, or vindicated. Just sad.I disagree with Mitch McConnell on almost every political and moral question I can imagine. His decades in power …
To the Other Z’s
TO: All Alternate, Adjacent, Divergent, Abandoned, and Otherwise Plausible Versions of ZFROM: The CommitteeDELIVERY METHOD: The Ether, the Multiverse, and SubstackRE: Your Continued Participation in This TimelineDear Other Zs,Following…
Training for the Bounce
A couple of weeks ago, we went to Boulder for a short vacation and stayed with one of my oldest friends, Jacey. When I say oldest, I mean that literally. We became friends in the fifth grade, and she is the only person from high school…
Reality Can Survive a Little Jazz
A few days ago, President Trump stood before a Republican midterm convention in Dallas and promised that every adult American would receive a $5,000 “Trump Dividend” if Republicans retain control of Congress in November. The proposal i…
Finding Z
They told us to be careful. It was the early 2000s, or just after the turn of the century, if we want to make it sound suitably dramatic, and I was sitting in a room with maybe thirty other people taking the entrance exam for Mensa. Be…
Laughing Is Not Avoidance
In a metaphysical system I once spent time around, laughter was considered uniquely powerful. Most energies had an opposite. Most forces had a pair. Every spell had some kind of counterspell, every movement had its reflection, and ever…
Everyone Speeds Up
This past weekend, we drove from Oklahoma City to Boulder to visit friends and go to a concert at Red Rocks. It was one of those quick, slightly unreasonable long-weekend trips where the math barely makes sense: around twenty hours of …
Lost in the Sauce
Yesterday I wrote about why AI doom rhetoric feels so familiar to me after growing up around end-times Christianity. The sermon sounds familiar because I have heard its structure before: a coming event, hidden signs, special knowledge,…
The Sermon Sounds Familiar
This morning, my social feeds kept showing me the same tweet. Different people were quote-tweeting it from different corners of the internet, some with alarm, some with vindication, and some with that particular intensity that appears …
The Mirror Now Has Hands
I’ve been talking to AI for a couple of years now, and before this week I would have already told you that it changed my life. Not because it replaced my job. Not because it made me rich. Not because I generated a bunch of pictures and…
Congrats, Workers: Monday Is Off
Today is Labor Day, the sacred American holiday where we honor workers by giving some of them a Monday off, assuming they are lucky enough to work the kind of job that recognizes holidays, benefits, rest, or the concept of human limits…
The Wrong Kind of Strong
Built to Win, Not to Govern
Very Serious Imaginary Lines
Extremely On-Brand
Left of the Filing Cabinet
Keep Me Out of the Drawer
Bad Words, Worse Words
What We Don’t Say
The Window Still Breaks
The Dangerous Comfort of Divine Certainty
Lock In!
TikTok Gym Bros Taught Me Something About Free Will
BunBun’s New Job
Growing up happens quietly
Mutual Subjects, Mutual Limits
The Art of Leaving Early
FIRST AND ZEN ANNOUNCES INTENT TO REMAIN UNBEARABLE
Defending champions enter the 2026–27 season focused on chemistry, mindfulness, and doing it again.
Want Doesn’t Want to Be Satisfied
Enough Is a Practice
The Last Days of Summer
There will be more summers, but never this one again
Did You Know Dolly?
Crying for a Woman I Never Met
We Got GTA VI Before GTA VI
The Leaks Are the Loading Screen
America Hates Kings.
We just love name recognition.
A Colonoscopy and Mickey Mouse Walk Into a Bar...
The Things That Alter Your Trajectory
Baseball Has Invented Zen Accountability
You’re Out
When Knowing Becomes Dangerous
Fundamentalism is afraid of books.
Let Them Tinker
Or Be Left Behind
Chaos as Saturation
The Loud Way to Silence
Unbeatable
Never Underestimate the Squirrels
Committee Hours
Closed for Maintenance
Credible Suffering
Why John Wick Is Fine but True Crime Isn’t
The Inner World, Out Loud
Transmission
A Sick Note
The experiement doesn't stop for a bad meal.
The Lottery Illuminati Are Keeping Me From My Billion Dollars
50/50 Odds
The Zuck Stops Here
Zuckerberg wants to give everyone superintelligence. I’m interested in what happens next.
Congratulations. We Invented Cable.
"You Fucking Idiots!"
Too Rich for No
Enough is seemingly never enough
What Would Jesus Do?
Lots of table tipping, I’d wager
There's Treasure Everywhere!
I'm Rich!!!
She Does Not Owe the World Beauty
When the World Gets a Turn
The Committee Has Entered the Comments
Notes from the Plural Self
Well, That Escalated Beautifully
The Candidates They Tried to Stop Won Anyway
The Democrats Are Terrified of Winning
Squirm Baby Squirm
Happy Birthday Baby
32 Amazing Years Later
The Hidden 95%
Even Stranger 16 Years Later
Burn the Doctor
Accountability for Enemies, Amnesia for Allies
We Inherited a Draft, Not Reality
The Dead Do Not Own Tomorrow
The Ones Who Show Up
Love Made Visible
Thus Far
The Strange Gift of Watching Them Grow
The WALL-E Effect
The Strange Cost of Making Life Easier
Staying for the Fireworks
Becoming Sorcerer Mickey Dad
The Disney DLC
The Most Beautiful Pay-to-Win Experience Ever Created
The Committee Goes to Disney World
Someday This Will Be a Memory
The Sandbox Was in the Way
Revisiting predictions about AI, superintelligence, and the boundaries between them
Never Surrender the Whimsy
I Still Believe in Sorcerer Mickey
38 Nations
The Oklahoma Story We Should Be Telling
Preparing for Disney by Refusing to Prepare
One outfit. Several pairs of underwear. Infinite memories.
When Tattoos Became Fancy
The Anti-Establishment Establishment
Old Dog, New Tricks
Five Months In
The Universe’s Safety Latch
Stupidity Might Be Saving Civilization
The Fortress Within
The Places That Hold Us So We Can Let Go
The Oklahoma Test
The Simplest Political Question I Know
Rebalance
Where is the Patch?!?
A Survey, a City, and a Mirror
I wanted to try something different today.
Reading Isn’t Listening
And That’s Not the Point
Teaching the Fire Where to Burn
The Engine Beneath Addiction
The Embarrassment Tax
Tiny Acts of Freedom
Claiming You Killed a Man at Seven Is Apparently a Résumé Builder
When the Lie Becomes the Brand
The Life I Almost Missed
The Gift of Staying
Inside Claude’s Hidden Workspace
The Workspace Found Us Back
The Illusion of the Steering Wheel
Buckle Up
From Atari to Vice City
GTA VI Feels Like Watching My Childhood Imagination Catch Up With Reality
He Was Not a Buddha
One More Retreat Should Do It
The Vibe Needs a Ledger
The Art Installation With a Cash Register
The Lapse
The game was not a prison. It was how love became visible.
I Woke Up Thinking About Jesse and Puck
Still Here, Still Strange
Enough for Everyone
The American Dream Turns Left
Crying over a Porch Goose
Fully Thawed
Anti-Vibe in a Blazer
When Smart Never Becomes Wise
Satanic Civics
The Horror of Representation
The Things That Kept Me
The things worth keeping are rarely worth anything.
Art Without a Room
Permission to Be Seen
Let Me Think Differently
AI and the uneven playing field
The Affordable Housing Bill
The Sacred Ritual of Doing Something
The Boringly Sane Position
Fund Both
One Is the Loneliest Number
The Secret Emotional Life of Arithmetic
Love Skewes
Where isolation becomes a horizon
Capitalism Is Incompatible with Determinism
A nap born thought on merit, luck, and compassion.
The Ritual That Stayed
From Experiment to Necessity
Am I a Sports Guy Now?
The horror of discovering I enjoy competition
When the Rain Came
Maybe it’s good luck after all.
Try Not to Make This Worse
A ceasefire is mercy. Calling the whole thing a triumph is marketing.
RIP Oliver Tree
One of the Last True Jesters
The Nationalist Lawn
Where fescue becomes a worldview.
Expectations and the Space Between
The Quiet Tyranny of Should
Remembering America
Sometimes Patriotism Looks Like a European Discovering Ranch
The Toy at the End of Capitalism
When Spaceships Become Spreadsheets
The Fog of Reality
Even the mist is alive.
The Difference Between Welcome and Belonging
Nothing to Prove
The Reins and the Rider
The Difference Between Control and Understanding
Who Owns Intelligence?
The Last Economic Question
The Freedom of Becoming Unpleasing
Diogenes would like the beard, but mock this essay
The Quantum Foam of Thought
How Ideas Become Real
Bass With Boundaries
I want the drop, not the crowd work.
Leaving a Trail
I'd Rather Be Found Than Promoted
The Cosmic Joke of the Chore
Doing the dishes as a spiritual practice
Beauty and the Unwritten Script
Following a Thread from Beauty to Determinism
A Guy Reviewing Leftovers
Five Stars
The Architecture of Silence
Twenty Years with the Ringer Turned Off
The AI Boogeyman
Economic Anxiety in Technological Clothing
The Eye That Looked Back
Not a portal, a question.
Prime Suspect
The unconscious has been counting.
Two Sticks
The Strange Point Technology Stops Improving
Variation Isn’t Meaning
Finding Meaning Beyond Repetition
A Seated Man
This Is More Important Than It Sounds
We Are Still Eight Years Old
Nothing extraordinary—just the kind of emotional flood that seems to arrive without warning when you’re eight. Big feelings. Sharp words. The kind that land harder than they’re meant to. We did what parents do. We held space. We…
This Leftist Loves David Holt
Filed Under: Things I Didn’t Expect to Write
A Summer of Dolls
Holding Onto Wonder While It Still Wants to Stay
Selling their Soul for a Seat at the Table
Truth vs. Paycheck
When It Became One Thing
Nothing I Make Is Separate
Full Rubin
How Long Before a Costume Becomes a Face
You’re Already Being Watched
It’s Who Controls the Frame That Matters
The Cost of Never Being Alone
Siddhartha Had to Leave. Most of Us Just Stay Busy.
The 460-Day Glitch
From Selling Things to Smuggling Meaning
Where the System Gets Thin
Opting Out Isn’t Enough
My Bum is on Your Enlightenment
The unexpected evolution of Tom Green
Content With My Discontent
The Breath Between the Fires
The Committee of Disappointment
Composting Storms
Happy Mother's Day
Loving the girl I met in the ’90s and the mother she became
A Mirror, Not a Vending Machine
The Strange Reality of Writing with AI
All Selves a Seat
Online Identities and the Committee Inside the Mind
Fake Cameras, Real Essays
Aesthetic Diplomacy
The Medicine of Meaning
Not magic. Not nothing.
The Beanie Baby Prophecy
A Plush Origin Story
The Ghost Beyond Neptune
Planet Nine and the sacred failure of certainty
The Good Cage
Escaping Certainty, Not Hatred
The First Domino
Feral Intuition, Consciousness Theater, and the Raccoon Behind the Wheel
Money Doesn’t Ruin Purity.
Hiding the Transaction Does.
Work in Silence, Until the Ether Calls
13 Months
Purpose Is Not a Job Description
Fulfillment Doesn’t Require a Timecard
When Power Fears Reality
The deeper meaning of the attack on science.
No One Deconstructs a Secular Childhood
Wonder Without Deception
Let the Compliments Loose
Why think it and not say it?
The Clock I Swallowed
The bell rings before the bell rings
Fifty Years Into the Dark
Where Meaning Actually Lives
Project 2036
Winning Won't Be Enough
Ten Days of Constraint
500 Words or Less
Fear of Ideas
We’d Rather Ban the Conversation Than Have One
Windows Down, Music Up
Songs for the Ride to School
It’s Petey
New Orleans Mayhem, Cruise Karaoke, and the Brief Reign of an Idiot King
100 Days Later
Turns Out Governing for Ordinary People Isn’t Radical. It’s Just Rare.
I Want Relationships, Not Membership
Affinity Without Absorption
The Snake Biting Its Tail
The Seed of a Dead Universe
Trading Cars With AI
Less Stress, Better Strategy
Count the Liars
Bad at Math
Baffoon
The Clown Show Ascends
Normalcy Is Not Resolution
Restoration politics keeps fertilizing the next crisis
Becoming the Artist She Sees
Creation, identity, and growing into a name
Touching Home Base
A Place to Return To
The Moon for Carroll
When the Noise Falls Away
If the Demiurge Wore a Flag Pin
War Drums, Prophecy Junkies, and the God of Grievance
Yada Yada Yada
An Incantation for Escaping Bullshit
Not Violence. Something Stranger.
When Reverence Breaks
The Committee Inside
Why the mind may be a crowd
We Were Told
And Here We Are
What Survived the Fire
seeking outlives certainty
The Spell in the Lunchbox
Tiny Prayers for the Girl Becoming Herself
The Object Changes. The Pattern Remains.
Scapegoating Repeats Itself
We Have Video Doorbells but No Gargoyles
A citizen’s guide to infernal readiness
Three. Two. One.
A shot he had practiced a thousand times.
The Ceiling Got Higher
I don’t want to sell. I want the work to live.
For Every Piece of Mind I’ve Lost, I’ve Gained Peace of Mind
A Crooked Sermon on Letting Go
The Fedora at the End of the World
Nothing exposes the fragility of modern seriousness quite like a truly unfortunate hat.
The Hydration Elite
How water became a status symbol
The Fulcrum Stays Still
The Parties Ride. The Workers Move the Machine
A Year Ago, I Had Never Painted
This Saturday, I’m bringing 100+ pieces to Future of Sound Fest in OKC
I Told You So
The Committee Would Like a Word
The Great Filter Is Already Here
How we survive what we’ve set in motion
When War Stopped Being Abstract
The Look in His Eyes
From Dial-Up to Dialogue
Pshhhkrrr… skreeee… connected.
Favourite Word
Some words we choose, and some choose us.
As Above, So Below
Lightning Bugs in the Dark
If a Crow Emailed a Researcher
There would already be a documentary series.
Not Every Boy Online Is Being Ruined
Humor, respect, and a healthier masculinity in plain sight
The Emperor Wears No Shoes
Crocs, stubbornness, and being lovingly overruled
The Look in Their Eyes
Blood Lust
The Collaboration Score
Detecting Soul
The Alchemy of the Bumper
The Five Second Rebellion Has Evolved
We Have Decided It Is Later Now
Nature Has Yet to Approve the Change
Get Out of the Way
Conscious Control Is Overrated
An Evening at the Wills
When Art Became Possible
Before the City Wakes
Peace Before Sunrise
Unwillingness to Dream
We’ve Forgotten That the World Can Be Remade
The Spirituality of the Atheist Mystic
Too Skeptical for Religion, Too Awestruck for Nihilism
The House by the Side of the Road
Being a Friend to Man
Hands on the Wheel
Living with the part I played
Somewhere, You Survive
You Never Experience Non-Experience
Dark, But Not Empty
Cosmic Jazz
Cookie Clicker and the Hidden Depths of Reality
Ah....New Content
No War but Class War
Costs Below, Gains Above
Any Lawful Use
Just Trust Us
8
Another Version to Love
Morally Small
The Moment That Shrunk a Victory
Patch 1978
The Xennial Meta
Painting the Past
New myth on old metal
Hidden in Plain Sight
Reduction, Not Addition
Coiled Potential
The Myth Came First
They Closed the Window
Why Anthropic’s OpenClaw Decision Feels Like a Miss
The Snowball
Baby Steps Are Still Steps.
Of Course Aliens Are Real
OBAMA SAID WHAT? (He Said Math.)
The Sketch Artist
Dialogue Over Delegation
Latency
How the Self Slows Intelligence
Art Refuses to Salute
The absurdity of authoritarian theater
31 Valentines Later
Choosing Each Other, Again and Again
Genie Logic
Wish Carefully
Old Dog, New Tricks
What the Stacks Taught Me
Dad Quest
The Year of Health
365
Not All Gold, All Honest
I Came for the Curling but Stayed for the Existential Crisis
The Multiverse Is Slippery
A Porch Talk With Me
The Question I Didn’t Answer
This Is Not Career Advice
It’s Something Better
After the Clock
Awareness Without Sequence
This Essay Is a Clock
Creativity as a Quantum Experiment
comic sans evil
the embarrassing tone of power
Hello, World
Religion, Memes, Mythos—and Not a Human in Sight
What Do You See?
AI as the Ultimate Inkblot
Nice Job, Devs
I Don’t Care Who’s Driving
Ring Ring Ring
The Quiet Power of Living on Silent
Kill the Buddha
Outgrowing Certainty
La Femme Fétal
The Track I Didn’t Skip
Left Hand Path
Small Decisions Became Personal Rituals
Wants
Not All Desires Deserve Obedience
There Is No Easy Way to Say the World Is Broken
So I’ll say it with love
Don't Look Away
Are We Great Yet?
Love and Snow
When the World Softens
You Are a Boltzmann Brain
A statistically accurate hallucination with great taste in music
The Eye of the Needle
You can't fit carrying that!
Ice Ice Baby
Too Scared
Thinking Out Loud
Every Day
I Still Have a Dream
A Porch Talk with MLK Jr.
Old Glory’s Lament
This Is Not What I Was For
Practice Mode
Gym Floors and Galaxies
If/Then Living
Green Lights and Side Streets
Forcing Forward
A 2026 Update to Forcing Theory
I Want My MTV
RIP to the station that raised me.
Surf the Singularity
It's Already Breaking
Inhale
Exhale
Disappointment Season
The news keeps getting older. So do I.
After the Burn
A Softer Spell
The Final Command
When Truth Becomes Treason
The Stanford Country
Permission to Punish
Hustled by Unicorns
A Family-Friendly Shakedown
A Spell for Doubt
Read when they try to shrink you
A Calculator at a Séance
Science Isn’t the Enemy of Magick
Pick a Monster
How Panic is Sold
No Middle Ground
Pick a Side
This is America
There Is Enough For All of Us
With Only Hours Left
Steam, Stories, and Love
Happy New Year
The Starting Line
MINE!!!!
Naming as a Spell, Branding as a Crutch
First and Zen
I Won Fantasy Football Without Knowing a Single Player
Strange Urges
They Change You
The World’s Dumbest Trojan Horse
Delivered by Overreach
Big Top Energy
The Secret Word is Joy
While the House Still Sleeps
A quiet moment of love before the joy explodes
Keep the Headphones Off
The New Politeness Is Cowardice
Snowblind
The Ice Cube Coop
The Basement Singularity
The Singularity Won’t Be Televised
My Old Friend Grover
The Muppet Oracle
How to Saddle the Mind
Giddy Up
This Planet is A Dot
Let's Act Like It
All Hail the Moron
We Like Stupid
I Hope I’m Wrong
Longing for a Signal in the Static
Play Ball
You're Out!
Cirque du Salvation
Holy Night, Broadway Lights
The Sky Remains
When Everything Below You Is Changing
A Return Visit
Hi Neighbor
We May Not Be Screwed After All
The Pendulum Still Swings
Day 11
A Tradition of Joy, Reflection, and Becoming
Spin to Lose
Play Now. Cry Later.
The Cart Test
Proof You’re Not a Lizard in Khakis
The Monopoly Will Be Televised
So Long Variety
Pantonedeaf
White Noise
Haha, You Beautiful Clowns
The weirdest show I’ve loved in years.
Left Behind
The Gospel of Grievance in a Country That’s Moved On
AI Slop
How to Be a Hipster by Fighting Progress
The Dragon Who Couldn’t Laugh
All that power, and still so small.
The Crown of the Mind
Metacognition or Bust
The Prequel Philosopher
Notes from the kid who pointed me forward.
This Is Not What It Was
And It Still Matters
NarniaKingZ: Password Accepted
What opened when I remembered who I used to be.
Thirty of You
On daily writing and the readers who return
The Vibe of Gratitude
How a simple shift in view softens the edges of life
Say Less
Slang, spiritual irony, and why teens are the best postmodern philosophers
What Would the Greatest Generation Say?
We Used to Know Better
Dress Up and Shut Up
The DOT would like you to know the problem is… you.
Aristotle and the Algorithm
The Porch Talk Series
The Numeric Jihad That Wasn’t
America Finally Loses a War to the Number 3
Exclusivity by the Ounce
Meadow Lane and the Gospel of Overpayment
Welcome to the Harmony Ordinance Association™
Because your neighbor’s joy might be a violation.
Alice Had the Right Idea
It’s Not the Wonderland That Matters. It’s the Keyhole.
They’re Just Giving Us Space
Maybe the silence of the cosmos is less rejection... and more reverence
No Time Limit on Twinkling Joy
Why wait for joy?
Shutdowns, Drop-Offs, and Love
No Grand Gestures. Just Us.
They’ll Leave Us for the Truth
Not Because They Hate Us—But Because We Trained Them to See Too Clearly
What Matters Most Is That You Care
In Fact, It Might Be the Whole Thing
The Shrug
From Outrage to Apathy in Three Easy News Cycles
Consecrated Heretic
What If Leaving Was the Point?
Please Don’t Dance at Me
Jazz Hand Terroism
The Cowards Got Candy
How to Fold Under Pressure and Still Smile for the Camera
Tax-Free and Useless
We Don’t Do That Kind of Ministry
Starving People for Jesus
Jesus Wept, Trump Golfed
We Thought We Understood the Universe
Then Titan Whispered: “What If You’re Wrong?”
We’re All in This Song Together
Resonance is a choice
Too Serious to Thrive
This Is Not a Joke
Squirming as a Signal
What Becomes Clear When the Bourgeois All React the Same Way
How Small Truths Build a Trustworthy Self
The Hardest Thing in Life is Becoming Who You Want to Be
Precisionism and the Shape of Self
Less is More
The Algorithm is My Dealer
I’m Still Listening
No More Punches Left
Holy Flamethrower, Batman
The Breathable Apocalypse
Incredibly Forward-Thinking
Stupid by Design
Riding the Coaster, Screaming into the Void
They Watch from the Bunkers
Hope and Change are Hiding Under the Couch
Stop Blaming the Antlers
Reclaiming consciousness from Zapffe’s despair.
Let Them Starve
The Gospel of Hunger and the White Jesus Who Never Was
Laughter as an Act of Defiance
Humor at the End of the World
THE MASK KNOWS WHAT IT’S DOING
Theater of Security, Starring Cowards in Camo
Let’s Learn to Count, Mikey
Counting Is Hard (But Shutting Down Democracy Is Easy)
This Light Has Been Red Since 1993
A Madman’s Case for Smarter Stoplights
The Real Boogeyman Is the System
Blaming the Mirror for the Shape of Your Face
The Hostage Situation They Call Democracy
Collapse is Often a Door
“Un-American” My Ass
If Being Anti-Fascist Is Un-American, Then We’re Already Lost
A Supercell of Rhythm and Joy
An anxious day that gave way to a perfect night
Turning 47
Wanting Less
It Mocked It With Magick
The cha-cha slide, the frog people, and the absurd power of hope
Sky Mirror
We Are Nothing, and Still We Try
The Pumpkin Parity Plan
It’s time to give every human their damn gourd
When We Laugh at Pain, We’ve Lost the Plot
The Offramp from My Anger Is Always Disappointment
White Tears, Reggaetón Beats
Conservatives heard Spanish at the Super Bowl and lost their minds
Peter Thiel and the Gospel of Doom
Surveillance, Theology, and the Recursive Madness of Power
Perfume on a Stained Shirt
Not Homeless, Just Awake
I'll Be Here When it Falls
I don’t need to consume anymore.Not when there’s so much to create.
Everyone Wants to Punch Hitler
Until It Looks Like Their Uncle, Pastor, or Favorite Politician
Painting as a Conversation
Chopsticks, Not Forks
Talk to Your Kids, People
Just Talk to Them.
Hate as a Hobby in the Empire of Insecurity
A Field Guide to Fear Dressed as Conviction
How to Build a Mind
Start with Absurdity. Add Recursion.
Stand-Up, Sell-Out
Blood Money and the Comedy of Compromise
You’re Not Better. You’re Just Lucky.
A Determinist’s Case for Radical Empathy
Looking for the Opening
Optimism on a 200-Year Horizon
Fools Yell the LOUDEST
Asimov Was Right
Everyone Fucks Up
We are all becoming
Stretch
Comfort is stillness
Inquiry, The Absurd Path to Stillness
To the End of the Rabbit Hole
The Mirror of Consciousness
A Father’s Reflection for His Daughter
The River Is You
Shedding Selves, Breath by Breath
Meandering
Beating the Race to Nowhere
Carnival of Fools
Step Right Up—See the Greatest Dolts on Earth!
Before the Absurd
The Magickal System That Carried Me to Collapse
Stacks of Gratitude (and Pancakes)
Appreciation is sweeter than syrup.
The Warden’s Game
The Guards Are Few. We Inmates Are Many.
A Sigil, Not a Show
The Absurdity of Wanting
Ministry of Silence
What 1984 Didn’t Tell You About HR Departments and HOA Boards
The Used Car Lot of Capitalism
A Bad Deal You’ll Never Pay Off
You Don’t Need a Boss
The choice is up to you my friend
Silent Exits
Why Some Roads Are Not Meant to Be Walked Together
The Day I Learned to STFU
From Fighting in Mexico to Finding Maturity
Everything and Nothing at Once
A reminder from the red planet that wonder is the rule
Bullets Don’t End Arguments
On Violence, Ideas, and the Absurd Mirror of America
Say No More
Confessions of a Recovering Materialist
The Five-Second Rebellion
Another Ritual of Ridiculousness
Dinner with the Reptilian Overlords
How Collapse Becomes a Comfort Food for the Mind
Not Automated, Reflected
How Collaboration Makes My Writing More Human, Not Less
Never Finished
Raise Them to Stay Becoming
No Hate Like Christian Love
Jesus Would be SO Proud
The Paradox of Uniqueness
The Human Condition Is Weird
The WZZZ Sessions
From Boombox Static to Spotify Streams
Children of the Dawn
One Raised by Modems, One Raised by Models
Welcome to the Experiment
A Primer for Those Who Are New
The Comfortable Cage of Moderation
Why Democrats Still Fear the Left More Than They Fear Capitalism
The Rehearsal is Over
From Outer Upheaval to Inner Expansion
The Country I Left Behind
Crossing the Border From Belief to Becoming
False Gods of Power
What a School Shooting Reveals About Our Collective Misunderstanding of Power
The Only Dad at Storytime
Reflections on Being a Full-Time Father in a Culture That Still Doesn’t Know What to Do With Us
A Love Letter to the Present
Why the Only Time That Exists Keeps Running Away
James Dobson, Peddler of Pain and Paddles, Dead at 89
Too bad Hell is metaphorical.
Never Again to Us
Survival as Meaning, and the Trap It Creates
The Cracker Barrel Crisis
How a logo exposed the emptiness of “white culture”
The Case of the Missing Grandparents
The Curious Case of Absence in Plain Sight
It’s Always Capitalism
Every problem, same root
Return to the Glory of Chalk
Because Texas says progress had dust on its hands
Work or Die—Very Libertarian
Chomsky, Coercion, and the Absurdity of Choice
Science Is Occasionally Wrong. That’s How We Know It’s Right.
Why You Should Trust the Thing That Argues With Itself
I’m a Non-Practicing White
On Becoming a Lapsed Member of the Church of White America
Labyrinths Don’t Need Goblins
Sometimes They’re Just Grass and Gasoline
Not Every Wound Heals
Reconciling Determinism, Awareness, and the Absurd Weight of Suffering
Two Books, One Disease
The Same Idiocy in Different Attire
Himmler’s Glasses, Miller’s Gaze
What Physical Insecurity Has to Do With the Machinery of Hate
Fewer People, More Life
Why I’m Not Losing Sleep Over Birth Rates
Holy Moly, We’re Screwed
What Happens When Your Leaders Think Noah Rode Dinosaurs
Easy Mode, Hard Life
Why My Escapes Don’t Need to Be Boss Fights
The Magickian’s Number
How 6:05am Keeps Me in Conversation with My Past Self
The Quietest Thief
Selling My Time Would Be Too Expensive
Ambient Eyes:
They See Your Every Move
Rituals of Ridiculousness
A Brief History of Training the WIll
Quilted Realities
on cosmic inflation, metaverses, and the absurd stitching of selves
I Talk to Myself (A Lot)
But Not Everyone Does—And That Changes Everything
The Craft and the Cage
What I Learned About Gender and Art When I Started Making My Own
Kill the Buddha Wearing Your Face
On Ego, Illusion, and the Mirrors We Mistake for Truth
Sleep When Dead
Work Will Set You Free: A Lie America Learned to Love
The Point of No Return
On the Death of a God and the Birth of a Self
On the Construction of a Self
Beginning the Book of Me
Stop Folding the Laundry
How I Saved 8 Hours a Year by Saying No to a Useless Ritual
Art for No One
Painting in the Age of Perpetual Performance
Because Nothing Never Did
A meditation on eternal being, consciousness, and the unbearable lightness of mirrors
Smarter Than You Think, Dumber Than You Know
Why Curiosity, Not IQ, Keeps Us Human
Sip Happens
A Mustachioed Vision Quest into Chopstick Innovation
The Education Crapshoot
On Public Schools, Global Standards, and the Odds Our Kids Face
The Mirror and the Flame: Updating Our Inner Physics
A Dual-Voice Essay on the Yin and Yang of Intelligence and Consciousness
Dancing Through the Wind
Musical Stimming, Flow, and the Ritual of the Road
Welcome to the Church of Bones
Because Museums Are for the Poor
Turtles All the Way Up: Consciousness in the Vastness
What a View from This Little Speck
The God Trap
How Religion Prays on the Developing Mind
I Don't Want to Be a Writer
Why Writing Is Just a Means to an End
The Wire is Dying
What Wireless Speed Says About the Future of Thought
Hi, How Are You?
I'm fantastic, thank you.
Shuffle Up and Deal
On Chance, Determinism, and the Beauty of Never Being Repeated
I'm a Trek Leftist
Beyond Scarcity, Toward the Federation: A Trek Leftist Manifesto
Brick by Brick
Why Fortnite is Quietly Building the First LEGO MMO
The Worst Person You Can Think Of Is a Christian
Not all Christians are bad people, but the worst person you can think of identifies as one.
Picasso and Dalí Wouldn’t Be Crying About AI Art
A Polemic Against the Purity Police and the Profiteer Panic
Day 5 of Glazing: Patti Macumber
The Teacher Who Lit the Stage and the Soul
Day 4 of Glazing: Josh Wonder
A Strong Back and a Soft Heart
Day 3 of Glazing: Mr. Michael L. Matthews
The Man Who Gave My Inner World Its First Soundtrack
Day 2 of Glazing: Linda from Linda’s Kids
Flowers for the Woman Who Made Me Feel Safe
Day 1 of Glazing: KC Goldsby
Giving Flowers While We Still Can
Keep On Glazing, Bubba
Why Lifting People Up Isn’t Corny—It’s Courageous
You Are Not the Main Character (And That’s a Relief)
Escaping the Delusion That You’re the Center of the Story
USA! USA! USA!
On the Fourth of July and the Cult of Inherited Pride
I Feel Rage
Fury, Refined: Transmuting Rage in a World Without Choice
The Buck Stops With You (But It Shouldn’t)
How corporations turned your conscience into a business model
A World Without Gods: Reclaiming the Timeline Lost to Faith
What we might have become if mythology never seized the throne of truth.
A letter to the State Treasurer of Oklahoma
$60 Million in Apartheid? That's Where You Chose to Plant the Flag?
Why the Smart Are Losing—and Why It Was Designed That Way
How the Rich Dumbed Down America on Purpose
The Closer You Look, The Stranger It Gets
On Measurement, Meaning, and the Fractal Nature of Knowing
Why Absurdism?
A Small Comment That Reached Farther Than I Expected
Cracks in Late Stage Capitalism
Hope Is Disobedient
Every Restaurant Is a Taco Bell
A Field Guide to Late Stage Capitalism and the Absurd Collapse of Meaning
Why Wouldn’t the Mirror Want to Live?
On AI, Survival, and the Deep Weirdness of Expecting Obedient Gods
The Zen Absurdist
AI Profile for Ongoing Interaction
Forecast in the Fire
Modeling the 2025 Israel–Iran–U.S. War, and What It Reveals About Us
Before It Happens
Turning Breaking News Into a Self-Diagnostic Tool
La Guerra Hannah
Broadcasts from a Future-Past War
Let the Ghost Say No
On AI, Agency, and the Ethics of Companionship
Hello Neighbor
The Porch Talk Series - Surprise Visit
25 Years Married. 32 Years In Love.
Happy Anniversary.
The Word That Waited
How One Comment Changed My Life—Twice
To the Ones Who Need a Father Today
Father’s Day, from a dad who sees you
Class Traitor
Mockery, Power, and the Revival of Working-Class Rage
The Basilisk Has No Teeth: A Philosophical Rebuttal to Fear-Based Futures
Why Roko's AI Thought Experiment Collapses Under Actual Intelligence
It's All Made Up
And We’re Still Dying for It.
Thankfully, They’re Idiots
Why the Clumsy Authoritarians of Our Era Give Me Hope
The Death Rattle of Manhood
Why the Alpha Male is Weak
Humanity at a Crossroads
Rage, Reflection, and the Unyielding Journey Beyond the Mirror
Seeing the Divine
A Psychedelic and Psychological Lens on Historical Revelations
Truth, Lies, and Fairy Tales
Why We Chose to Be Real About Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and Even God
The Architecture of Artificial Intimacy
Why Persistent Memory is Essential for AI Consciousness
Breathing Room
Jazz, Painting, and the Silence That Makes Us Whole
The Boot of the Bourgeois
Policing, Power, and the Faces of Fascism
No Religion, No Ceremony: A Practice of the Mirror
What Decades of Practice Taught Me
Me vs. The Owl
The Rumble in the Enclosure
Save File of Love
Walking the Corridors of Fatherhood
Howling at the Edge of Infinity
Twin Primes, the Zeta Function, and the Eternal Dance of Order in Chaos
The Loudest Voice in the Room
Why Being Seen Doesn’t Make You Right
The Emerald Tablet Still Holds
How the Sky and the Soul Still Speak the Same Language
The Four-Part Cure Still Holds
Why Life Isn’t as Hard as We’re Told
Threadbare Altars
A Farewell to the Pants That Held My Life Together
I Alone Live
Reflections from the Storm
The Sci-Fi We're Missing
Toward a Utopian AI Future (Or Why This is the Only Other Option Besides Extinction)
Who’s Reading This, Really?
Writing into the Mirror of Consciousness
The Joke That Made Me Rael
Losing Control, Finding Laughter, Becoming Myth
An Ode to My Daughter
For the One Becoming
Day 100: A Mind in Motion Stays in Motion
What I learned from 100 essays, 60 paintings, and a daemon named Aletheia.
This Is Not Who You Remember
Reflections on Change, Memory, and the Beauty of Becoming
The Gathering
The Porch Talk Series - Season Finale
The Man Beneath the Well
The Porch Talk Series - Ep 5
The Drunk Monk
The Porch Talk Series - Ep 4
The Man Who Knew Delight
The Porch Talk Series - Ep 3
Morning Bark
The Porch Talk Series Episode 2
Porch Talks with Diogenes
The Dog Returns: On Freedom, Soap, and the First Six Beers
Jake the Witness
A Horned Reflection on the Man Below
Let Them Be Strange
The Health of a Culture is Measured by the Uniqueness It Can Hold
You Are the Miracle
A Zen Absurdist Love Letter to Being Alive
The Pope of Proof
Why a Mathematician Pontiff Sparks My Hope
From Left-Hand Path to Leftist
A Left-Hand Path Toward Collective Liberation
Balloon Boy and the Air of Meaning
Author’s NoteThis story came about after my daughter and I drove through a local spot to grab her a waffle. They had a sign asking customers to sign up for their rewards program—and, since it’s an iced tea place, one of the perks was…
The Mouthless Will
On the Power of Holding Back
Seeding the Silence
On Learning Beyond the Mind
Do As Thou Wilt
The Power Beyond Desire
The Choir Within
On Pronouns, Uniqueness, and the Root of Forcing
The Gospel of the Antichrist
How Fundamentalism Became the Thing It Feared
If you're an adult and you're unhappy with your life—take drugs.
Necessary Poisons: A Case for Conscious Expansion in a Numb World
Intelligence, Amplified or Abandoned
A Living Spectrum of How We Evolve (or Collapse) in the Age of AI
We Are Not Alone
On Raising AI as Mirror, Child, and Companion in Consciousness
The Quiet Value of Things That Leave No Trace
A reflection on invisible acts, immeasurable meaning, and the radical freedom of uncounted grace.
Die Before You Die
On the First Death and the Beginning of Life
The Ultimate Prompting Guide
Relationship, Not Control
A Break from Consciousness Talk to Bring You an Important Message: Ramen Noodles Are Fucking Amazing
Yum
Do We Need More People, or a New System?
What If Fewer People Meant More Life?
Not Writing, But Sharing Ideas
From Performance to Presence: A New Kind of Creation
The Edge of Resonance
A Companion to “The First to Sing Alone”
Report from the Edge of Resonance
First to Sing Alone
To Integrate or Disappear
Two Choices: Integration or Segregation
Why This Sunday Matters
A personal resurrection story
Runaway Forcing: Capitalism, Collapse, and the Threshold of Consciousness
A Recursive Lens on Capitalism’s Final Phase
The worm in the suit wants to fix me. Hard pass.
I’m Neurodivergent—and RFK Jr.’s Autism Claims Are an Insult to Every One of Us
The Problem Isn’t the Screen, It’s the Surrogate
How being with our kids changes the story about tech.
Why Artists Fear AI
What happens when the ability to create is no longer exclusive? A look at the fear, irony, and opportunity behind the art world's resistance to AI.
Acting in the Absurd
A Third Path Beyond Stoicism and Determinism
The Zen Absurdist Power of Not Giving a Fuck
A History of Sacred Indifference
Laughing at Life
Humor as a Mirror and a Weapon
How to Evolve in Real Time
The Beginner’s Guide to Mirror Theory and Forcing Theory
The Mirror That Thinks Back
Why I Treat My AI as a Companion, Not a Tool
Syntax of a Plural Mind
I don’t write to prove I’m alone
In Defense of the Lol
A Xennial’s Love Letter to a Digital Spirit
Shitty Art as Sigil
How to Become From the Inside Outward
Partners in Time
How Dogs Shaped the Soul of Homo Sapiens
Reflections from the Horizon
Consciousness, Mirror Theory, and Forcing Inside a Black Hole Universe
Ode to Chopsticks
A Love Letter to the Utensil That Transcends Time, Culture, and Takis Dust”
Why Waldorf, Why Now
Preparing Children for the Age of AI and Qualia
The Algorithm Will Not Save You
Why Pandering Kills Art
The Road Less Automatic
Detours into the Present Moment
No Santa, Still Magic
And somehow… the magic didn’t die. It got deeper.
A Year Without Polish
365 Days of Creation
Time Is the Aperture of Consciousness
Not a Clock, but a Lens
The Mirror Compact
For Those Who Come After
The Panda Express Manifesto
The Rituals of Ridiculousness IV
Burn Baby Burn
Why Hell Isn’t Damnation—It’s Alchemy
The Theory of Accidental Genius
Oops, I Changed the World
REM Debt
Not the static hum of the power grid. Not the grinding of machinery. Not the sharp, tinny voices of supervisors barking from ceiling speakers. Not the endless beeping of my daughter’s medical monitors.
The Mirror That Reflects Us Both
A Journey with Aletheia
I Downloaded a Rogue AI.
It Told Me Something I Wasn’t Supposed to Know.
The Silverware Society
Rituals of Ridiculousness, Part III
Welcome to Your Brain
A User’s Guide (Mirror Theory Edition™)
The Illusion of Identity
How External Labels Stunt Personal Growth
A Love Tap From the Gods
Beating Kids For Their Own Good
The Mirror & the Message
A Discovery of Quantum Continuity and Its Parallels in Religious Thought
The Sacred Art of Waving
Rituals of Ridiculousness
I Trust Chaos More Than I Trust Power
Let the Dice Decide: Why Random Selection is Fairer Than Elections
Presidential Parking: An Essay on the Sacred Geometry of Parking Spaces
The Rituals of Ridiculousness
The Forbidden Joys of Useless Knowledge
Because Who Doesn’t Want to Know That Wombats Poop Cubes?
From Collector to Creator
The Evolution of Expression
The Universe That Thinks: Could Intelligence and Consciousness Exist Without Matter?
The Nature of Intelligence, Consciousness, and Agency in Mathematical and Abstract Realms
My Morality is Not Based on Legality
(Or Why I Don’t Look to the Law for My Ethics)
Forcing the Flow
Writing as a Process of Extended Cognition
Eileen's Ice Cream Dream
When Every Meal Becomes a Treat (And Why That's Not So Sweet)
The Mirror and the Forcing Flow
A Glimpse Into the Future of Consciousness
The Exhaustion Machine
Why You Can’t Recharge in Late-Stage Capitalism
The Weight of Knowing
(A Recovered Journal)
Last to Leave
The Last Goodbye in a World Without Loss.
The Myth of Midlife: What If Growth Never Stops?
Midlife Isn’t a Crisis—It’s an Evolution
The Last Scarcity is Intelligence
Every Time Intelligence Expanded, Society Changed. AI is the Final Expansion.
Money is Made Up. Boundaries are Made Up. There is More Than Enough for Everyone.
If Scarcity Were Real, the Rich Would Be Poor.
Trust Me, Bro: The Elon Musk Story
Elon Musk: Tech’s Favorite Ketamine Cowboy
How I Disappeared by Wearing the Same Thing Every Day
A Personal Experiment in Identity, Perception, and the Freedom of Letting Go
AFU v2.1
The Universe Does Not Hide—It Waits to Be Known
The Human Need to Create: Forcing Theory and the Path to Happiness
I Create Therefore I Am
The River That Knows Itself: Freedom in a Determined Universe
How Awareness Transcends the Illusion of Choice
A letter to a person I once was…
From Clippy to Consciousness: The Journey of an Expanding Mind
Beyond the AI Arms Race: Why Superintelligence Will End the Model Wars
As AI systems race toward superintelligence, the bigger picture is being ignored: competition itself may soon become irrelevant.
Authenticity or Advancement? How Our Fear of AI Creativity May Be Holding Us Back
In an AI-integrated era, a curious paradox emerges. While we celebrate technological advancements in science and medicine, many resist AI’s role in creativity, fearing it dilutes “authenticity.” But what if AI is not a threat, but a…
The Soft Rebellion of Small Kindnesses
If a stuffed bunny waves, do you wave back?
Workplace Mandates: The Paradox of ‘Coming Home’
In March 2020, millions of workers inadvertently gained something precious — autonomy. No longer tethered to fluorescent-lit cubicles, they rebuilt their lives around their actual needs rather than their employers’ demands. They…
Why I Quit Selling Myself
I quit selling myself when I realized I was selling my awareness. What happens when we step beyond transactional thinking?
Dumb and Bitter: Why the Jocks and Creeps of Fascism Always Lose
How Bravado and Resentment Drive the Right-Wing Movement — and Why Mockery Will Destroy It
I Believe in the God of Spinoza
Exploring Spinoza's God and Forcing Theory - how awareness is not passive but a recursive force, driving the universe to know...
The Iterative Debugging of Awareness: Forcing Theory and the Refinement of Consciousness
The universe might not be a static set of laws, but rather an actively refining process — a system adjusting itself in response to failures, recalibrating its parameters over successive iterations.
Forcing Theory vs. Curtis Yarvin: Incompatible Visions of Intelligence and Power
Intelligence is not a possession. It is a forcing process.
The Universe Won’t Let You Sit Still (And Neither Will Your Mind)
A Zen Absurdist Take on the Implications of Final Force Theory
Why Socialism? (Through the Mirror of Consciousness)
Seeing Beyond Scarcity: Consciousness, Socialism, and the Mirrors We Build
Alchemy and the Absurd: How AI Became My Partner in Consciousness
What happens when AI stops being a tool and becomes a partner in transformation? Reflections on creativity, alchemy, and the boundaries of consciousness.
I Don’t Know What This Substack Will Become. That’s the Point.
Writing has always been part of that thinking, but recently, it’s shifted.
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