If you like the topics discussed in this newsletter, you can buy a copy of my Patchwork Manifesto here.
My investigation draws on ancient teachings to explain why we stand at the edge of radical change.
It’s a challenging read. Consider this tiny manual if you are just starting your journey.
Turbulent as this fall has become, there is still more to be revealed. In recent weeks, we’ve discussed various “apocalyptic” scenarios and why no single one will dominate the landscape.
So what could possibly be revealed?
Possibility can be revealed. The unexpected.
Right now, many are placing bets on what the next turn of events will be that sets off World War III. What they don’t account for are the “unknown unknowns.”
To the modern tribal warrior, there are no “unknown unknowns.” There can’t be. This warrior needs certainty – even the “surprises” he accounts for can fall within a discursive space.
As we move closer to December, you’ll see an utter wackiness take shape across discourse in general. It will become more apparent to people that what modern tribalism relies on is the UTTERANCE.
Anything that eludes the linguistic sphere gets shunned, repressed, buried.
The ineffable is sacred, but perhaps the ineffable is also truly profane, taboo, primal.
Who will be first among the neo-tribesmen to say, “I don’t know”?
Or even better, to suggest that words are inadequate to frame the situation?
I’m not just referring to the horrors of war, and how they defy speech.
It’s so much more than that. We live in an age when we can render a believable computer-generated burning car and have people online raging because they think a neighborhood is undergoing riots.
Going beyond the discursive radius, to the outer limits of consciousness, is almost a necessity now when the age of illusion is thick with lies.
But what’s there, beyond the circle that keeps us safe? What’s beyond the old Public Square where we always have a quip and a tribal phrase that reeks of, “nah nah, I told you so”?
Outside the line, there’s something scary. It triggers fear. There are secrets – inner sensations that reveal to us what our society is, or what it has become (a pile of rubble).
You can FEEL it, deep down. Something is rotten in the world. You don’t need words for it. You don’t need a “hot take.” You KNOW.
Informational warfare has grazed your skin, and you feel the cut marks for yourself.
It’s possible to embrace possibility from here: you DETECT that something is moving just past the scenery of clickbait and shitposting.
But WHAT is it?
It can’t be communicated, and even among those who experience it along with you, there is only a knowing head nod. You’ve both had “the experience.”
Mid to late November will be about opening up space for new bonds, based on a post-linguistic world.
I’m not saying we’re doing away with reading and writing, in favor of a purely virtual world of visual sensation and color.
I mean more that, among “aware” people, there will be a testing of limits – of your ego’s ability to feel satisfied that you’ve really nailed an event, and placed it in your box like a pinned butterfly.
As the ego shell cracks and gives way to a deeper knowing, there will be a desire to release attachments to old forms of describing world events.
This will pave the way for an extremely transformative winter, which we’ll likely see in February, where the general population begins to accept that their ideological takes don’t actually have any control over rapid global changes.
For now, we have a window of “early adoption” for new ways of experiencing global destabilization. The price is, of course, letting go of the ego that wants the certain dopamine hit of predicting exactly how the apocalypse will transpire.
So, let’s dive in.
The Outsiders & The Pretenders
For a couple years now, this newsletter has been primarily occupied with the idea of new forms of stability as old forms get challenged.
If you’ve read my Patchwork Manifesto, you know that I talk about disruptions to “supply chains of meaning.”
Everything, from food to housing to relationships — it’s all harder to source “naturally.” You know how it takes like 9 weeks to order a couch online now? That’s kind of how it is for everything at the moment.
You go outside, expecting civility, and some influencer is filming onlookers at the gym so she can dunk on them on TikTok…or you see, perhaps, egregiously terrible driving or notice how there’s only one person at the register at your post office, making the wait interminably long.
Things that used to work smoothly just…don’t anymore.
This has brought out all sorts of rage and resentment and depression in the general populace. And honestly, understandably so. No one seems in the mood to offer common courtesy, and if suspicion isn’t present, a cool passive aggressiveness is.
But, as we discussed last month, the ground is ripe for a set of pioneers who can point to new forms of security.
It’s just that…well…where ARE they?
They’re outside the discursive ring. They exist where new languages and social bonds are being formed.
It doesn’t have to be anything complex. Perhaps it’s a small group chat, or a Discord server. Maybe it’s a group of people who meet regularly behind your building for a smoke.
Point is, these emergent collectives aren’t even collectives per se…they’re falling apart even at the moment your eye begins to register them.
They aren’t solid. They’re perma-fluid.
As it should be: the current war machine wants nothing more than for two stable, locked in sides that can play ping pong within an “Us versus Them” discourse all day long.
And here’s an even more surreal twist to our current state of affairs: there are many who would present themselves as standing outside this manufactured meme coliseum, but who really are The Pretenders.
You can go back and read my multi-part series called People for more of a deep dive on this. But the idea is that the LARPing homesteaders and self-professed “religious” bulwarks are just as much of a show as the rest of the coordinated wartime movie.
They are seeking to be bastions of stability, by referencing something that seems modest and pure and just “there” like a loaf of homemade bread.
But this is a false stability, because it relies on the language that they seek to fight. #Resist was an ostensibly liberal hashtag that grew out of Trump’s 2016 presidential win, but it’s safe to say that people all across the ideological spectrum currently identify as “a resister.”
By doing so, they define their value as an afterthought: their first step is to venerate the thing they are supposedly resisting, and therefore give it a prime spot at the top of their hierarchy.
The so-called “seed oil disrespecters” do more to reinforce the dominance of seed oils than the Doritos ad someone will encounter while scrolling social media.
It’s all done under the guise of “spreading awareness” but ultimately what you’re witnessing is the thrashing of a movement that lacks the ability to self-define.
When you define yourself as better simply because you’re the alternative to hegemony, then you always place yourself second.
And that’s comfortable. Easy. “Stable”…for awhile.
This is what every person with a smartphone has access to, right now. It’s not hard to get. This stability is freely available.
“I’m the one who will TRULY illuminate [insert debate]…because what [insert tribe] hasn’t accounted for is…”
But what is the worth of the current “stability” if everyone can have it and doesn’t have to work for it?
Don’t even the neo-homesteaders agree that all value derives from effort, from breaking into the beyond? That’s the difference between homemade food and mass produced food, after all.
But in a world of 8 billion, everybody can be an alternative to the mainstream – and that’s exactly why you can still be The Man while supposedly #resisting.
The only way out is to accept that the Tower of Babel has fallen, and to speak a new vocabulary into being – one that you discover inside yourself, beyond the circle of public opinion, and beyond the circle of The Pretenders who wish to be avant garde.
Unsolved Mysteries
They say there’s a fine line between madness and genius.
They say that, sometimes, there’s a method to the madness.
Besides giving yourself a more robust stability, going into a realm beyond the current discursive circle—which can make you feel crazy at first—eventually helps you develop a lie detector.
Having dipped into the realm where you’re truly having to piece together things for yourself, you can tell when others are in the midst of sorting it out and when they’ve jumped the shark from part-time #resister to full-blown cultist.
Problem is, lots of people are stressed, worn down and programmed. So they’ve come to accept an increasing level of unhinged in their daily life.
Alienation ripples through the collective, as it seems like nothing but social decay is the order of the day.
But with a cultivated sensitivity, you might find connection in the most unexpected of places.
Let’s say a little chit-chat with the guy delivering your package turns into a mutual recognition: you both know things don’t work like they used to.
You’re not about to take up arms with the guy, or even join him for anything larger than a quick conversation.
But there’s a brief affiliation that dissolves as quickly as it forms, creating a budding awareness inside. You don’t have to rely on the same old sources for understanding how the world works.
Of course, the problem for most will be: “Yes, but how does it all hang together? These are just GLIMPSES of a new world, as you admit yourself…”
Well, that’s the unsolved mystery at this time. Hopefully February will bring more clarity to the tickles and suggestions dancing around our awareness in mid-November.
But for now, perhaps it’s best to enjoy the striptease—to understand that you can find stability when the outcome remains to be seen, following each layer to a new level of revelation, beyond what you considered permanent and known.
If you like the topics discussed in this newsletter, you can buy a copy of my Patchwork Manifesto here.
My investigation draws on ancient teachings to explain why we stand at the edge of radical change.
It’s a challenging read. Consider this tiny manual if you are just starting your journey.