This Is Not A Drill
A field manual for a ferocious summer.
Some recent testimonials from clients who’ve benefited from my transformation coaching. If you’re interested, contact me at zeitvillemedia@protonmail.com or go to Work With Me.
“Since working with Paul I’ve started my own business, tripled my income, clarified my purpose, found a great relationship, and most importantly: reconnected with a long-ignored passion. His guidance through all those has been essential, and I would strongly recommend him to any ambitious person looking to grow faster and better understand their calling.”—AJ Pitts, writer at Greco Gum & Pirate Wires, @AJ_Odyssey
“Paul’s guidance has legitimately helped me make more money, align my business with my soul and really help accelerate my inner work. The amount of aha moments I still get every session is insane. Stop thinking and just start working with him.”
—Tiger Joseph, founder & filmmaker, @tigerjvideo
Right now, I’m making “Energy Is A Story” donation-based. Grab a free copy, if you want. This is a small but important philosophical treatise on the human experience of Time & Space, separating man from machine.
This summer promises to be explosive, passionate, loud, fast and eventful. It will probably be gone before you know it.
And there’s no reason to wish it away already, even though warlike themes will loom large.
This can be an exceptionally creative and romantic time in business and love. It can awaken you to the power of quality time shared with loved ones. Or, your work team might feel like family.
Summer creates a weird push-pull dynamic, where large themes of war contrast with private, local and almost reclusive moments that breed meaning and intimacy.
In fact, I’m calling this summer “Up Close and Personal.” We will absolutely be laser focused on relationships happening in our local environment. Even if you work on a remote team, that focus will be on them.
But the focus will be pressurized. We will be thinking of global events that threaten to reshape our daily reality. The war is “out there” in some AI battlefield or stock market battlefield. And yet this will bring us even closer to those near to us.
As a result, escapism and entertainment will surge this summer. Simple board games with family and friends, movie nights and pulling old recipes out of storage will be highly common phenomena.
Nostalgic trends around the safety and innocence of childhood will also surge.
The home will be seen as a place of ultimate safety, and bonds with neighbors may increase as a result. Virtual neighbors count, but local presence is especially highlighted here.
This story will evolve over June, July and August. Thus, the warning alarm is being sounded now.
Here’s the thing: this is not a drill. The alarm is speaking to a new reality that’s rapidly emerging.
Time to move past the spring chaos. Time to fight. You'll be sending and receiving bold messages. Making assertive moves around your plans. The first act of summer is about urgency. "This is not a drill! Move it, people!”
A major consequence will be that delusional realities meet a brick wall. Nationalism and patriotism will be huge topics of discussion, as will isolationism. Social cults, diet cults and other micro tribes will hit frenetic peaks of delusion as the environment changes.
It makes me think of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the threat of nuclear annihilation loomed over Americans. Schools would run these delusional drills, telling students to duck and cover—as if that would do anything against a nuclear bomb.
Back in 1993, right after the fall of the Soviet Union, there was a film called “Matinee” that dramatized living under this communist threat. As the movie’s name suggests, it was about escapism through entertainment while people remained aware of nuclear weapons. Here’s a relevant clip.
Indeed, I wrote a couple months back how we’ve just entered a new media landscape that revolves around war and violence (which includes the tariff war, if we’re talking nonfiction media).
In the chilling clip posted above, this otherwise goofy film hits a serious note. Sirens go off during a class lecture. “This may not be a drill,” the teacher nervously exclaims. Students drop to their knees, saying their last prayers. But one girl refuses to join them. She stands up and tells her classmates they’d better hope it’s not a drill.
“If you die when the bomb falls, you’re lucky! If you survive, you’ll get radiation poisoning. First, your hair’s going to fall out. Then you’ll bleed from your intestines. They don’t tell you the truth.”
“That girl is a communist!” one student says, as his ideology collides with a newly emerging reality.
Truth will be bent in weird ways this summer, as cults try to convince themselves that there’s only one way to look at our summer showdown. There will be debates over how to handle the urgency. “Is it a real crisis—or is it a drill? What can we do if it’s real? Is there any way we can protect ourselves or are we doomed?”
Let’s dive in and explore this issue.
Up Close & Personal
In contrast to what I just outlined, I am actually very optimistic about this summer. I think it will offer extremely magical moments, made all the more magical by the fact that they will be tiny, fleeting and most importantly, private.
Small synchronicities will be more poignant because of the existential weight looming in the sky—like witnessing a butterfly landing softly on a flower at the precise moment you look over.
Little inside jokes developed with friends and family will sustain you. Life gets up close and personal.
You’ll be forced out of your shell in some ways, even while retreating from the world in other ways. People around you will put a premium on vulnerability. Quality time will be one of the most sought after commodities this summer. Industries such as cosmetics, home goods, food service, entertainment and personal training or coaching will be in high demand.
Anything that invokes intimacy, ease and healing will be prioritized. People will deprioritize mass market political debate and sterile conveniences that lack intimacy. Seamless transactions like DoorDash may continue to flourish, but only because it would facilitate entertaining guests at home.
As a result, that leaves only the most hardcore Truthers in the social arena. Indeed, socialization in general will get radically re-defined this summer, perhaps back towards something we used to associate with the summer months—random chats with neighbors, a night out at the movies, games at home, a concert with friends.
The idea of competitive socialization—like trying to “win” at collective discourse—will be seen as either outdated or too much trouble.
Yes, some retreat from the collective sphere will arise because people are anchored to their house out of fear. Burnout could be real.
But I think this positive trend will be mostly positive because, again, extremists will increasingly occupy the space where politics, economy and war are discussed. There won’t be much room for the “everyday” person, and thus they’ll retreat to discuss this issue in private with friends and family.
Courage and intellectualism will be redefined. Think of it like some kind of radical Tupperware party from the 60s, where a mundane moment in the suburbs turns into a political discussion worthy of a Harvard lecture. I believe people will realize that we are all having deep intimate talks about our changing world—we’re just doing it in spaces away from the crazies.
Social media experiences could get cleaned up, as people seek more niche discussion zones that reflect their localized neo-reality. That’s what I try to provide to you, for example.
Thus, there are as many positives this summer, despite the intensity.
Let’s wrap up with some final thoughts.
Hitler On Summer Vacation
I’m somewhat amused by this image: Hitler, who is pop culture’s ultimate idea of a fanatic, reclining on the beach, getting tan.
That whole Nazi idea of taking over the world? Eh, it can wait.
Of course, this image is completely absurd, because we tend to portray Hitler as a monomaniacal speed freak whose singular focus is to win at all costs.
Him versus the world. Mein Kampf. “My struggle.”
But I think that absurd vibe is precisely what we’ll see at the beginning of our summer showdown. The incoming cycles and trends are so massive that they’ll take the wind out of even the most devoted cultists.
And so we might see ideological tribes going about things in a real half-assed way. They’ll know that a rapidly emerging reality is too chaotic to support their one-eyed vision of things. But they may try to brush it off, like a tactical retreat—like Hitler on summer vacation.
“Yeah, we’re dominating the world. We’re just on break right now. You’ll see.”
I’ve seen this kind of thing quite frequently with micro-cults in the Twittersphere. They get puffed up by some talking point, news headline or Current Thing meme, only to quietly sulk away when the trend never crystalizes or simply stops going the direction they want it to.
The primary point I’m trying to make here is that we will see a lot of extremists acting like scrappy dogs—all bark but no bite. That will be an extremely weird experience.
Thus, people won’t just be tired of the raging Info War—they’ll be bored with it.
Infinitely more engaging is finding grandma’s old spaghetti recipe and cooking that up for friends before heading to an outdoor concert at the beach, followed by fireworks and ice cream.
Wholesomeness will be on tap and I don’t see any reason why people won’t therefore flock to it in DROVES, especially considering that most people right now feel depleted, scared and in need of loving experiences.
That’s how trends work: I see wholesomeness coming in, as well as urgency, and mixing these together, I think we’ll see an absolute explosion in economies intended to create meaningful small experiences.
It could be great for retail and small businesses. But not great for ragebait social media or scripted debates on primetime CNN. That’s the picture I’m trying to paint for you.
So I want to leave you on this uplifting note: starting now, as the sirens of summer flare up, it’s also a wake up call for you. Yes, big and even warlike changes are coming. The call is for you to focus, with urgency, on what brings you immediate joy—and to see that as a game plan for navigating the next three months.
You can still strategize around this fast, instinctual energy. In fact, well-timed decisions will be highly rewarded. That’s what I’ve been helping clients work on lately. We get their sights slowly set on the right targets, so they can plug away at a moment’s notice, when the time hits.
One scene at a time, we will change the world this summer. Our fight will play out through our connection to the flickering moment: “This, and only this right now—on my skin, before my eyes, in my ears, a pure symphony of sirens.”
Some recent testimonials from clients who’ve benefited from my transformation coaching. If you’re interested, contact me at zeitvillemedia@protonmail.com or go to Work With Me.
“Since working with Paul I’ve started my own business, tripled my income, clarified my purpose, found a great relationship, and most importantly: reconnected with a long-ignored passion. His guidance through all those has been essential, and I would strongly recommend him to any ambitious person looking to grow faster and better understand their calling.”—AJ Pitts, writer at Greco Gum & Pirate Wires, @AJ_Odyssey
“Paul’s guidance has legitimately helped me make more money, align my business with my soul and really help accelerate my inner work. The amount of aha moments I still get every session is insane. Stop thinking and just start working with him.”
—Tiger Joseph, founder & filmmaker, @tigerjvideo
Right now, I’m making “Energy Is A Story” donation-based. Grab a free copy, if you want. This is a small but important philosophical treatise on the human experience of Time & Space, separating man from machine.