We need stories. All of us. Like water, like breath. They help us understand the chaos, or at least pretend we do. We don’t always care if they’re true. We care if they feel good, if they make sense in that quiet part of the mind where reason takes a back seat.
Credimus quod dolemus.we believe what hurts us
A man posts a painting of himself as Jesus Christ. The hands glow like a faulty boiler, a sick body lies under his palms, and someone has stapled eagles and flags to the background because apparently the Holy Spirit needs set dressing now. He made it with AI the way you order a takeaway.
Let's call this what it is. I'm not a reader anymore, I'm Netflix in human form. And not even the binge-watching kind. Binge-watching was at least monogamous, obsessive, loyal until four in the morning. No, I do the new thing: one episode of this, one episode of that, rotate, sample, never commit.
Heaven ships free; Hell is £1.99 a month (and it renews automatically, which is the single most accurate detail in the entire enterprise). The Son of God is a loss leader. The Adversary is the upsell. You begin in the light, where it costs nothing, and you pay only to go down.
Daniel Goleman says we have two minds, one that thinks and one that feels. I put the feeling one in a cardboard box for twenty years and delivered the script. The maintenance mind is the half a machine can already do. The other half is the only part of me that cannot be subscribed to.
Why do Western governments make decisions that seem actively suicidal? Why do they start wars they can't win, tank their own economies, sell out their industrial base, behave with a schizophrenia that makes no strategic sense?
You were still warm, but your heart was no longer beating. I was longing to make you hear my gratitude for the life you gave me. I stood there, staring at you, thinking how beautiful you looked, even in dying bed. You could have been everyone's star, but you were mine.