I suppose it's time for me to start thinking about Christmas shopping. Fortunately, I don't have all that much left. I just hope I can keep the costs low. 

    Today's the day the stores will be full of people trying to get deals on things they don't want so that CEOs can have more money they don't need. You can stop climate change, but you can't stop capitalism.

What I'm (not) Thankful For

   Thanksgiving. The time when we give thanks for what we have. We'll I'm not doing that. I just lived through a month where we re-elected Donald Trump and I lost power for a week. I don't even like Thanksgiving food all that much. So here's a list of what I'm not thankful for.

    I'm not thankful for a world in which most of our utilities aren't publicly owned. Seattle got power back three days before we did, and I'm one hundred percent sure that's because the people in charge knew that the public would have their asses if they didn't. We can't do anything about PSE, so we just have to be grateful that our turkey didn't go bad. 

    I'm not thankful for the coupons I keep getting, most of which are for things I don't like, but my brain goes crazy if I try not to use them. Can we just agree that coupons are stupid and start demanding that stores keep their prices reasonable instead?

    I'm not thankful to have to start worrying about Christmas tomorrow. I don't like Christmas. Or Thanksgiving. Both are holidays that celebrate a world that I'm becoming increasingly resentful of. 

    What I am grateful for is the moments when it feels like the world is really beginning to change. I could be delusional, but I they're happening more frequently than they used to, at least in my eyes. I do think the world's getting better, and that we're pulling ourselves out of a toxic headspace. Maybe next year, I'll have something to be thankful for.

     The power's back on, and the only reason that it's on now as opposed to tomorrow is that PSE doesn't want to give us a discount. Just a warning, I'm not listing all of the things that I'm thankful for. This doesn't seem like a good year for it. 

    If I ever move out on my own, my house is going to be completely off of the grid. If I have to go a week without power, I at least want it to be my own fault.

Blackout

 Now is the winter of our discontent

Or so a great bard once said.

 

Cold winds blow 

Trees down 

Upon the houses

Of this doomed street,

Isolated in a city 

That believes itself to be great.

Darkness engulfs the citizens.

Warmth gives way to cold. 

Light becomes a sacred gift

Too precious to be squandered.

We will survive.

Light will return.

They wish us to suffer

In silent.

But we haven't forgotten

The debt that they still owe us.

Someday we'll collect

And then they'll all be sorry. 

    Once upon a time, Puget Sound Energy took out all of the trees along a busy Bellevue street so they could put up more power lines. It would accomplish nothing and no one wanted them, but they put them up any way. It was, they said, to help prevent more blackouts in the future. As I sit in a Starbucks, trying to avoid a cold, dark house that hasn't had power for five days at this point, I'm reminded of those hated powerlines, a monument to man's hubris and stubborness. The people at PSE, who put in those lines, and the people in the Bellevue City Council, who allowed those lines to go in, should remember them as well. We are not one's to forget slights, and I don't think people will be too happy to find firm confirmation that their enegy bills are nothing more than expensive lies. 

   The power's supposed to be on by the time this goes up. If it comes on, I'll post an update.

   I'm hoping the power will be back on by the time that this post goes up, but just in case, have a filler post.

    As of writing this, our house has no power. Everyone else has power, but our street is in total darkness.

    There's a windstorm going on as I'm writing this. I'm hoping we'll still have power when this goes up. 

     It's been two weeks since the election. I'm struck by how absolutely certain everyone is that they did the right thing while everyone else did the wrong thing. I don't think anyone did the wrong thing. There was no right thing to do. Isn't that the kind of world we all wanted? 

    I keep thinking that on January 19th, we'll wake up to find this has all been a terrible dream. And then I wonder what world we'd wake up in. Biden hasn't exactly done a wonderful job of making it feel like Trump couldn't hurt us anymore, especially recently. What's the point of waking up if your waking life isn't any better than your dream life? I wish I could say that I knew a way to make our world real, but I don't, and I don't particularly want it to be. 

Condemnation

 I sit in solitude
As a river flows down from the sky,
Flooding the world with ideas and stories. 
I sit and watch
As the world rushes past me
In a torrent, 
Leaving me with nothing
But a valley too young
To be green. 

I sit in solitude
Waiting
For opportunities 
That I was never promised,
For things that I was explicitly told would never be mine.
I sit and wait
For the moment the world realizes
That I'm watching it,
Waiting for what I know it won't give me.

I sit in solitude
And stare into the future, 
To the place where I'll go when I die.
I sit waiting 
For condemnation,
For the moment when the world finally admits
That I will never be able to live in it
Peacefully. 

I sit in solitude,
For I long for the gift
Of entitlement 
And jealousy. 
I sit trapped
In an empty room
Packed high with junk
That no one else wanted,
Because the world won't allow me
To become desperate 
And angry. 

The future has changed
And soon we will all be condemned 
To live without anything more
Than absolute necessity, 
Doomed never to dream about a life
Where there's too much to want
And too little to appreciate. 

So we all sit in solitude,
Separated from each other
Not by distance
But by the sense that if we got too close
We would vaporize each other,
And the sense that if we look at each other
All we'll see is ourselves. 

    I've been thinking a lot about the future, trying to figure out what shape it's going to be and what I'll do when I get there. I keep being hit with sudden, visceral reminders that in a couple of years the world won't look anything like the way it looks now. I was hoping that the world would last, but now that it's sinking in that things are going to change in a deep, unnamable way, I feel silly for even hoping. If this is supposed to be a test of some cold-hearted deity, than maybe what we need now is a refuge from Gods, somewhere we can truly make our own. 

    I've heard at least one person claim that Elon Musk has no governmental power. I wouldn't let that fool you. The man has no power, but he fancies himself a visionary, and people who believe themselves to be visionaries are dangerous. He's convinced that not only is everything he says true, but that there's never been anyone else as capable of seeing the world as it is. He's stupid and impulsive, but he's also got an uncanny knack for landing on the bodies of passers by. Be careful where you move, and make sure you're not under him when he collapses our government. 

Meaning

     Being an Infinitelist, I don't believe in inherent meaning. Not to life, not to our world, not even to our Universe. The point of our Universe is to make the inherently meaningless, the Infinite, feel real and meaningful even for what, to the souls that live in the Infinite, is only the briefest of moments. On a smaller scale, that's what we're meant to do. We build reality on top of the Universe as the soul that made us built a Universe to hide from that which it couldn't change. Becoming an Infinitelist means learning how to create meaning where there isn't any and accepting that all of us, Infinitelist or otherwise, are doing the same thing whether or not we realize that's what we're doing. 

      I've gotten pretty good at creating meaning from nothing, so I'm not as numb or sad as other people are. What I'm worried about, though, is the risk of falling to the temptation of believing that this was inevitable, or that it was right somehow. It wasn't inevitable, and what happened wasn't right in any way. People were desperately trying to get Kamala Harris into the presidency for a reason, and seeing how little control we had over the outcome is going to hurt. Especially in a world where, more often than not, meaning has become something we're given rather than something we take by force. 

      I want to live in a future where Infinitelism is as common and understood as Christianity is today, but I worry that people will use their new ability to find meaning to avoid seeking any meaningful change. As much as I feel that finding a new religion is the way forward, I won't pretend that thoughts and prayers will be a magic solution. A few days before the election, someone reminded me that the reason we're in this position isn't just because our government is out of touch, but because people aren't able to get what they need from the world they live in. Things are expensive, healthcare sucks ass, anywhere it's safe to live has too many people, the police are growing less and less reliable, and nobody knows how to fix these things aside from praying to our elected officials and hoping that they listen. What people need is a world they know will last a long time and that will provide for them no matter how old, sick, or infirm they get. I want Infinitelism to be more than a search for meaning, I want it to be the foundation of that world. The one we know will stay real no matter how angry or sad we are. 

    I had a conversation recently with someone convinced that we don't want the world to change all that much. I don't think that's true. I suspect that when you average out all of our desires, the end result won't look that different from what we have now, but every single person I know wants something that feels nothing like the world we have now. For one thing, it's run by people who know what the fuck they're doing and aren't blindly driving us off a cliff. That's the thing, our world is going to need to be run by people who know that the world they live in isn't the sum total of reality, and that isn't the case right now. More than that, when we rebuild reality, we're going to discover that we're not who we thought we were. Things are going to change a lot, and I don't think even the people in charge fully grasp what's about to happen. 

    Being an Infinitelist, I thought that I was prepared for the end of our world. But I wasn't. I was just deluding myself into believing that I was. I wasn't prepared for the deep sense of resentment I feel bubbling inside of me. There's a voice insisting that this shouldn't be happening, that things shouldn't have to change. The world of my childhood is real, and being real, it should last forever. I know intellectually that the whole point of reality is that it changes, it's the Infinite that doesn't change because everything that's happening has happened and is happening all at once. But my mind lives in the Infinite. It doesn't fully understand that eternity isn't meant to last forever. 

     The thing I resent the world for the most is that it's forced me to live without a sense of entitlement. So many of my peers came into the world expecting piles of treasure for nothing, and were horrified and angry when this was denied them. I was never promised, and it was made explicit from birth that if I went in expecting anymore than the bare minimum, I wouldn't get anything at all. Yet there are others who go through life expecting, nay, demanding more, even when they don't get it. Why am I not allowed to do the same? Why am I not allowed to ask for more and then get angry when the world withholds it from me? I don't care if I don't deserve any of what I demand, that particular excuse hasn't stopped millions the world over from demanding whatever they want, even if they weren't going to be able to do anything with it once they had it. People act like I should know better than to be demanding, that I should be serene and calm enough to listen to the world and act on its advice. My reply to that is this; when did intelligence remove from me the inalienable right all of humanity has to stupidity? 

I Don't Want to Know

 The older I get,
The more my world fails me
Inside and out.
Things I took for granted
Vanish into thin air,
Leaving nothing but lies in their place.

The older I get, 
The more science tells me
I need to be wary
And prepared for disaster.
It turns out that's code
For giving up 
Everything that makes life good.

The older I get,
The more I find
That I don't want to know
Just what's wrong 
With me 
Or the world at large.
I want to live the fantasy life
Of someone too stupid
To see how much they're failing.
Someone who will never know
That the world fell apart
Because of neglect
And sabotage. 

I should want to know,
I should want to do the right thing,
I should want to believe
That the truth will set me free,
But I know nothing. 

All I know
Is that the older I get
The more it feels like ignorance
Is bliss. 

    I'm starting to see more and more people frame the last election as though it was a triumph of evil rather than the inevitable result of people growing more and more disillusioned with the concept of America. I haven't seen it too many places, but I'm worried that it will start to become more common. I get it, it's a lot easier to demonize Trump voters than admit that we don't have anything to unify us beyond the belief that our leaders suck at their jobs. My thinking, though, is that there has to be a center of mass within the various things we believe and value, and if we can find where that center of mass is, we can put something there for people to worship. Once we do that, I think that rebuilding society will be a piece of cake. The trouble is getting people to invest themselves in the world enough for us to find where the center of mass is. That's not going to happen if everyone is convinced that everyone else around them is a monster instead of a human looking for a God they can worship. Remember, this world is only real as long as we believe that it exists. If you want to see why a world is failing, look for the things people need in order to believe in it again.

     I wish that I could say that I have something hopeful, but I don't. Not really. There are good things going on in the world, but there are always good things in the world. What's missing is the belief that we'll be able to affect these things, instead of just having to wait for them to happen to us. I have nothing to prove that we have control, one way or the other, and a half baked-platitude seems uncalled for. I guess all I can do is insist that you do something to help yourself feel in control, sans firearms hopefully. Knit stockings for charity, cook a meal for your family, read to your loved ones, something like that. Something to feel at least a little better. Sometimes all we can do is convince ourselves that we're in charge of our destiny. Indeed, I think that's all the world can really ask of us at the end of the day. 

   I refer to myself as the world's most powerful Dreamer. Somewhat facetiously, but also as something of a jab against other people who, in my eyes, aren't trying to Dream nearly as much as they should be. For instance, I keep seeing people refer to themselves as servants of light. Why not just believe that you're the light itself, sent to extinguish the darkness? It's really easy to imagine, and fills you with a much stronger sense of power than just pretending to believe that light is blessing you. On the subject of light versus darkness, I don't think of darkness as being the same as evil. I think of darkness as being the substance of our world, the thing that gives it's laws and beliefs form. Darkness isn't just the absence of light after all, it's the matter that makes up our world and shows us that we live in a world bounded and protected from the Infinite. Without darkness, we'd live in a void of light, with nothing delineating what's real from what isn't real. But all that's real isn't good, and being bound by physics means that we cling to darkness even when things no longer make sense and we can't ignore that our world isn't real anymore. It takes strength to embrace the light, to admit that our world isn't real just because we instinctively think that it is, but that strength isn't inherently good either. We don't truly reckon with this, but a powerful source of light could undo the Universe itself, exposing us to the Infinite in its truest form. We aren't that powerful yet, but someday we will be. We need to remember that, or else our world will be ripped apart. 

Thought's on Trump's Victory

     I write these posts a day in advance, and I think I needed a day to just process everything. You know, I'm sure, that I didn't vote this time, and if you want to smite me, I welcome it. Even living in a liberal state where Harris won by a wide margin, it still feels like it's my fault. Maybe it is, I don't know. 

    I don't have any positive or upbeat messages. I'm not that kind of person. I'm also not going to sit here listing every organization you should join/build to try and undo the damage. I was never that kind of leftist. What I am going to offer is an observation or two. 

     First, I'm going to admit that most of what I'm feeling right now is relief. I've been feeling so disillusioned for so long that in a way this result feels like validation for all of the anger and sadness I've felt. I know, it would be better if I was feeling numb or sad, something to indicate I felt anything towards the people who have just lost everything.

    Secondly, I'm going to fight in whatever way that I can. We all are. I know that everyone reading this and most of the people who aren't reading this are going to fight like hell for the world they're about to lose. We're going to fight for ourselves, for each other, for the little bird called hope who seems so helpless without us. That's good, and important. But we will lose steam at some points. We aren't fighting some made up ideology, we're fighting people who believe things for their own reasons. They're garbage reasons, but who among us doesn't have something we believe in for completely made up reasons? 

     Thirdly, our world's going to change. We're going to lose things that are important to us and most of the fighting will be to try and get them back. We probably won't get them back. Not in the form that we had them in. Trust will be broken, people will be hurt, we'll find ourselves wondering if any of this was real. There won't be some grand moment of victory when we stand, golden and glowing, on a world we love and remember. All there will be are moments of sadness when we realize something we know is gone, probably forever. 

     Finally, let me tell you a story. In 2022, when I was first starting to blog, I was falling victim to a delusion of my own choosing. There was a famous music producer who was selling NFTs at the time. Not wanting to support him but not wanting to let go of music I genuinely loved, I rebelled. I got angry. I did everything except anything that should have had an effect. And yet, eventually, his NFT store went offline. It ended. And I will forever wonder if I, somehow, had an impact. 

     There are a million ways to read that, but my personal takeaway is that sometimes we'll win, and when we do we might feel just as bad as if we'd lost. I know that I did. I won, but nothing was the same. I still didn't trust him, I couldn't listen to his music guilt free, and I was now stuck in a vicious belief of simultaneously being convinced everything was about me and that he didn't care. I doubt it'll be that bad, but I do know for a fact that what impact, if any, we leave will be questionable. 

     Millions of people are now waking up wondering if they had any impact on the election. Did their vote matter? Last time, millions of people felt the same way, and they refused to accept it. Now they've won, and look where that got us. This is what victory looks like. It looks like broken wastelands of ash and dust, skies blocked out by smoke, people wandering around wondering what the hell to do next. When this is over, most of us will wonder if we should have fought at all. I can't give you an answer. All I can say is that if you don't fight, you'll spend the rest of your life wondering why you didn't. 

       Let me conclude with this observation; reality should be able to withstand you having a negative opinion about it, even if your right. That most of the people fighting for Kamala Harris couldn't bring up her negative points was a bad sign. Our reality can't withstand negativity anymore, it's being stretched too many different directions. That can work to our advantage now. So go forth and complain, fight like hell for your friends, neighbors, and that cute little restaurant you don't want to lose. Be as selfish as you can, and when this is over picture a world built on the things that you believe in. Because from now on we live in a world that's only real so long as we believe it exists. 

     I ran out of mini-poems a while ago, and have just been writing them as need be. In light of yesterday, I think that I want to pivot, at least for a little bit. Everyone has that one thing about the world they wish they could change, and mine is that I want us to find something that we can believe in. Something that works with science, society, and what we now know about our world. Something that will protect us from nihilism and our inherent fear of death. I have Infinitelism, which works for me because I created it around myself and my issues. I think we need something a bit different for the rest of humanity. Something a bit more optimistic. 

Election Ramblings

    Well, it's election day. For what it's worth, if you're going to vote, vote for Kamala Harris. I've already cast my ballot, and it bears a not insubstantial resemblance to my standardized test papers back when I was in school. There's probably a whole essay on how most students have felt more stress around test days than adults do on national elections, but I'm pretty sure most of us know what it would consist of. Looking back, I'm a little stunned at how black and white our school system is. We're at a point where there is no right answer, only a "best" answer that is very much open to interpretation. Did no one stop and think that maybe a system built on filling in the right bubbles was very much not the way to teach people to appreciate just how hard it is to make choices in the real world? I don't think there was a way to prepare us for this, because if there had been a way to stop this, we'd have done it by now. But like every single person in the United States at this moment, I think that we could have done better. 

      I could stop there, but I feel like I have more to stay. First off, on a gut level I don't feel like this choice matters nearly as much as people say it does. One person will upend the status quo, one will maintain it. That's the fact we're focusing on. What most people have been ignoring is that the status quo sucks ass, and the only platform the Dems have to run on is the belief that not having the status quo will be worse. That was true in 2020, it's a lot less true now, and I think it's reasonable to say that even if Harris wins today, it'll stop being true before 2028. Who are we going to vote for when that happens? I can't read everyone's mind, but I think I speak for most of us when I say that when we go to the polls, we vote not for politicians but for some nebulously defined sense of morality that was instilled in us during our child and teen years. That morality has increasingly come into tension with the reality we live in. First it stopped being okay to vote for Republicans, then for the center, now it's almost wrong to vote at all. There's the barest sliver of justification to believe in our system, and I think it's a lot smaller than people make it out to be. What with our need to avoid seeing the nature of reality. 

      Beneath all of this talk about who you should vote for and why, there's this weird conflict I keep seeing but can't fully articulate, even to myself. If I had to describe it, I'd say it's a conflict over what, if anything, the fascists are right about. There's this agreement that overall, they're evil and bad, but I feel like a lot of people, especially white people, have something they agree with the fascists on. In my case, I can't help but feel like the government should be the one fixing things, not us. I know that most fascists argue in favor of states rights, but if they actually believed that than they wouldn't have voted for Trump. No matter how many times I'm proven wrong, I keep thinking that those in power should be able to do the things we need them to do without us either forcing them to do it or just doing it ourselves. But not only will they not do the things we need them to do, they punish us for trying to do more in their stead. I know that Infinitelism isn't mainstream, but I think that everyone has to know that if people see that their government is failing them, they won't believe in it anymore, and even George Lucas was smart enough to know that Democracy only works if people believe that it will work. People keep proposing solutions to our problems, but I don't think there's any solution for stupidity at the top level, especially when there's no one on the ballot exempt from this. I know that real solutions are difficult, but I don't think it should be this hard to convince our leaders that we need them more than they need to win the election. Except that if they don't win, then worse people will win. In short, we're doomed, and nothing will meaningfully change so we may as well just give up. 

     I'm going to speak as an Infinitelist and say that now is the time for us to get pissed. Not only are we never going to convince our leaders that things are dire, we aren't allowed to convince ourselves of this anymore, because looking at how bad things have gotten would mean admitting there's no reason to believe we can fix them anymore. I have no idea who, ultimately, is at fault for this, but no matter who it was that got us here, it's now up to us to get the hell out. It's now up to us to admit that we need a new reality, one where we can depend on things staying real and where keeping the laws of physics from collapsing doesn't require openly manifesting. Things are going to get bad, because the only path forward is for all of us to pick the thing that we believe in the most and then chase that thing without looking at anyone or anything else. Match the fascists with our own brand of insanity, one devoted to proving the worth of people who don't fit into the mainstream. Our work won't end until even those who live comfortably are fighting with all they have for the things that they believe in. Until the day everyone knows about Infinitelism and the direction upon which our future lies, I will not rest. I expect all of you to advocate for your own beliefs with equal fervor. 

Survival of the Fittest

 "Every man for himself."

That's what they'll say
When they look back on this moment.
No certainty or belief,
Only a sense of desperation.
"Every man for himself",
An archaic term
From a time long gone,
Words that deny the validity 
Of half of the human race. 
What better words could be said
Of a moment 
Such as this? 

Right and wrong,
Good and bad,
There has to be an answer
That won't kill us in our sleep.
There have to be words
That won't bring forth nature
In the worst form it takes.
No love,
No community,
Only survival of the fittest,
The ones who were chosen,

They will say,
To carry on the human race.

"Every man for himself."
That's how the fascists talk
When they get on their platforms
Of cruelty and greed.
"Every man should help himself
To the spoils of war."
No thought for the needy,
No love for the destitute, 
Only a desire
For destruction
And chaos.

They sound so certain.
They speak as though 
They know something we don't.
Is it any wonder
That we've turned out to be
Just like them?

"Every man for himself.
Let our world be turned over
To the will of nature
And the needs of the many over the few."

The few will rule over us.
It is they who will decide
Who lives and who dies. 
Nobody but them thinks
That they should be in charge.
Nobody thinks this is fair. 

"Every man for himself."
They say,
"Except us.
Don't abandon us
In our hour of need. 
Without you,
We'd die.
We need you.
Please don't leave us
To suffer our fate.
Please don't let the chaos
Of the Infinite
Devour us whole." 

    You know what I want out of this election? I want a world of people who are committed to making sure that next time, people aren't on the verge of tears because they're doing the right thing. No one should be breaking down because they're doing their democratic duty, and no one should feel like they should abstain because both options feel awful. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm fighting for a world where people can vote for either candidate, without looking like a disgrace or feeling like total crap. 

     I don't remember the exact moment I became something I might call an Infinitelist. I think that it was some time around mid-2014 when I started building this philosophy, and it solidified in about 2018. I'm looking at our world through the eyes of an Infinitelist, and all I see is a world with no boundaries where basically anything goes. Instead of rule of law, the Fascists gave us anarchy. People ask for unity out loud, but what they want is to know that they are saying and doing the thing that keeps the world real. They want certainty, objectivity, and to know that the truth won't change from today to tomorrow. They want a world that they believe in. I'm extremely biased, but I can't help but think that it'll take more than politics to lead us out of this mess. What we need is a new and different religion. 

The Souls of Our World

 I pray to the souls
Of the past, present, and future;
Please let our world last
One more day. 
Please come to us
In our hour of need,
And guide us to where we should go.