It is a difficult thing to live in times such as these. Melancholic most days, as if some all-uniting meaning or forgotten home is always left just out of reach. It's doubly difficult on days like today, when the news stories are written in blood and the world cries in unison.

History feels far different in motion than it does in retrospect. Looking back at it now it appears to us in its grand scheme, God's mysterious plan perhaps. Through the memories of our people, ballads and poetry and paintings and—more importantly—through the blood and sweat and love that our ancestors created us with, we can see that all-uniting meaning and forgotten home in history! In the noble lover! In the great rebel! In the fall of the dictator! It's the scent of the divine, of something higher and grander than us, which uses our lives as fuel for its endless mythic story. The rhythms of history, in retrospect, are impossibly beautiful. It's no wonder so many of us worship them.

But while in motion history is a waywyrd path. The tidal wave of cause and effect inexorably pulling you along; a will far greater than yours leading you by the hand, this way and that, all while you wonder which ditch you'll end up dead in.

On that leash, lead along, it all feels like a dark foggy haze, threats always just on the edge of vision. Events of horror and of awe leaping out from the darkness before disappearing into it again! An endless tumult, a captivating spectacle, without context or meaning, simultaneously descending upon you in a flash, and barely just crawling by, as if nothing ever really happens.

For the man of the past, history was lived day by day. Years would pass by silently, and this fog only rarely and suddenly reared its head: to defend his family, or protest his church, or occasionally die for a revolution. The will of the moment didn't have enough resources to always sweep him along, so the lords and knights took his taxes and moved the nation forward with their own blood, until their blood was spilled on the peasants doorstep. And the older days were even simpler when, in the smallness of the tribe, the will formed organically, and acted as one.

As the world changed, so too did the mechanisms of history. With communication and mobility, the ripples of history began to travel further and further than they ever had. News which would take hundreds of years to travel began to travel in a month, then a week, then a day, then a second. Decade by decade the old irony of Wyrd— history suddenly brutally piercing the steady rhythm of life—was replaced with the grand totalising narrative of The Spectacle. History now unfolds from all directions at all time, both always and never happening. From your friends, your family, your oomfies, the news, everywhere, and as the Earth shrinks, so too does the escape from it. The maw devours all.

During the COVID years we called this mass psychosis, the thing is, we only call it mass psychosis when the story is so stretched that it's no longer believable. COVID was a test, "how far can we stretch it?" The vast majority of the time, nobody notices or cares, the hypnosis is endless and unbroken, ready to be unleashed at a moments notice.

See, the most notable thing about our society isn't our supply lines or our resource efficiency or our complex governance, although those are impressive. The most notable thing about our society is the all-uniting way it can weave a social fabric that integrates and directs millions (perhaps now billions) of people. Baudrillard called this the simulation. By supplying the citizenry with a steady supply of abstractions—identities like left and right, news stories, SHOOTINGS, and bureaucratic interfaces—the people are no longer interfacing with their community but with a virtual system. And this system, this software is running on the hardware of your own mind, on your fear and in-group preference and far more dangerously, your empathy.

We all know "I'm an empath," is the type of thing a bullshitting narcissist says, it's also the type of thing an actual empath says. There's very little difference between making it about yourself, and making it about someone else, because in both cases you're discarding what it actually is for what you seek to get out of it, a quick end to the pain of the moment. If you cry or rage when someone else hurts, instead of finding a way to heal them, you're not empathetic, you're a selfish bastard.

"Affective empathy" is the instinct by which a group's will is woven together, sort of like a bundle of sticks, it is the dark fog which descends and seeps into your body and propels you forward. It is the simulation's greatest weapon, it is the easiest way to control you. Humans are naturally communitarian and kind hearted, don't you know? And so humans are naturally primed to burn witches, lynch their enemies, and bend the knee at the first sign of danger.

We all know that the world of CEOS and shadowy old money lineages is dominated by "psychopaths." Perhaps a bit stranger is therapists and surgeons. Religious prophets have a higher rate than both. Do you think Jesus or Buddha or Laozi were wise because they felt bad for other people? Do you think Jesus could die leading his people if he cared for the whims of the crowd? Do you think Buddha could speak about rebirth and suffering with such a fiery ferocity if he was an emotional man?

Clarity is the mechanism by which free will acts, a thing far more noble than pleasure or the simulacrum of meaning that the system gives you, so let go of it. Let go of the hate and fear and look at the world in front of you, remember who you are! Remember why you're here! Remember what you stand for! Be irresolute in the face of the world, and stand outside of it as you stand in its midst. Only from that clear vantage point can you do the right thing. Only from that clarity can you be who you must be. Never forget who you are.

There's really no mortal justification for why the world has to be this way. There's no mortal justification for why Iryna died and why righteousness escalates into riots and why we bomb each other constantly. The retrospective justice of history is hard to apply when we're trapped in histories midst, watching the karmic streams of power crash into each other like tidal waves. But take a step back, exit the thrill of the moment and the ferocity of the crowd, and things fall into place.

Genealogical thinking is a salve to the spell, ground your lens in your roots, remember your forebears and their wars and the horrors they persevered, just as you will persevere; look at the world and see in it the same rhythms that have been playing since time immemorial, watch what power wants, watch what the incentives promote, and have faith in the karma. America consolidates power after an oligarchic regime takeover by the tech-Thielite right. Europe seeks to preserve their borders as they fall off the world stage. China becomes a second world power, favouring more colonisation and cultural integration just as America begins to favour more Chinese style economics.

History isn't random or chaotic. Society is an egregore of individuals, pushed together, and united by their will. When Mr Libtard man George Carlin said Fascism won WW2 he was right, the sticks are bundled together far more tightly than they ever have been before, and you're caught in the midst of it.

But you don't have to be. The world in front of you still exists, the wind blows and the garden grows! Your neighbours and family may be falling into the maw one by one, but people still live their lives and fall in love and have children. Remember these things, remember what matters, and when faced with the unfolding spectacle, cut through it to the heart of the matter. There's no reason to ever bow your head, there's no reason to ever let the people around you tell you who are you are. Ideas die too fast for ideas to be worth dying for. Your mind and will are your own, hold your head high and act like it.

Don't just be another reactive animal, or another tool for your betters. Retain your centre. Stay out of war. Stand apart from the crowd. Prize what's real, live life by your own two hands. If history comes knocking on your door—pray it doesn't—meet it with an empty heart and a clear mind, like the best of us always have.