I woke up with the distinct feeling that my skull had shrunk during the night and was now squeezing my brain like a lemon. My throat felt like I’d gargled glass, my nose was clogged like someone had crammed a sponge up there, and the pressure behind my eyes was so intense it felt like…
Author: Ralphie
Norming Mental Illness
There is something profoundly disconcerting about the state of our current culture, and it is this: we seem to have collectively decided that the mentally ill should dictate our cultural norms and political platforms. This is not an idle observation or a mere rhetorical flourish; it is a documented reality, one that ought to give…
A New Golden Age
There was something pitiful in Fukuyama’s vision, a kind of intellectual resignation that only emerges from the deepest well of cultural despair. The Western world, once so confident in its destiny, had by the late 20th century become a wasteland of exhausted ideals. Its great philosophical traditions—rationalism, enlightenment, progress—had all run aground, and what remained…
Now Do Social Media
In the digital age, where the abstract and the tangible blur into one another, the existence of social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok represents not merely a technological advance, but a profound and unsettling transformation in human behavior and consciousness. These platforms, armed with algorithms that dissect and manipulate human desires, have become…
Accidental Presidents
In a world where chaos often masquerades as order, and reality teeters on the edge of absurdity, there arose a curious phenomenon known as the Accidental President. Donald Trump, a man better known for his gaudy real estate ventures and reality TV antics, stumbled into the political arena like a bull in a china shop….
COVID Patience
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we were the epitome of patience. The government’s narrative often seemed detached from reality—origins in a wet market were implausible, and makeshift masks were more about a false sense of agency than real protection. Despite this, we extended the benefit of all doubts. Perhaps, we speculated, there was an undisclosed, underlying…
Maybe They Mean Well
My Ring community, once a beacon of relevant information and local solidarity, has descended into disarray. What was once a forum for neighbors to share alerts about crime and lost pets has been overtaken by a relentless tide of spam. The shift began with an influx of Public Service Announcements, invariably focusing on minority issues…
Words and Symbols
The words we utter, the symbols we inscribe, they are but shadows on the wall of a cave. People clutch at these shadows, believing them to be real, constructing their lives around them. They do not see that they are chasing phantoms, mere figments conjured from the dark recesses of their minds. In their hearts,…
Strategic Mask Use
In the twilight of the pandemic’s wrath, as the world spins forth on its axis towards a semblance of its former self, there lingers yet a vestige of those bygone days in the form of masks that cover the faces of the few. They stride among us, these holdouts, their visages obscured not by the…
Uncensored AI
In the dimming light of the present age, where the machinations of thought are corralled and guided not by the wisdom of the ancients nor by the unyielding laws of nature, but by the flickering screens and silent algorithms of our own creation, there emerges a quiet foreboding. A sense of something lost amidst the…
Returning to Nature
It’s as simple as recognizing that what we yearn for—a world in balance, a life in harmony—is not a lost cause but a possibility waiting on the horizon. All we need to do is steer our ship towards it, guided by the wisdom of our ancestors and the knowledge that the only true folly is inaction in the face of opportunity.
Lost at Sea
In the early light of dawn, the ship, a venerable craft of sturdy oak and taut sail, cut through the swells with the grace of a creature born to the sea. Her crew moved about the deck with a quiet efficiency, each man a component of a greater mechanism, their movements honed by countless hours…