The image above was made by @amberjyang with Midjourney using the prompt 'high tech bonsai tree in the matrix.'
Recent months have been challenging for me. I went through 12 weeks of cluster headaches and had to suddenly put a bunch of stuff in storage because my tacky uncles now want the house to have completely blank walls and empty bookshelves. With both health and home in question, my whole situation feels unstable. And it is. But it's not more unstable than the rest of society.
2020 was an earthquake in the total system. Wealth was redistributed from the many to the few and the control regime seized even more power. The next total system disruption could begin at any time. And as the technological transformation of society continues to accelerate, we'll all be forced to transform ourselves in various ways.
Putting my stuff in storage gave me the opportunity to go through everything, paring my meager belongings down to the barest minimum. And the cluster headaches, as always, pared my life itself down to its barest minimum. Now I feel like a shrub that's been pruned back to just a nub on some roots. Or maybe like a bonsai in the care of an overzealous hand.
I know what I'm transforming from, but not what I'm transforming into. My lifelong failure to conform suggests that I'll remain a dissident. Society is obviously transforming into more of a techno-dystopia, but I'm not totally clear about where I want to fit into that. I'm sure I'll write and code, but beyond that is a mystery.
There's power in this mystery. Observing it for what it is gives the future permission to organize itself in the best possible way. Saddling this mystery with expectations can interfere with the process. Projecting onto the unknown isn't always appropriate.
Even though the future is a tabula rasa, there's value in articulating our visions for what's to come. These visions can motivate positive action and provide hope in uncertain moments. They can also lead us astray. Many popular visions for the future were after all designed by the control regime to prevent us from achieving our potential.
I'm not sure if I've internalized any stories that are limiting my potential. I probably have. Maybe I should look at the story about me being a perpetual outsider. I've never really fit in, but in recent years I've come to feel like I do have a place somewhere. So it could be time for a new story.
Read Free Mind Gazette on Substack
Read my novels:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is available as a web book on IPFS and as a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt.
- The Paradise Anomaly is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Psychic Avalanche is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- One Man Embassy is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Flying Saucer Shenanigans is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Rainbow Lullaby is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- The Ostermann Method is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Blue Dragon Mississippi is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
See my NFTs:
- Small Gods of Time Travel is a 41 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt that goes with my book by the same name.
- History and the Machine is a 20 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on my series of oil paintings of interesting people from history.
- Artifacts of Mind Control is a 15 piece Tezos NFT collection on Objkt based on declassified CIA documents from the MKULTRA program.