November 2025 – Cyndi Johnson

“But be warned, oh seeker of knowledge, of the thicket of opinions and of arguing about words” — from Siddhartha by Herman Hesse

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

Mirrors, reflections of us. Everyone and everything is a reflection of us. Some things are partial mirrors and some are more complete mirrors. Some things reflect things we want to see or are comfortable seeing, and others show us things we don’t want to see. Sometimes what we see triggers us, usually because we are reminded of something deep within that we refuse to acknowledge or accept.

Many of us endlessly stare into the hall of mirrors that is social media. We convince ourselves that there is value in what we see- something we are learning or someone we are connecting to, but it is only an illusion. We have become passive consumers of things that superficially resemble something we desire. We are drawn to the illusion because of its collective nature. It’s because so many of us are represented there that we justify mindlessly spending so much time there, but the reflection is partial and distorted, and in consuming the distortion we are also distorted.

Our true nature is more connected to the natural world than many of us understand. Those of us who are drawn to nature intuitively understand this, but many cannot put it into words. When we are outside exploring this beautiful planet we connect with the universal consciousness and we feel strengthened. Ideas come to us in this space, sometimes so many of them it’s hard to decide which ones to act on. The Universe is breathing around us- the sky, the wind, the clouds, the trees- they are interwoven, interconnected, and inextricably tied to us.

Our modern society has become disconnected, foreign, and unsettling. In nature we are made whole again. In nature we commune with parts of ourselves that our society endlessly works to separate us from. We are all parts to the same whole. We need the world and each other, but we are made to believe our ideas are products of our own minds independent of the environment around us. We allow hate to foment and divide us further, often in the name of politics or religion, and we feel justified in our hatred. In reality, our hatred of someone else is just hatred of a part of ourselves.

Every day The Distortion becomes stronger, and it consumes and reduces The Natural World as it grows. More wild space is conquered by our need to create factories, businesses, data centers, and roads. We spend less time outside and we eat less natural foods. We are further distanced from the planet, each other, and ourselves. Loneliness grows, and despair grabs hold of multitudes and pulls them down. Meaning and purpose feel like abstract and unattainable concepts in our nihilistic dystopia. The Distortion is powerful, but The Universe is stronger. If only we could more fully grasp the power of connecting to it.

The sad thing is so many resist exiting the illusion. The Universe and the collective consciousness that we are all a part of is simple by design, and all encompassing. All that one needs to exit the illusion is the slightest desire to do so, and the willingness to give The Universe the space to speak through us. Once that space is granted, it’s as if the light inside of us is magnified, perhaps more fully connecting to its original source. Some call that God, the Universe, Light, or Love. Maybe those are just different words to describe the same thing. Maybe because our individual experience and ego flavors our perception we are inclined to use certain words to describe what we perceive. But perhaps they are all just different words to describe the same thing.

There is a spiritual awakening occurring. As each day passes and the inevitable race to AGI continues, more people are waking up to the hollowness of these endeavors. They are beginning to see through the illusion, and what they see on the other side is darkness, misery, and despair.

There is a massive paradigm shift occurring but most are wildly unaware. A few discerning individuals are sensing that religion and science are heading towards a great unification. The chasm that has existed between them for hundreds of years is shrinking. It’s as if humanity’s collective consciousness is evolving past the barriers of old. The tools that are used to explain them: logic/reason for science on one hand and emotion for religion on the other, are merging. Humans are waking up to fact that they are complete beings with all of these faculties, and one set of tools is not better than the other. Human ego tries to convince us that we are superior to the humans who favor the other tools, but we are all still humans. We are all still flawed with our limited perception and the constant death-walk of our existence looming over us. We are all terrified of what lies ahead.

We busy ourselves by creating societies, political systems, religions, philosophies, and by studying the natural world. We build tools to make our lives easier and to give us “more time”, but we will never truly give ourselves more time. Time is an overlay that our perception is bound by, and no matter what our philosophies and deep thinking may come up with, we will never escape it. Perhaps one day we will, at the same time we shed this earthly form and experience death. What is on the other side? Anything? Nothingness?

What I believe does not matter.

What I know remains.

This Universe is a great mystery and it has been mysterious as long as humans have existed to perceive it. It is beautiful, terrifying and magical. It can teach us about ourselves as long as we are willing to peek behind the curtain and see through the illusion that is the human ego. We are here for connection and for love. We are not here to argue over words, land, and belief systems. We are here to learn from each other, to be in awe at everything around us, and we are here to grow.

Inspired by Paul Kingsnorth’s book Against the Machine, that I am currently reading.

People in corporate American have been infected by the plague of “fake nice”, a direct consequence of the feminization of western culture.

As the machine that humanity built over time evolves and turns each of us into cogs, some are quick to be converted- their personalities are eager to check out, be compliant, and play the game all the while numbed out. SSRIs sped up that process, designed by The Machine.

Inconvenienced by grief? There’s a pill for that. Does your attention span get in the way of productivity? There’s another pill for that. Do you suffer from unpleasant side effects? Take a DNA test to find out which one is the best for you!

There are a few hold outs: unmedicated humans who still struggle with emotions and often can’t contain them. The fake nice plague grates on them like poison ivy, and causes them to bristle and chafe and eventually to explode. No one is fully human except for people like them, and the feeling of being in The Uncanny Valley is discombobulating. Sometimes they can’t tell which way is up, but they refuse to give in and check out and play the game as everyone else does. Eventually they get pushed down by the machines collective parts and succumb. They’ll lose their desire to give a fuck, show up, do a good job, and get up the next day and do it all over again.

When they give up, the companies they worked for will continue to operate under the delusion that passivity and superficial niceness are the way. There are layers to every gesture, facial expression, and phrase, and the cult members drive themselves nuts trying to maintain their feeble grip on their fragile place as a cog in the machine. They form alliances and work together to sabotage the resistance, unaware that they are only inching closer to losing their humanity in the process.

Many have been conditioned to believe certain emotions are unacceptable and deserve to be punished. The few that resist understand the power of forgiveness and how directing that power towards oneself first is the key to real happiness. They feel sadness for the rats trapped in the maze, chasing money and power and security in a world that doesn’t understand real peace. Every so often, the chaos that runs through the veins of the members of The Cult causes casualties, but The Machine gladly accepts those sacrifices in its incessant goal of subjecting humans to complete algorithmic domination.

Occasionally artists and writers come along with keen insights about the delusion we have all fallen victim to. The Machine will consume their art by ingesting it into an LLM and deciding it’s not statistically significant to see the light of day. True leaders will vanish, and only the weight of collective thought will have power. Eventually the outliers of the human race will cease to exist. IQ distributions will coalesce around mediocre intelligence levels and genius will vanish entirely. We will become homogeneous, unemotional, and optimized to benefit The Machine.