God saw the night I almost gave up.

He did not miss it.

He saw the moment I sat on the floor, exhausted.

The tears nobody else did.

The preparations I made for a day I wouldn’t witness.

Listened to the prayer I didn’t have the strength to speak.

I thought the silence meant I was alone.

But in that quiet moment, the universe was moving.

The same God that parted seas and raised the dead was holding me together.

I didn’t feel him, but he never left.

I’m still here, not by accident, but because purpose held onto me when I couldn’t hold on to it.

God’s not finished.

That night wasn’t the end of my story.

There I was a few weeks ago, on YouTube, looking for something to watch while I scarf down my breakfast (as most of us do) when I finally came across a video. I brace for the 5 seconds of tension I get while waiting for the “Skip ad” button to show up. Nothing unusual here. While the almighty algorithm knows me more than I do, it always fails as serving me something I’m actually interested in, so just another moment of “let me get this shit out of the way”.

But this ad… Oh my god this ad.

It was an AI generated ad. Like, fully AI generated. The voice was that uncanny text-to-speech that’s just smooth enough to almost pass but still makes your brain itch. The visuals were those weird AI graphics that look like someone described a fever dream of “professional” and “modern” and “trustworthy” to someone who hasn’t ever experienced either of those.

And what is this beautiful nightmare trying to sell me?

The opportunity to gamble my fake internet money on how long the government shutdown will last.

I need you to sit with that for a second. Like, really sit with it.

A machine, trained on the collective output of human civilization, created an ad to convince me, a human, to take my cryptocurrency (money that exists purely as a hallucination), and bet it on a prediction market for when the United States government will get its shit together enough to function again.

All four layers of that sentence is insane when you actually break it down… Which I have kindly done for you.

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Layer one: The ad itself wasn’t made by a person. No human sat down and said “you know what would really resonate with this person?” No visual creator approved this. No copywriter agonized over the call to action. None of that. Instead, a model trained on billions of human generated examples synthesized this pitch from pure statistical probability.

Layer two: Cryptocurrency. I’m not gonna get into a whole thing here because honestly who has the energy, but somehow we collectively decided that solving math problems really fast should produce “money” that we can then “spend” on “things.” Somehow this isn’t treated as the fever dream that it is. And yet, we just go along with it… because if we all squint hard enough we can lie to ourselves and agree that it’s real. Sure.

Layer three: Prediction markets. Basically gambling but made intellectual. Made to feel like you’re not just betting, you’re “forecasting”. You’re participating in the wisdom of crowds and providing valuable price signals to the market about the likelihood of future events. You’re definitely not just a degenerate with a phone and too much time. Certainly not that.

Layer four: The government shutdown itself. The thing we’re betting on is whether the richest, most powerful nation in human history can manage to function at a basic level (Pay its workers, keep the lights on, etc). The bare minimum of governance. A problem that comes up so much that there’s a market for it. That’s the most absurd part. We’ve normalized dysfunction to the point where “will the government work?” is a genuine betting line on par with Super Bowl outcomes.

The worst part is that I actually watched the whole ad. I did not skip it. I sat there transfixed by the sheer audacity of it all. The same way you might stare at a car crash or a sunset.

And for a split second (I’m ashamed to admit this) I thought about it. Not seriously. But the thought flickered across my mind: “what if I did bet on the shutdown? Surely that’s an easy win since we always come back right?”

Here’s the thing about living in absurdist times: eventually the absurd starts to feel normal. Eventually you stop asking “why is this happening?” and start asking “how can I profit from this happening?” That’s the trap, right? Make the insane so ubiquitous that opting out feels like the crazy choice.

Betting fake money on government dysfunction, pitched to you by a machine that doesn’t even know what government or money or betting means! That’s just a typical Tuesday now.

What does it say about where we’re at? Not just as a society but as a species? We built thinking machines and one of the first thing we did was teach them to sell us gambling. We invented new forms of money and immediately started betting them on whether our institutions would collapse. We automated the creation of content designed to exploit our worst impulses, and we did it so efficiently that no human even needs to be involved anymore.

The machine creates the ad. The machine serves the ad. The machine processes the bet. The machine moves the fake money around.

Humans are just the battery that keep it all going.

And somewhere, somehow, someone is making actual money off of this. Real dollars. Fiat currency backed by the full faith and credit of the same government we’re betting on.

Anyway, I didn’t bet on the shutdown. The ad ended eventually and the moment passed. I ate my breakfast and life went on.

But sometimes late at night, when I’m lying in bed and my brain decides to serve up random anxieties like its own little algorithmic feed, I think about that ad. I think about the layers of abstraction between me and anything real. I think about how normal it’s all become, how we’re all just frogs in a boiling pot of technological absurdity.

And then I think: “this would make a great Substack post”

So here we are.

The video you just watched took me five minutes and a single line to generate, sound affects and all. Two years ago, we were all clowning on how atrocious AI video looked. Now, here we are! In the blink of an eye, we went from obviously fake and goofy to something mildly concerning.

When I first saw how real the videos were from Google’s VEO 3, it genuinely moved something in me. For a moment, I thought, yeah, we’re actually cooked. I was so impressed but also so unsettled.

It reminded me of some memes I’ve seen recently. The ones of people joking about how they’ll end up in court defending themselves against a crime that an AI deepfaked them into committing. Sounds stupid, but it’s not far off. The scary part isn’t that our government is planning to do things like that. They’ve already moved past that point. Most people don't see it because they still believe there are lines the government wouldn't dare cross. Oh, yes they would. And they have.

And if you think that sounds like a paranoid fantasy, look at what’s happening in plain sight. Are we all going to pretend it’s normal that after all this time, they suddenly want to release the CCTV footage of Epstein killing himself? Do you not remember how they explicitly said the cameras in the prison cell malfunctioned? But now, they somehow magically found some footage conveniently after Google’s AI video model gets released? Get a grip. If you’re buying that, you might actually be a dumbass.

Let’s zoom out for a sec. Everyone keeps saying AI is going to lead us into some utopia. Infinite efficiency, ethically made products, cheap labor, world peace, whatever. But people aren’t paying attention to what’s actually being built. It’s not utopia. It’s a propaganda machine. The most powerful one humanity has ever seen.

How do I know? Because right now, the number one use case I’ve seen so far for AI-generated video is fake influencers peddling garbage to emotionally manipulated audiences. They generate something to hijack someone with just the right tone of voice, posture, aesthetic, and boom… They’re buying a supplement that does nothing or signing up for a course made by a ghost.

But here’s the central contradiction they hope you won’t notice: our entire society has been built on exploiting human labor. You get people to work for money (which, by the way, isn’t even real and it can be printed at any time), and they produce goods so that someone else can sell those goods. But when robots and AI can do all of that… what then? What’s the point of a consumer if there’s no job for them to earn the money they need to consume?

This is why I keep circling back to the same conclusion: there’s no way in hell they’re going to actually let this tech be useful. Not in the way they promise. There’s a reason the Department of Defense always gets a first peek at any AI model before we do. They’re not verifying that the models work or are safe. They’re making sure they’re not too good, because that’s not part of the plan.

The plan is to control the narrative and maintain an advantage, not to empower everyone. They lure us in with cute image generators that make pictures of dogs and cats at a tea party or an elephant skydiving. Everyone's like, "ha ha, this is so fun!" not knowing that these are literally the beginnings of hyper-personalized propaganda that will be fed into every single device in real-time, shaping public thought to fit whatever narrative they choose.

We already have versions of this now. Think about algorithm-based content today. It’s manipulative, sure, but still relies on human creators. But when AI avatars can look, talk, and act however you want, there’s no more bottleneck. You don’t need people anymore. You can pump out endless sludge that’s perfectly optimized 24/7.

In theory, this should make life better, right? But let’s be honest. Do you really think the medical industry wants a model that can cure diseases overnight? Of course not. That would annihilate their business model. So they’ll move the goalposts. They’ll say “wElL, tHiS DiSeAsE iS tOo CoMpLeX eVeN fOr AI”. Meanwhile, we’re out here resurrecting woolly mammoths and eating 3D-printed lab-grown steak.

They keep promising these massive leaps forward in drug discovery and health care. But all we’ve really gotten so far is a weight-loss shot that drains your body and your soul from the inside out.

Anyway, keeping this frame of mind, one has to ask: how do you stay ahead?

A lot of people seem to be just waiting. Waiting for AI to get good enough so they can quit their job, get fired, and finally “do what they love.” But that assumes a happy ending. And if you believe that, you haven’t been paying attention. The goal here isn’t liberation, it’s sedation. Keep the people scrolling, keep them consuming, and keep them docile. The Romans called it “bread and circuses”. Distract the masses with food and spectacle, and they won’t notice the empire rotting from the inside. Today we call it DoorDash and TikTok.

To survive this, I think it's important for people to learn and use AI tools beyond just generating cute cat images. I think it's also important to be mindful and understand that these things are quite literally dead. In any Instagram or TikTok post that mentions ChatGPT, you will go to the comments and there are people unironically telling everyone that ChatGPT is their best friend. Excuse me? ChatGPT is not your friend. Can it be helpful and give you perspective on things that maybe you haven't thought about? Sure. But if you're just chatting with your AI bot as if it were human, telling it your problems, asking how to deal with real-life situations, then you’re done for.

What’s crazy to me is that people wear this with pride. They are actually proud of the fact that they are incapable of making real human connections. The thing is that no one has ever had a completely unique experience. We all go through variations of the same handful of emotional arcs. That’s the human condition. You’re not the only one who “does that thing” or “felt that way as a kid.” Everyone has. And that’s the whole point. We need each other for reflection and reality checks… Not an AI.

We must use these things as tools and tools alone. Not for validation and echo chambers. You also have to keep in mind what the agenda here is. Utopia is not it. It is not in the elite's best interest to have everyone be happy, healthy, and able to build things. So the lie that they're telling you, that AI will give you this, is just that. A lie.

If anything, within the next 3 to 5 years, the only real safety net will be being human. Having a network of actual people you trust. Having a body that functions and doesn’t depend on Ozempic. Having skills that AI can’t replace. Because when everyone can make the same AI-generated ad, the same face, the same fake voice… the only thing that will stand out is authenticity.

That’s what people crave. Even now, the entire internet is basically built to chase whatever content feels most authentic. Why? Because that hunger is still real. And it’s only going to grow stronger as everything else turns to perfect, soulless sludge.

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Sometimes at night, I find myself thinking about suffering. It comes in so many different forms, so many different flavors, and it really gets to me. I can be going about my day, and then a thought will just lodge itself in my mind, and boom, I'm in tears.

The most recent thing has been these dogs next door. The owner leaves them outside. They have a space, it's a relatively medium-sized space, but it's confined. I think about how their entire life, probably ever since they were puppies, they've only known that yard. Just that one patch of dirt and grass to watch the world go by. They don't go inside, doesn't matter if it's blazing hot or freezing cold. They're always out there. I imagine they've probably never been to a dog park, never chased a ball across a huge field, or splashed in a lake. Their world is that enclosure. And that's just it. That is just their life.

The thought emotionally punches me in the stomach, and I don't know why. It keeps me up some nights. I lie there and wonder why I even care so much. It's not like they're my dogs. I try to tell myself that maybe they aren't even suffering that much. Maybe they're content, in their own way. They have food, water, shelter of a sort. But then I think about the lack of new smells, new experiences… The sameness of it all. Is a life without variety, or freedom to explore, a truly full life? Even for a dog? I don't know. But the thought of their confinement and their routine that never changes, it just feels heavy.

Sometimes I wish I could just take all suffering away. Just wave a magic wand and not have people, or animals, experience the pain that they do. It's a childish thought, I know. I understand very well that hardship, that pain, is often a catalyst for growth. We learn from it, get stronger, and develop resilience. It shapes us. But then there are times when I look at certain situations, and it feels like the suffering isn't really doing anything for anyone. It's just causing… well, suffering. Empty pain that serves no obvious purpose.

I remember in my college days, when I experimented with psychedelics, I would experience these profound waves of sadness. A deep emotion for all of those in my life, and even for people I didn't know. It was like a veil lifted, and I could almost feel the collective weight. I would think of the different micro-expressions people make. Those tiny, fleeting looks that betray us and reveal something deeper. The way my mother might joke about a particular topic, a little too brightly, while cleaning a surface that didn't really need to be cleaned, just for the sake of having an activity to pour her nervous energy into. Or the way people on a video call, at the very beginning, always seem to look to their right or their left to adjust something that isn't there, a little twitch before they settle into their online persona. I think of these things, these small gestures, and I don't know why, but it makes me think of suffering. Little shields. Tiny ways we try to protect ourselves, to manage our unease, to keep the world at bay, or to keep our true selves hidden. Why do we do this?

Then my mind goes to the grander structures of suffering. The things you see on the news, or read about, that are so big they're hard to comprehend. The fact that there are kids halfway across the world who's homes literally have been turned to rubble. Their childhoods stolen by sounds and sights no child should ever experience. Or the fact that there are hundreds, if not hundreds of thousands, of children, women, and men stuck in unimaginable situations, like in shipping containers, trafficked, lost, with no one having any hope of finding them. Their existence is a kind of suffering that's almost too vast to hold in your mind.

And when I think about that, it really puts my own life into perspective. I question how I have the audacity to complain about… well, anything. My bad day at work, the traffic, the internet being slow. These things feel so trivial, so insignificant, when measured against real, life-altering, soul-crushing suffering. Sometime once said something to be that went like like, "Someone out there would trade anything to be in your position”. I try to keep that in mind every day. I try to practice gratitude for the fact that I am alive, that I have food, shelter, that I'm in a place of relative safety.

It's rough, though. It's a constant balancing act. I don't necessarily know how to stop feeling this sort of weight of suffering that the world experiences. I don't see it in a completely doom-and-gloom way either. I know that suffering can be remedied, sometimes. People can heal, situations can improve. There is resilience, there is kindness, there is action. But at the same time, it happens in so many different varieties and flavors, on so many scales, that it becomes overwhelming.

If I could change anything, at the very least, I wish for the people that are in my life to not suffer so much. Or to suffer less, if that makes sense. Whether it be the loss of a loved one, which is a pain so deep it feels like a part of you is gone. Or the loss of an animal, a companion whose absence leaves a quiet, empty space in the house. Or even losing a job, with all the uncertainty and fear that comes with it. I wish we could all just skip that. Just bypass the mess of it all.

Again, I know this can be an extreme catalyst for growth. I've seen it. I've experienced it. Without suffering, without challenges, we might honestly go stagnant, maybe even a little crazy from the lack of contrast. But it still stings me nonetheless, that fundamental unfairness of it, and I don't know why it affects me so deeply. Maybe it's just empathy, or maybe it's something else. Everyone carries around their own little weight, or sometimes a big weight. And all I can ever think of is trying to have compassion and empathy for these individuals. Because deep down, under all the adult layers, the responsibilities, the worries, there's still a kid. A kid who liked firetrucks, or collected smooth rocks in the shape of hearts, or had a favorite cartoon. They, too, were kids that just grew up, got older, and now have to do adult things, navigate a complex and often painful world. And maybe remembering that, remembering the child within everyone, is the only way to make sense of the weight we all carry.

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Synchronicities. Destined to happen for billions of years, and then lost to the past for eternity. Those moments when you're thinking about someone you haven't spoken to in a while and they text you seconds later… or when you keep seeing 111 everywhere you look. Makes me wonder… Are these moments completely random? Are they somehow intentional? Were they destined to happen this way, or am I witnessing something genuinely spontaneous?

From what I understand, synchronicity happens when you're in the right frame of mind to notice it. It's not that the universe is literally handing you a sign (at least I don't think). It's more that your brain starts filtering reality differently. Take for example when you're deep into a new subject, and suddenly you see references to it everywhere. It's not that these references didn't exist, you just weren't tuned into noticing them.

Sometimes these moments feel too perfect to be just coincidence, too meaningful to be random chance. Like that one time I booked an Airbnb in Salt Lake City. I arrived first because Emma was flying in and her mom was going to grab her from the airport. When I got there, something about the place felt strangely familiar. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but I knew I'd seen it before. When Emma arrived with her mom, both of them froze in complete shock. Turns out, we had unknowingly booked Emma's childhood home. The sheer magic of that moment was nothing short of amazing. Of all the places in Salt Lake City, somehow we ended up in the exact house where she grew up. Total coincidence? Maybe. But something tells me there is more.

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There's this concept I've been playing with for a while now. I call it "intentional happenstance." Sounds contradictory, I know, but I think it captures the essence of what synchronicity is. This weird middle ground where chance and purpose meet.

With this idea in mind, I've started experimenting with setting intentions for any given day the night before. Nothing crazy, just simple questions like "show me what color shirt I should buy." Then, I move through the next day with extra awareness, not forcing anything but remaining open to what comes my way. It's genuinely wild how often something meaningful appears. A passing conversation with a stranger who talks about their favorite blue sweater, or finding a book at the neighborhood little libraries that talks about psychological effects of blue.

By setting an intention the night before, I feel I've created a sort of space for meaning to emerge from randomness. Like I've invited meaning in, and meaning accepted the invitation. Intentional happenstance at work.

Humans have been pattern recognition masters since we first looked up at the stars and drew constellations. We can't help it. We create systems to organize chaos and find meaning, crafting lenses that we can swap in and out to make our world of endless information a little easier to navigate. I map meaning through planetary houses and aspects in astrology… while others see it in bible verses or numerology. The medium changes, but the impulse stays the same. To find order in what might otherwise be a senseless world.

My system for the past year and a half has been Astrology. There was a time when planetary movements meant nothing to me. Just distant balls of gas and rock moving through space. But then I started paying attention. Mercury retrograde wasn't just some internet meme or excuse to be crazy, and Saturn returns actually marked a restructuring of my home life that I could experience.

There's something nice in thinking there might be some hidden pattern underneath it all. Like maybe we're all part of some bigger play, and these synchronicities are just little moments when we get an accidental glance behind the stage.

Maybe, and hear me out, these moments only feel meaningful because we decide they are. We're the ones connecting dots between random events, turning them into stories that feel significant.

But what if that's the whole point?

What if reality is this weird dance between what objectively exists and how we subjectively experience it? Like we're all co-creating this thing called life, working alongside whatever cosmic forces might be out there. The universe throws raw materials our way, and we shape them through how we see and respond to them. Our attention and openness to possibility subtly shapes what unfolds around us. This is why we must be careful what thoughts we allow into our mind.

I've started to think of synchronicity this way. As a collaboration between me and the creator. The events themselves might genuinely be random, but the meaning I extract from them is almost like my contribution to reality. My interpretation of my birth chart isn't what the planets were doing when I was born, it's the story I'm telling myself about who I am and what I'm here to do.

It's funny because with this idea, you're telling me my choices and perspective have led me to where I am right now? That my current place in life is 100% due to my own actions and choices? Get out of here. That's almost as awful as realizing that exercise and good sleep do indeed make you feel good. I swear, when I finally experienced it I couldn't believe it. They were right all along. But it felt wrong for it to be right in way. Like, how could something so basic be so important? Yet, how dare you not let me continue in my self-destructive behaviors.

The same goes for intentional happenstance. Part of me resists the idea that simply shifting my attention could change my experience so dramatically. It seems too easy. Shouldn't profound cosmic wisdom require more effort than just... I don't know… noticing things differently?

Here's the cool part. The more I practice this intentional awareness, the more synchronicities I seem to experience. Now the question becomes: am I creating these meaningful alignments by looking for them, or am I simply noticing what was already there? It's like quantum physics, where the act of observation changes what's being observed. By looking for meaning, I create the conditions for meaningful experiences.

My astrology practice is less about predicting the future, and more about creating a framework for understanding my present. When I read that a full moon in Scorpio might bring emotional revelations, I become more attuned to my emotional landscape. Is that self-fulfilling prophecy or cosmic guidance? Maybe it's both.

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The best part of all this is that no matter how you look at it, it can all be true at the same time. Maybe these moments are just random coincidences we give meaning to. Maybe they're glimpses of some cosmic plan. Maybe they're manifestations of our unconscious mind.

Or maybe, and this is what i’m leaning towards, they're all of these things at once. A beautiful contradiction that reminds me how little I actually understand about... well, anything.

What I do know is that when I stay open to these moments and when I let myself wonder about them without needing to explain them away, life feels richer somehow. Like that moment in Salt Lake City, standing in Emma's childhood home by pure chance. These unexpected alignments add a layer of wonder to everyday existence.

And in a world that often feels so disconnected and random, maybe that's enough. Maybe the point isn't to solve the mystery of synchronicity but to live within it, to dance with uncertainty, to practice intentional happenstance as a way of engaging more fully with whatever this wild, weird existence actually is.

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I notice it most on Zoom calls. That split-second flicker across someone's face before they compose themselves. A micro-flinch when their phone buzzes during a conversation. The way their eyes dart to another screen when they think I can't tell.

These tiny moments reveal more than words ever could.

Once, during a team huddle, a teammate’s camera froze just as our manager asked about how an important deal was going. When he returned, his voice, pitched slightly higher than before said "Sorry about that, my internet's been spotty all day." But his perfectly stable connection for the previous 40 minutes said otherwise.

Was it deliberate? Did he need those extra seconds to formulate an answer? Or was it a genuine technical difficulty that just happened at the right moment?

I observe and note these situations more often than I care to admit. Not to judge, but because it’s fascinating.

And if I recognize it in others, it’s only because I’ve done the same. I too have muted myself to sigh deeply, turned off my camera to check my phone, or sent a private message to a colleague while nodding at whatever’s being presented. These digital masks we’ve created both reveal and conceal us, molding the way we operate in these spaces.

What does it mean that we've developed these new forms of hiding in plain sight?

The text message typing indicator might be the most anxiety inducing symbol of our time. Those three bouncing dots that appear when someone is typing, then disappear, then reappear… What happened in between? Did they delete everything and start over? Did they decide not to respond at all? The ellipsis holds the potential energy of communication without delivering it.

I watched those dots appear and vanish a few times the other night when I asked my coworker how they felt now that they had a new job and were leaving. When the message finally arrived, it was just "I feel fine". Those three words, scrubbed clean of whatever raw emotion had been typed and deleted multiple times.

What lives in the space between what we almost say and what we actually send?

Voice notes, my personal favorite, have their own special kind of intimacy. The background noises that can be heard (dishes clattering, a dog barking, wind against the microphone) add a rich contextual soundscape that let’s me piece together their moment in reality from audio bits.

My coworker sends voice messages while driving to work early in the morning. I hear the low hum of the highway, the faint click of a turn signal, or the brief pause to say their order at the Starbucks drive-thru. These little sounds add a warmth and depth to our digital conversations that a polished text message could never.

But, even voice notes have their performances. The shift into a more polished tone when recording, or that self-conscious feeling that creeps in when we know we're being recorded.

Do we ever truly communicate, at least digitally, without performing in some way?

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Another favorite of mine is Slack or MS Teams, platforms that have created their own strange behavioral ecosystems. The green "active" dot, signaling availability and attentiveness. It's absurd when you think about it, the idea that a tiny green circle can carry such expectation. I've experienced first hand colleagues apologize sincerely for taking five minutes to reply to a message, as if this brief delay were a cardinal sin.

I catch myself doing the same thing, feeling guilty for stepping away from my desk without updating my status as “away” or feeling irrationally annoyed when someone doesn't respond to my urgent message, only to remember they're in a meeting I'm supposed to be in too… oops.

Being unavailable feels (to me at least) like such a transgression. It's weird to notice always being available has become a sort of proof of my reliability / character. What does it mean about me? About us?

And then there's the sheer absurdity of choosing the right reaction emoji in Slack or Teams. It's genuinely hilarious how much emotional energy goes into selecting just the right cartoon icon to respond to someone's message. I remember last week when my coworker announced they'd finally finished a challenging task they'd been struggling with for days. I hovered over the reactions looking and thinking… thumbs up felt dismissive, but applause seemed like i’m mocking them, and the heart just didn’t make sense… Perhaps party popper? Nah, too celebratory for something routine.

30 seconds into searching desperately for something nuanced enough to communicate what I felt (a blend of acknowledgment and genuine appreciation) I caved, worrying about taking too long to react at all, and picked the simple thumbs up… then immediately regretted it.

Why does choosing an emoji feel like making a moral judgment call? How did we get here?

The most fascinating behaviors are in the states between digital and physical presence. The colleague who's assertive and opinionated in Slack but barely speaks in video meetings. The friend whose text messages are short and rare but whose voice notes ramble on with vulnerability and nonsense. There are so many different versions of ourselves that exist across different platforms.

I wonder if we're more authentic in some spaces than others, or if authenticity itself is just another performance we've learned to calibrate for different audiences.

I catch myself in these digital behaviors typing, deleting, and retyping a message to strike just the right tone, or feeling that bit of anxiety when a call runs long and overlaps with another commitment, forcing me to be the asshole that has to end the call. I'm both the observer and the observed in these situations and it’s so funny.

What parts of ourselves are we losing in these translated interactions? What new forms of connection are we gaining?

The pandemic thrusted us into these digital spaces faster than we wanted, but we were already heading there. Now we exist in this liminal place between physical and virtual presence, developing new social norms and signals as we go. The slight nod to indicate you're listening on a video call. The reaction emoji that fills in for a laugh or a frown. The carefully chosen profile picture that represents you in your absence.

I find it fascinating honestly… this evolution of human connection into something more mediated and more controlled, but no less real.

Maybe the most human thing about our digital interactions is how imperfectly we manage them. The accidental reply-alls. The unmuted comments meant to be private. The video calls we rush into late, frazzled and unprepared. In these moments of digital failure, our humanity shows itself most clearly.

I don’t know if we’re becoming more connected or more isolated—maybe both at once. But I do know that in this new world of half-presence, we’re inventing languages of here and there, of attention and distraction, spoken not with words, but with read receipts, typing indicators, and the hesitation before hitting send.

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As some of you may have noticed (absolutely nobody noticed), I haven’t written anything in the past three weeks. I could throw out a handful of excuses (interviewing for jobs, family visiting, competing life priorities) but at the end of the day, that’s all they are. Excuses. I just didn’t want to write bad enough, despite the commitment I made at the start of the year to write one piece every week… which bothered me in a way I can’t put my finger on.

Since October 2024, I’ve been on something of a self-improvement sprint. Health, posture, work, communication, writing, marriage, addictions. If it’s something I can optimize, I’ve probably tried. Partly because I want to grow and give myself the life I actually want, but also because my city sucks and there’s nothing else to do. So, might as well work on myself.

With all of these efforts, I go through cycles. One week I’m locked in, and the next I’m struggling to do even the bare minimum. Writing, though, was different. It was interesting because for nine weeks straight, it didn’t take any effort to sit down and do it. Sure, ideating, drafting, and editing all took time, but none of it ever felt like a chore. If anything, I looked forward to it. I went to bed excited to wake up the next morning, knowing I’d get to write.

I was on a feel-good streak for quite a while. I was keeping my word and doing something consistently. But, as always, life had other plans.

Though I’d love to blame good ol’ “life just got busy,” I can’t totally do that for this one. The first week I slipped up and didn’t write was 100% my fault. I had written (subjectively, at least) a great piece on the lie that is digital privacy. It was different from my usual writing, and I was excited to put it out there. But the day before posting, I had one shred of doubt. My piece sounded too formal and stuffy. So I edited a few parts... Then a few more… And each time I touched it, it would just get worse. Four hours later, the whole damn thing was just awful.

To make matters worse, I neglected to make backups and there is no undo button on my editor (lesson learned). I just had an amalgamation of words that lost all structure.

Frustrated, I slammed my laptop shut and told myself I’d fix it in the morning. Alas… the morning came and I didn’t even look at it. A day passed, then two, then three, then a week. Before I knew it, I had broken my streak.

That should’ve bothered me more. But it didn’t. Some part of me was… okay with it? Not in a dismissive, “I don’t care” way, but in a “this isn’t the end of the world” way if that makes sense. And that, above all else, bothered me. I should have been scrambling to get back on track, making up for lost time. After all, I had made a promise to myself. Instead, I just let the gap widen. And that’s what I’ve been turning over in my head for the past few weeks. What is it in me that is able to let go of commitments so easily?

Because it’s not just writing. I’ve done it with TikTok, with YouTube, with building the digital product I keep telling myself I’ll start. It’s like the second something feels difficult, I mentally shelve it, trusting that I’ll “come back to it” later. But later comes, and I don’t. And each time I do that, I reinforce the idea to my subconscious that my commitments don’t actually mean anything.

My relationship with discipline has always been avoidant. My shadow is that I hate that discipline requires work, that it’s uncomfortable. But I think it’s less about the discipline itself and more about how I handle discomfort. It’s not pain or exhaustion that gets me, it’s frustration and difficulty. The second I get a shred of challenge, my brain immediately looks for loopholes or means of escape.

The worst part is that I’m really good at justifying those loopholes. I tell myself “I’ll come back when I’m in the right mindset” or “I should let the idea breathe.” or “I need to be in the right creative flow.” But honestly, it’s all just a dressed-up excuse for “I don’t feel like being uncomfortable right now.”

It’s a pattern I’ve had for as long as I can remember, with strings that lead back to various parts of my childhood. I could sit here and psychoanalyze myself all day, but at the end of it, the reality is that I can be as self-aware as I want, but self-awareness doesn’t change anything unless I do something about it.

Maybe it’s a form of self-trust? Or maybe a lack thereof? Maybe I trust myself enough to know I’ll come back? But then I don’t. I just don’t show up for myself… which just reinforces to my subconscious that my commitments aren’t a priority.

Maybe it was perfectionism? If I had just posted the damn thing, even if it wasn’t exactly the way I wanted, I wouldn’t have broken my streak. But I didn’t… And for what? What was I even trying to avoid? My ego? Perhaps. It’s silly to think I derailed my entire piece for a few edits that no one but me would have noticed, all to meet some illusory standard that only I care about. No one else would have even noticed the difference.

But I noticed… And I know myself too well to pretend this was a one-off mistake. This is a pattern, but knowing that doesn’t make it any easier. Awareness doesn’t erase my instinct to avoid and hold off just a little longer. But if I keep waiting for things to feel “perfect” I’ll never get anywhere.

I don’t want to be someone who only stays committed when things feel easy. That’s not real commitment. It’s just convenience disguised as discipline. I made a promise to myself at the start of this year to stay on track always… Not just when motivation was high or things lined up perfectly, but also in moments when I don’t feel like it… when it would be so much easier to let it slip just a little further.

Can’t deny it though, it’s just so hard sometimes. But I guess that’s the point. If it were easy, there’d be nothing to overcome and nothing to be proud of on the other side, and everyone would do it.

So yeah, I’m back on track. No grand epiphany. No breakthrough. Just me deciding that I’m not going to let this slip any further. I said I’d do this, so I will. Simple as that.

I want to be someone who keeps their word. Not only to others, sure, but to myself. Because if I can’t trust myself to follow through on the things I claim to care about… What am I even doing?

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But Allen you’re Sag Rising the astrologer on TikTok how could you say that?

Here me out.

I get two sorts of reactions when I tell people I study astrology: “oh you’re into that bs? haha crazy. I’m candy-corn what does that mean?” Or “oh my god I am a gemini and I hate being quiet I can talk all day haha!”

I don’t argue, because both are missing the point. Like most beautiful traditions of the old world, they’ve been stripped away from their magic and turned into a product for the masses.

Astrology was never supposed to be what it is now, which is a quick personality diagnosis or an excuse to justify bad decisions. It was something vast and sacred rooted in observation, symbolism, and an understanding that everything in existence moves through cycles.

Some of astrology’s earliest roots trace back to the Babylonians. They were mapping the heavens because they (like almost every old culture) believed the stars and planets reflected the divine order, a cosmic clock ticking in sync with the fate of empires. Their astrology wasn’t personal; it was political, reserved for kings and rulers, those whose choices could actually shift the balance of power. They watched eclipses as omens, tracked Jupiter for signs of prosperity, and feared Mars for its warlike influence, not because it made them personally aggressive, but because its movement seemed to align with real-world happenings.

Then the Greeks expanded it, integrating it with their philosophy and their obsession with the nature of the self. This was when natal astrology, the kind we see today, started to emerge. Instead of only predicting the fate of nations, astrology became a tool for understanding individual lives. The houses, aspects, and planetary rulerships all were developed as a way to map out a person’s potential, their struggles, their inclinations. I wouldn’t consider this shift a corruption of astrology though. It was more of an evolution. Building off the work the Babylonian’s already did to make something new and more intricate.

But what started as a language for introspection got twisted into something far more rigid. We went from seeing astrology as a symbolic tool to treating it as a fixed script, something that defines us rather than something that helps us reflect. Instead of using it as a way to explore the patterns in our lives, people use it as a way to explain away their behavior. “I’m just moody because I’m Scorpio.” Sorry dude… you’re just being an asshole. The planets aren’t responsible for your actions or choices.

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The stars are not beaming traits into your soul. The ancients never thought the planets caused anything. They saw them as reflections, not rulers. As mirrors reflecting the forces that already exist. But now, astrology has been flattened into a series of 12 generic signs, each with deterministic labels that strip away its depth. People don’t engage with it, they consume it, and treat it like a cosmic diagnosis rather than a symbolic language. In doing so, they miss the point entirely.

But does that mean astrology is wrong? Probably not.

Because if you really pay attention, there are patterns. Life moves in cycles. The universe itself is fractal, built on repeating structures that scale infinitely. The moon affects the tides. The seasons change in predictable rhythms. Our bodies, our minds, our histories… they all move in loops with the same lessons resurfacing time and time again. I think this is why no matter what esoteric tools you use (tea leaves, human design, numerology), they all seem to work. Like the rest, Astrology, at its core, is an attempt to track those rhythms, to find meaning in the echoes and synchronicities that shape existence. And maybe there’s something to that. Maybe the sky really does act as a reflection of some deep underlying order we don’t fully understand.

But recognizing patterns isn’t the same as surrendering to them. Correlation isn’t causation. The beauty of our souls is that they have free will. We are not “entirely” bound by the forces that be. We have a choice. Astrology can offer insight, symbolism, and a way to understand the repeating cycles in your life… but it’s not a law and certainly not an excuse.

The stars don’t control you. They never did. But if you pay attention, they might help you understand something deeper…

If you’re willing to listen

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There’s something silly about the way people cling to their beliefs in a universe where nothing is certain. Unwavering voices declaring that this is the hill they’ll die on. A performative declaration that they know.

I’ll admit, this bothers me. I can’t fathom being so sure of anything when reality itself is unknowable. Not just in a grand cosmic sense, but in mundane day to day way. Most, if not all of us are just guessing. Even when we call it knowledge or science, we’re still just stacking assumptions on top of each other hoping the tower holds.

And yet, people move through life making real-world decisions seemingly from a place of blind arrogance. They act as if their beliefs are absolute, never questioning whether they stand on solid ground. There’s no pause, just the immediate knee jerk reaction to defend what they’ve always known like their life depends on it.

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I get it though. Certainty is a survival mechanism. Not knowing is scary and it’s what makes people grasp for answers, even bad ones.

Starting early in life, we’re pulled further and further from our ability to think for ourselves. On top of that, we’re constantly beaten down by an onslaught of lies and misinformation from governments, corporations, and the media. Institutions that claim to have our best interests in mind as long as it benefits them first. Take any major event: wars, elections, economic collapses. We’re fed carefully crafted, emotionally charged narratives, and people accept them at face value, even when history has shown time and time again that those in power manipulate stories to serve their own interests.

It’s interesting to think that for many, belief seems like a product. Belief systems (religious, political, personal) gain power by selling ready-made truths to the masses, packaged and marketed like a commodity. A shortcut through the discomfort and a way to latch onto something as if they’d earned it. But they didn’t. They bought certainty the way they buy fast food. Cheap and deeply unsatisfying if you stop to think about it too long.

Even beyond societal structures, I still don’t understand how someone can be so sure of anything given the sheer oddity of reality. We don’t know why we are here, what we’re doing, or where we’re going. The entirety of human understanding is built on a series of approximations. We do the best we can, but we don’t actually know what the hell is going on.

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With that in mind, how could one be so arrogant as to think their heuristic for understanding the world is the correct one? Have they ever opened themselves up to the possibility that they might actually be wrong? Has anyone sat and thought to ask the right questions?

No. They haven’t.

That’s the part that bothers me the most. Not that people believe things, but that most people never question how they came to believe them in the first place. This isn’t because we’re stupid; it’s because we’ve been conditioned not to.

Don’t know what your body is telling you? See a doctor for their expert opinion. Can’t handle emotions? See a therapist. Can’t be creative? Let AI generate something for you. We’re constantly reminded to trust things outside ourselves and to not ask too many questions.

But when you do? When you don’t just accept what’s given to you? You become the problem.

It seems like people don’t believe things because they’ve reasoned through them. They believe them because they’ve heard them enough times from their favorite people. Familiarity breeds comfort, and comfort masquerades as truth.

My shadow (and yes it is a shadow that I believe needs to be worked on) is to challenge them. To push back and to invite them to explain why they’re so damn sure. Not even to change their minds, but just to make them look at what they’re holding as truth and see if it makes sense.

Maybe it’s Libra’s North Node tendency toward fairness. Maybe it’s balance. Or maybe it’s just my own need to counterweight extremes. I can’t help but see all sides of things, and it bothers me when others refuse to. Still, I understand the power of conviction, but I also know how fragile it is when it’s not built on something real. Thing is, I don’t even want people to be weak in their beliefs. I just want them to recognize the weight of what they’re holding.

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I think people confuse beliefs with values. To me, beliefs are fluid. They shift with experience, new information, and time. Values, though, are the foundation. They’re what remain steady beneath the changing surface of belief. They are not the same. We don’t build our lives on beliefs, we build them on values.

And this is where I wrestle with myself. Society tells men to be unshakable, and I get why. No one wants to follow someone who wavers in conflict. We need leaders to be sure of themselves and to make choices without hesitation. This expectation is so deeply ingrained that even I, writing this, question myself. Is my resistance to blind certainty its own kind of arrogance? Is my frustration with others’ convictions just insecurity disguised as self-awareness? Probably. But I don’t know.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe the moment we stop questioning is the moment we start losing sight of what’s real. Maybe doubt isn’t the enemy people think it is. Maybe it’s the thing that keeps us from getting swallowed whole by dogma.

I don’t need to be right. I just need to be willing to be wrong. Because if certainty is what keeps people comfortable, then doubt is what keeps them honest.

And I’d rather stay honest.

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The mens circle I am a part of goes the same each time. We vow to hold space for our fellow brothers, to see them, and to be authentic in how we show up today. Then, we do a quick check-in. Two to three words max of what's alive for you. Good or bad. Once everyone has checked in, we move onto the prompt. All pretty standard for a group like this.

A couple weeks ago, a prompt came up that has been on my mind lately. The prompt was "When have you thought you were being a leader only to find out your leadership was misguided or misguiding and what happened?" Followed by "How do you see yourself as a leader today and how to do you hope to lead in the future?" We were given 5 min to jot down some notes and think.

At first, I drew a blank. There have been few times in my life where I had made an effort to lead something, but I’ve never really seen myself as a leader. I’m not the kind of guy who jumps up and says, “Follow me!”.

It’s not that I’ve actively avoided it, I just think that it's something I’ve never trusted myself enough to claim. Maybe it's lack of confidence? A shitty self-image? Something else? I was always of the belief that I wasn't meant to take up space and that leadership was for other people... The loud and confident ones... Not me. As I sat there though, combing through my experiences. It’s not that I’ve never been a leader, it’s just that I’ve only ever been one when someone else decided I should be.

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Okay, so with that in mind, when I was being a leader (whether forced or not), did I lead from the heart in those moments? If I didn’t, why not? What does that even look like?

The five minutes ended, and I still hadn’t settled on an example. I held my breath, hoping not to be called first. I wanted to speak, but I needed to hear someone else’s story first, to see if it would spark something in me. To my joy, the day's facilitator said you only needed to share if you felt compelled. Nice.

As I listened to the first man talk, I went back to my train of thought. Why have I so often been placed into this position? I'm so often thrown into moments where a group of people will look at me and energetically tell me "what do we do?" or "what do you think?”

I started to spiral a little. Is it the way I carry myself? Is it written on my forehead? If we want to get esoteric about it, my life path number is 1, and according to that, I'm natural-born leader. I'm also a Sagittarius rising, making me optimistic, fiery, expansive. Lastly, I was born on a Thursday, which is Jupiter’s day, the planet of abundance and leadership. To a certain extent, it makes sense. But, esoteric things aside, there is also something undeniable about how people react to me. I’ve been told many times that my words carry weight and that people value my opinion, presence, and ideas.

It’s not something I tried to cultivate either (at least, not consciously). It’s just there. And yeah, I’d say I’m good with people. Years in sales and consultative has sharpened my ability to connect, to read a room, to understand what resonates. Causing me to build up this unspoken social currency if you will. It’s flattering, but also strange, like there’s this version of me other people see that I’m still trying to catch up to.

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Now, from the lens of leadership? That's a different story. You see, when I'm thrown into the spotlight, I (like anyone might) get a boost in confidence. Because of this though I fall into a trap that I wasn't even aware of… People pleasing.

As a kid, I learned that being “good” was about being what others needed, not being myself. Proper manners and polite smiles, all carefully rehearsed to ensure I took up less space and didn’t inconvenience anyone. Because of this, I became a master at shrinking myself, a kid whose value was measured only by how easy I could make life for others despite myself.

Looking back, I laugh at how much effort I put into erasing parts of myself to keep the peace. A whole personality on standby, ready to morph into whatever just in case someone needed me to be someone else. People praised me for it too, which made it so much worse. “Such a polite boy,” they’d say. Not knowing the tightrope I was walking in making sure everyone else was okay and appearances were met while leaving my own needs behind. It honestly explains the absurd arc that was my college days…but that’s a story for another time.

It’s not tragic. It’s just the hand I was dealt as a kid. You don’t get to ask for a redo.

That’s the wound I’ve been dragging with me ever since. Appearances first, authenticity last. And now, every time I’m in a leadership role, that wound rises again like muck I can’t clean off, reminding me it’s easier to please than to lead.

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The man had finished talking and all eyes were on the screen, who was going to go next? I started to hesitate, with that little voice whispering: “maybe I won’t say anything.”

But that…that right there. There it was. The wound, rearing its head. I noticed it immediately and thought, Fuck it. I’m going to say what I need to say.

I started speaking, nervously because I was unsure if what I was saying would land. But then, like it always does, it hit. In fact, it struck gold. My story resonated, visibly, with so many of the men. The entire vibe of the meeting shifted as my words dug up memories in other men. Private messages poured in afterward, with men telling me I’d made them realize deep things they’d never considered.

And there it was again, the power I hold to share ideas that stick. Except this time, it was different. This time, it wasn’t about saying what I thought people wanted to hear. It was me. Speaking from the heart. Speaking from my center.

I turned to the second part of the question: how I want to lead in the future.

It reminded me of a book I recently read, The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Klemp. Specifically, Commitment 5: “I commit to saying what is true for me, to being a person to whom others can express themselves fully, and to eliminating gossip.”

I told the group that for so long, I’d led from a place of people pleasing and keeping the peace at the expense of my authenticity. But I’ve realized that true leadership for me at least, is about that balance: speaking with conviction while staying open to perspectives that challenge my own. That’s the kind of leader I hope to be.

As I wrapped up, I looked around the group and felt the weight of their attention. In that moment, I learned my last lesson...Leadership is something you step into, moment by moment. It’s not given to you. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about showing up as yourself and inviting others to do the same.

It’s crazy beautiful in my own romantic way. That day, by stepping into my center and speaking from a place I’d spent years hiding, I let myself be seen. And in that moment, I wasn’t just describing the leader I hope to be… I was becoming him.

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I love space and have always been obsessed with it. As a kid, I’d spend hours staring up at the night sky, wondering what it must be like up there, out there. The idea that humanity could reach out into the stars, and maybe even have dominion over something as vast as the galaxy, is arrogant yes, but also awe inspiring. It’s hard not to be amazed when you see a rocket lift off and watch it pierce through the atmosphere knowing that brilliant human minds across the world continue to push the boundaries of what we thought was possible. We're witnessing history, with the knowing that someday, humanity will live among the stars. Something about it stirs this primal feeling of... hope? Hope that humans, no matter what, will prevail and that we are capable of more than we think.

Yet, here’s where it starts to feel complicated for me: what are we actually chasing? Sometimes I wonder if our obsession with space is just a reflection of how restless we are. We’ve built all this technology, pushed our knowledge further than anyone could’ve imagined even two generations ago, and yet aren't satisfied with the mystery of it all. We keep wanting more knowledge, more answers, more... something.

I get it, it's really cool and humbling to think about the idea of other worlds and of being part of something so vast and unknown. But again, what are we really chasing out there? We spend BILLIONS to send rockets up to land on barren wastelands and moons and planets that do nothing for us. For what? Some crusty samples of rock and dirt? Maps of canyons we’ll never step onto? It's information for the sake of information. I’m not trying to dismiss the coolness of discovery or the thrill of imagining life on some distant planet... but really though... what does it do for us right here, right now? We’ve got problems at home. People struggling to survive, the planet literally crying out for us to pay attention. Yet, we’re pouring so much energy into figuring out if there’s water on some planet in some galaxy billions of light-years away. It's almost like we’re skipping steps. We’re so eager to look outward that we’re ignoring the inward, the work we need to do here, in the places we can actually touch and see.

Alright, this is the part where I invite you to put on your tin foil hat. Standard issue Reynold’s Wrap works but if you’re looking for a premium conspiracy experience, might I suggest an artisanal foil from Whole Foods? (Fun fact, tin foil stopped being made after WW2 in favor of aluminum foil because it was cheaper and more durable. We still call it Tin foil though because, humans.)

Anyways, I often wonder… is it all a distraction? There’s this spiritual idea of the "center," an unmoving, sacred point where all things emerge and converge. In my men's group and in esoteric teachings, the center is seen as the where heaven and earth meet and where the origin place of everything began. To journey inward or to the center is to return to the self, to the essence that has always been and always will be. Like the Hermit in the tarot though, the Hermit ventures alone, seeking not outward treasures but the truth that has always been waiting within.

But, here we are, constantly being nudged to look outwards, to chase after things that pull us further from that center. What if this push toward space is part of a broader agenda to take us away from that truth? To keep us so focused on the stars that we forget to see what’s right in front of us… within us? It's weird, I know, but when you start to look at history, it’s not that crazy to think about. The more we’re pulled outward, away from Earth and away from the self, the more disconnected we become. The intention of distraction aside, there’s something about the constant narrative of humanity’s insignificance that feels off. All you ever hear is that we’re just a speck of dust on the cosmic stage. That we’re small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. And sure, maybe that’s true in an objective sense, but there’s something about it that feels like belittlement. An attempt to shrink our sense of presence and power. I can’t help but wonder if that messaging is designed to keep us in check, to make us feel like we don’t matter. Why look inward anyway if we’re just a tiny blip in an infinite void?

But what if the opposite is true? What if our existence here, on this planet, is the most meaningful thing of all? Earth is our home, physically and spiritually. It’s where we grow, where we will die, and where we make sense of who we are. But the more we glorify the idea of leaving in the name of progress or exploration, the more we weaken that connection. It’s subtle, but it’s there. A quiet narrative that says “Earth isn’t enough.” That the answers lie somewhere else... if only we can reach them. It’s funny in a way. The more we try to conquer the stars, the more we lose sight of what it means to truly belong. That’s the irony of it all. Space exploration feels both meaningful and misguided. Like a dog chasing a car... once we catch up to the car then what? Would we know what to do?

Maybe there’s something noble in that, even if it doesn’t always make sense. It is after all the whole idea of purpose. But there’s also something dangerous about it that makes me wonder if we’re being steered away from the very thing that could save us. I say this and yet, I can’t help but feel the pull. I mean, how can you not be amazed by the thought of being an interplanetary species? It’s the kind of thing that makes you question everything, your place in the universe, the fragility of life, the sheer unlikeliness of it all. Maybe that’s why we explore, why we reach for the stars. Because it reminds us of how precious and rare we are, even in our smallness.

Could we feel that same awe without leaving? Probably. We could look inward and find galaxies there, whole universes waiting to be explored. In doing so we could find that the answers we’re chasing in the stars are already here, within us, waiting for us to pay attention.

It’s not as glamorous to do so at all. It’s harder, messier, and less likely to end up on news or social media. But it’s real… And maybe that’s what scares us most, the reality of facing ourselves.

But, what do you think?

With every day seeming to have an announcement of some new AI advancement, with talking heads saying "this is it! this is the end!" it's been on my mind a lot. Not in a doomsday, "we’re all screwed" kind of way, but not in a wide-eyed, “it’s going to save us from ourselves” way either. Just… contemplating it. Trying to make sense of where it fits into our reality or if it even does at all. Is it a paradigm shift or just another distraction?

There is a question I keep honing in on which is: why we are so insistent on making it human like? Literally nobody asked for that. Nobody said, “Hey, can you make a chatbot pretend to have emotions and make mistakes like uh and like a human?” The goal (or at least that's what they told us) was always utility. Tools were supposed to make life easier, that help with the boring, mundane tasks of day to day modern society. But now, humans have done what we do best and we've started to make it weird.

It makes me wonder... are we trying to fill some void? Or have we become so disconnected from our own humanity that we’re trying to outsource it? I don’t know. But it feels like a sinister trap and attempt at getting us to hand over what little humanity we have left.

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We see this outside of AI too. I was watching an upcoming AirPods rumor video (I know I know) and the host was talking about a rumored feature that will supposedly let the AirPods tell you when you have a fever using temperature sensors in the earbuds. People in the comment section were ecstatic, talking about how useful this will be and praising Apple for their innovation like it’s the best thing since sliced bread. I’m sitting there thinking, how the hell did we get to the point where we need a watch to tell us we have a fever? Isn’t that one of the most basic human functions? You literally can FEEL when you have a fever, it's something you just know. But now, here we are excited to offload that awareness to a machine. Why? Because it’s easier and we've been taught to not trust ourselves anymore when it comes to our health or anything for that matter. Little by little, we’re outsourcing our own intuition, our judgment, to machines that don't actually know what's going on.

It’s the same with creativity. “Can AI be creative?” Honestly, I think that’s the wrong question (the answer is no by the way but that's a convo for another time). The real question is, Why does it need to be? Real creation is raw... It’s messy... It’s vulnerable. I think that's why people are so eager to hand it over to machines. They want the finished product without the discomfort of process. To just skip the struggle and effort... Even though that's where the real creativity happens.

Here's an interesting thought: We’re building systems to make decisions for us on what to watch, what to eat, who to date. Why? It's the land of the free, so why does freedom feel like a heavier burden than the chains we once wore?  Because somewhere along the way we were made fearful of making the wrong call. Freedom is the weight of choice, the endless responsibility of your fate resting in your hands. No chains bind you now, but the decisions you make will...and that's stressful..so we hand it over wherever we can, losing core parts of the human experience.

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It’s funny. It reminds me of the story of Tower of Babel or Icarus. We build these technological towers or wings, thinking one day we'll reach escape velocity and transcend our limitations. Yet, the story always ends the same...With broken structures, people speaking different languages, or wings that have melted. It all collapses, and we’re left with ruin. That’s what I see happening now.

All that said, this is where my own hypocrisy comes in. Do I use AI? Absolutely. Will I continue to learn what it can do for me in different parts of my life? 100%. Is there a part of me that I have reel in from getting too curious and letting it consume me? Yea :/ I’m not going to sit here and pretend I don't. However, I am blessed with the fact that i’ve got people I care about and thatymca I’m responsible for. I don’t have the luxury of checking out of the world just because I don’t like where things are headed...at least not yet. I’ve got a life to build and a future to secure, and if there are tools that help me do that more efficiently, I will use them. Not for the sake of staying "relevant", but for the sake of knowing when to pick up the tools at hand and when to put them down.

Still, there’s a balance I have to keep tabs on. AI makes things faster, more efficient, but it has a price. And if there’s one thing about me, I’ll always be tempted to push boundaries and see how far I can take it. Every time I do, I pull myself back (actually it's usually Emma that pulls me back) and ask: What am I handing over here?

Last interesting thought to close this out this rant... In a way, AI is just a mirror. It’s revealing us. Everything we hand over shows what we value, what we fear, or what we’re too lazy to do ourselves. Maybe a Skynet situation isn’t the real danger here. Maybe it's what we let ourselves become as we use it.ccv

Will we see ourselves in that reflection and make changes? Or will we let ourselves get sucked in completely until there’s nothing left to recognize?

After all, AI will never know what it’s like to be human... But it could very well make us forget.

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The other day, I was on a walk contemplating how I could be more extreme in my political and religious beliefs and a thought occurred to me. Having kids is the singular most human thing we can do. You're probably thinking "well no shit"...but hear me out. The more I think about it, the more I realize how fundamental this is to our existence. Our purpose biologically or spiritually, is literally to create life. If you reframe the idea, it starts to become less of an obligation and more of this mind blowing sacred act.

It's so ritualistic. We create our own little Garden of Eden by having two people (ideally embodying their respective divine masculine and feminine energy), come together to raise a new consciousness. A little being who will grow up, explore this reality, and eventually go off to start their own loop. Creators creating creations who will create more creations, forever. A fractal pattern of both inward and outward. I've sat with this for a minute and I feel like this is exactly what God (or whatever you chose to call it) had in mind all along.

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This realization sparked within me, a deeper desire to be a father. Not in some "maybe someday" kind of way, but in a real, tangible sense. I want to step into that role. The thing though, is that I know myself, and I know that this desire comes with a whole lot of responsibility. I can't just want it, I have to be ready for it. I know there's that whole cliché about how there's never a perfect time to have kids and sure, life is unpredictable. I get that. But as a conscious creator, I also think there's such a thing as a better time. A more thoughtful time.

Right now, for me, that means taking a hard look at myself and asking: Am I ready to bring a whole new being into this world? Am I ready to be the kind of father who shows up fully? The answer at least for now is "not yet." I've still got work to do. My physical, mental, spiritual, and financial health isn't where I'd like it to be and I refuse to pass on my broken pieces to my kid. I can't promise they'll come out unscathed (because who ever does?), but I can make damn sure I can do my best not to add more baggage to their load.

Interestingly though, the path forward is clearer than it's ever been. This desire to be a father has become my North Star. It's reframed everything from how I make decisions, to what I prioritize, and what I need to let go of. Every choice now goes through that lens of: Does this help me become the man I need to be to raise a child? If the answer is no, well then I move on. If it's yes, I lean in. It's really that simple. So much so that I'm like...wait really?

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I guess this is what people mean when they talk about "purpose." I used to think purpose was this far out abstract thing, something you had to find or that came to you in a burst of inspiration mid acid-trip. But now I think purpose is just the thing that makes life make the most sense. It's the thing that simplifies everything else. For me, that's fatherhood. For someone else, it might be something different. But once you find it, it's like you can see how everything falls / will fall into place. Not perfectly, but clearly.

Cool thing is, I can already feel myself shifting because of it. Even in these early stages, I'm noticing how my priorities have changed. The things I used to care about even just a year ago feel absurd now. Aspirations that once seemed important have fallen away. I find myself thinking about Emma in a new way too. How will I care for her when she's preggy? How will I support our family when life inevitably throws curveballs? How do I make sure I'm showing up for everyone, including myself?

These aren't new questions by any means, but they hit different now. They feel heavier. More real. And I'm realizing that this isn't just about me anymore...but then again, it never really was. It's about what kind of legacy I want to leave behind. What kind of world I want to bring my kid into. And what kind of man I want to be in the process of that.

I think what I'm trying to say is... this isn't just about fatherhood. It's about purpose. Once you have a purpose, life starts to simplify in a way that feels both terrifying and liberating. It's not that life gets easier (far from it actually) but it does get clearer. The distractions sort of fade away, and you're left with this one guiding light helping you march forward.

I'm learning to trust that light. To lean into it, even when the path ahead feels uncertain. Because as I've said before: life rarely unfolds the way we plan it anyway. I don't need to control every detail of the journey. I just need to keep moving toward that North Star and trust that I'll get to where I'm meant to be.

For now, that's enough.

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A couple of months ago, the startup I worked for got acquired. Since then, I’ve taken on a new role in the larger company that bought us. Going from a actually fun 30-person team to a 900+ employee conglomerate was, to put it plainly, not fun. My original team were so human and full of people I considered friends. My new team is great too—don’t get me wrong—but it’s just not the same. But life happens, and it is what it is.

My role shifted too. I moved down from AE to BDR (a demotion). If you know anything about the sales landscape, this sucks. It wasn’t the outcome I’d hoped for, but job hunting during the holidays sounded much worse. So I took it, figuring I’d spare myself the stress.

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You’d think, having done the role for quite some time, I’d slide right into it at the new place...nope. Turns out, familiarity doesn’t equal ease. Processes and even the rhythm of the team were foreign. It was like being a cashier who knew the job but couldn’t work the register, and it stressed me out more than I care to admit.

Maybe it’s my people-pleasing tendencies and the fear that, despite being two weeks in, I wasn’t producing enough. My brain legit kept spiraling down negativity lane, even though, objectively, I knew I was just starting. So no shit... But emotionally, I just couldn't give myself a break.

Why is it so hard to stand in the discomfort of not knowing? I hate it. Come to think of it though...isn’t that everyone? Humans as a whole hate what they do not know.

If you have ever felt like this, know that it is a universal thing...this aversion to uncertainty. We’re wired to look for ways we can take control or have that security. It’s why we check the weather obsessively or why we Google the shit out of something instead of letting our brains ponder it for a sec. Not knowing feels like a threat, even when it’s harmless.

I’ve been thinking a lot about where that comes from. Society? Or is it ingrained deeper? Perhaps it’s the perception of “instant success” we’re surrounded by on social media. The stories we’re told are all about the wins, the “look how far I’ve come” moments. Nobody talks about the hours spent in the arena of struggle, the in-between of 0 to 1. It isn't pretty and doesn't get views on socials, so why bother? So when we’re in it...when I’m in it...it feels uniquely awful in a way, like I’m the only one struggling.

I’ve also realized something else though. The moments of not knowing, of being new, are where the real growth happens. It’s cliche, I know, but it’s true—it pushes us out of our comfort zones and forces us to build new skills, habits, and ways of seeing ourselves. They’re uncomfortable experiences because they have to be. It sucks, but alas, growth isn’t supposed to feel cozy.

Still, despite knowing this and telling you with confidence behind my keyboard with a smug look on my face, I’ve still got a long way to go in making peace with it. I despise not knowing. To think there are things I don’t know that I don’t know...ah! But I’m learning, slowly (and I mean slowly), to sit with it. If you’re new at something right now, welcome to the club! The discomfort sucks, but it’s also proof you’re on the right path.

This is the mindset I’m committing to for 2025: embracing the uncomfortable, the unknowing, the new. That’s the path that’s going to take me to where I need to go. In the meantime, I’ll be here, steeped in the constant newness of my job and my writing. And maybe, just maybe, if the gurus are right, I’ll learn to love it so much that I seek it out.

Guess we’ll see.

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I have moved quite a bit in the last few years. From different parts of Utah, to Mexico, to Oregon, and now good ol' hot, dry, dusty Tucson. One could say that each move was a carefully crafted escape plan, a new and shiny solution to my problems.

In Utah, the sprawling suburbs felt like they were suffocating us with their perfect lawns and identical houses. Oregon, with its permanent state of moldy wetness and grey gloom, slowly doused our spirits in endless darkness. And Mexico... let’s just say Mexico was everything all at once: too much, too fast, and too foreign.

Now I’m here in Tucson, and the cycle continues. Emma (my wife) and I find ourselves doing what we always do: dreaming of somewhere else. We lose ourselves in fantasies of returning to the PNW, of having a fireplace, of feeling that bitter coldness that makes blankets and movies feel as festive as the time of year.

I'm snapped back into my 75-degree and incredibly sunny reality by the sound of a soul-crushingly loud car speeding down the road (third one today). It’s that awful time of Saturday at 1 p.m. We drank coffee in hopes of motivating ourselves to take on the day, but instead, we’re just anxious, wishing that the weather reflected the December festivities so we could excuse being inside, cozy, and "lazy." Alas... this is the desert. We don’t know what to do, so we do what we do best: go on a walk.

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Despite being marginally better than staying inside, if it weren’t for our daily walks, I don’t know where I’d be. They provide just enough relief to keep me from going insane and are the backdrop for some pretty awesome conversations and problem-solving.

Every time I think I’ve solved a problem, another pops up. It’s easy to point fingers when you’re stressed about money or work. But when those stresses are taken away and life objectively gets better, why is it I still feel this way?

I do the usual mental gymnastics: "Maybe I need more supplements," or "If only I had even MORE money, then I could buy things that would make me happier." It’s the same cycle over and over, and I’m sick of it.

In this world of endless rings and dings, I’ve become a stranger to myself. My inner temple remains neglected, and I only catch glimpses of it’s mess when my phone dies or our favorite show ends.

Honestly, my discontentment doesn’t stem from the fact my apartment is suffocating or that the nearest "forest," if you can call it that, is an hour and a half away. No... it’s just me. I try to reason with myself: "Nah, surely my unhappiness is because of things out there. If I just had X, or lived in Y, or had Z amount of money, then I’d be better equipped to be happy." But why can’t I just be happy now?

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It’s crazy to watch myself get back on the treadmill of distraction, chasing the next high or low, anything to avoid facing my inner world. I’ll grasp at half-assed plans, side hustle ideas, YouTube, and comfort food like a lost man at sea clinging to his raft, trying to stay afloat in the ocean of my own discomfort.

It’s moments like these when it hits me: I’m a full-blown addict... with my favorite drug being avoidance.

Avoidance can be dosed in so many ways, like a drug with infinite forms. It can come as a move to a new city, the thrill of a shiny new object, or the endless scroll on social media. Each dose offers a momentary high, a brief escape from the discomfort of the now... from the gnawing feeling that something isn’t right. But like any drug, the relief is temporary…A lid on the deeper issues that quietly stew beneath the surface.

I’ve fallen into this trap more times than I can count. Each time, I convince myself: surely this time will be different. But no... the cycle stays the same. The thrill of the new fades, the shine wears off, and I’m left staring down the same restless emptiness as before.

After several breaking points, I finally sat myself down and asked: what exactly have I been avoiding? A flood of unresolved things bubbled up, things I thought I’d buried long ago. And then there it was... this glaring realization staring back at me. You hear so many stories of people who "made it." They got the car, the partner, the house... everything they ever thought they wanted. And yet, they still spiraled into despair or total self-destruction. It was like the very act of achieving their dreams had robbed them of their purpose. A sobering reminder that external successes can’t guarantee internal peace.

I thought about this... like I REALLY big-brain thought about it... and it spooked me. No matter how much I gained, no matter what milestones I reached, if I didn’t get a grip and deal with this, I was doomed to live in the same unhappy loop forever. I don’t know about you, but personally, I’d rather not.

So, I’ve been trying to figure it out. Why does this happen? Where does it come from? The hard, and slightly uncomfortable truth is that the real work lies within. It’s about turning inward, facing the fears and unresolved emotions I’ve been dodging for years. More than that, it’s about accepting that, as cliché as it sounds, life’s meaning isn’t in the destination. It’s in the journey. It’s in the work of striving for something, of setting goals and navigating the mess of wins and losses along the way.

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Here’s the absurd part in my opinion... Now that I know what’s going on, are there cool action items I can take now? The answer is no. The solutions aren’t exciting. They’re not quick fixes, flashy epiphanies, or grand revelations. It’s much simpler and boring... and that’s to just take it one day at a time. I can only worry about what’s in front of me right here, right now.

The future doesn’t exist, and the past is already gone. Any attempt at planning for the future or reminiscing about the past takes me out of the present, which I feel is slipping by faster and faster as I age. I’ve spent the last four years in a state of past or future, and very little in the present. It’s not easy, though. It’s messy, uncomfortable, and often feels absurd... but maybe that’s the point.

I find comfort in reminding myself: how often do things go exactly as planned anyway? Almost never. Goals and intentions might be achieved, sure, but the path to get there is rarely the one we imagine. Life has this habit of throwing curveballs, and learning to roll with them, to let go of the need for everything to go exactly our way... I think that’s where growth happens.

Let me be clear, though... this isn’t about giving up on dreams. It’s about holding them lightly, with grace, instead of choke-holding them with desperation. It’s about setting intentions and trusting that life will unfold the way it needs to. What’s for me will come to me, and what’s not doesn’t matter because it’s not for me. And that’s okay.

Maybe this is what surrender really means. Letting go of the illusion of control, embracing life as it is... messy, beautiful, unpredictable. And maybe, just maybe, in that surrender, there’s a kind of peace that’s been waiting for me all along.

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