New Dharma
I don’t think there’s any point in talking about anything but the big things anymore. Everything else is dust. I used to think that becoming a better person was peripheral to my life goals. Now I realize that that is the only life goal worth pursuing.
The contradictions of the world are reaching their apogee. Things are changing. The old truths don’t work anymore. We need new truths. It should be exciting, but I feel like I’ve been prepared my whole life until now for a world that no longer exists, a world that turned out to be a fucking mirage.
These are the end times, and all of my years of anxiety have ironically prepared me for them. I'm no stranger to despair. A broken clock will be right eventually. But I also have a son, so how do I balance my despair at what I see with caring for him? Just because you're fighting a losing battle doesn't mean you can opt out. It's like Krishna told Arjuna: you have to take part. You can't opt out. In times of despair the notion of duty becomes important.
But what does that look like at the present moment? What does the fulfilment of duty in the face of very real dark forces look like in 2026?
I spent my whole life thinking that a career would make me whole, that this is the utmost purpose in life: Find one's calling. We've seen this notion taken to Machiavellian lengths in America. Yeah, I'm mentally ill and dysfunctional but it doesn't even matter anymore. If I'm mentally ill then that doesn't say much for everyone else. I've spent my whole life trying to self-medicate and therapize and force myself into cooperation with a sick society, to force my square ass body into a round hole.
The pendulum has swung too far in the direction of materialism, of temporality, of vanity. Maybe the only thing to do is to stand at the vanguard of these new values, to play a role in carving out this new morality. What more important work could there be right now? What greater gift could there be to the future? Also, there's nothing to lose at this point in joining the revolution, or at the very least feeling free to do what you want in this versus what is societally prescribed: what the boomers don't get is that whether the younger generation plays by the so-called rules or not, they're still not getting a house. People don't have careers anymore. Why be loyal to a company? What nonsense is that. Better off being loyal to something or someone that cares if you live or die. We're expendable to the government and to our employers, so we might as well go where we're valued, which is to say not fucking here, or at least not continuing to live here in the manner that we have been.
But all I see among the young people is a frantic clinging to the promises of capitalism. An even more fervid and rapacious adherence to the tenets of the very system that is collapsing in front of their eyes, as if these games are desperate to get in on the game before it's over. The propaganda is strong. Who even wants to play the game of capitalism anymore? Only the young and naive, only the politically unconscious, only the morally depraved and the folks too old and too stubborn and too greedy to change.