"I have long adored this song written by the late Leonard Cohen, and performed impeccably by Jennifer Warnes. This is the performance at "Night of the Proms" in Antwerp in 1992. I have edited the audio from the Famous Blue Raincoat 20th Anniversary edition."
"Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the most influential and controversial thinkers of the 19th century, dared to gaze into the abyss of existence. He strongly opposed the “herd mentality.” He thought religion, morality, and systemic values and beliefs prevented people from reaching their full potential. Nietzsche wrote extensively about his approach to life in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, and The Genealogy of Morality. His challenge to humanity? Transcend your limitations and become the Übermensch, the ultimate human being.
Nietzsche thought the only way to become the very best version of yourself is to shatter the shackles of mediocrity. Forge your own epic destiny. “Do you want to have an easy life? Then always stay with the herd and lose yourself in the herd.” - Friedrich Nietzsche
But how does one become an Übermensch? What steps can you take to unleash the badass within? Before we get to that, let’s break down Nietzsche’s superhuman concept.
What is the Übermensch? The Übermensch is not a superhero or a god. It is an ideal, a way of being characterised by strength, independence, and a will to power. The Übermensch is not afraid of hardship or suffering, for they see these things as opportunities for growth. The conventions of society do not bind them, for they forge their path. And they are not content with mediocrity, for they strive to achieve greatness in all that they do. “You must be ready to burn yourself in your own flame; how could you rise anew if you have not first become ashes? - Friedrich Nietzsche
How does one become an Übermensch? It’s a life path of self-discovery and self-creation. If you are called to the path of the Übermensch, there are no easy answers. Übermensch requires you to challenge everything you think you know about yourself and the world. If you are willing to put in the work, the rewards are beyond measure.
Step 1: Make peace with “amor fati”: “My formula for human greatness is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not in the future, not in the past, not for all eternity. Not only to endure what is necessary, still less to conceal it - all idealism is falseness in the face of necessity - , but to love it…” - Friedrich Nietzsche
The first step on the path to Übermensch-hood is to cultivate an amor fati. This Latin phrase means “love of fate.” The Übermensch accepts everything that happens to them, good or bad: the glorious sunrises and the winter cold, the whispered joys and the deafening sorrows. It’s the Übermensch’s secret weapon, transforming every experience, no matter how challenging, into fuel for epic growth.
Amor fati is not about resignation or passivity. It doesn’t mean ignoring pain or pretending it doesn’t exist. Or passively accept whatever life throws your way. It’s about acknowledging it, feeling it fully, and then choosing to rise above it. It’s the full embrace of life, knowing that every difficulty and setback is an opportunity to learn, grow, and become something more. It’s about actively choosing to affirm everything that happens to you, good or bad. Nietzsche believed that suffering is inevitable but also an opportunity for growth.
Think Viktor Frankl, the author of "Man’s Search For Meaning." He survived the horrors of Auschwitz and found meaning in the darkest depths of human suffering. It’s a testament to the power of amor fati, of finding the light even in the abyss. He famously said, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
When you embrace your challenges, you develop the strength and resilience to overcome them. You become the master of your destiny, no longer a victim of circumstance. When faced with difficulties, ask yourself, “What can I learn from this? How can I grow from this?”
Step 2: Confront your shadow: Becoming an Übermensch is a treacherous climb. One of the most formidable obstacles you’ll face is your own shadow. In Jungian psychology, the shadow is the repressed and unacceptable aspects of ourselves - our hidden desires, fears, and impulses. It’s the darkness we tuck away that whispers insecurities and holds us back. They can be internal, like self-doubt or external, like the pressure to conform to the expectations of others. But the Übermensch knows that the shadow is not something to be feared but rather something to be integrated.
Ignoring the shadow is a recipe for stagnation. To truly ascend to Übermensch heights, we must confront it head-on, not with fear but with unflinching courage. Denial is futile. Instead, observe your thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. Notice the patterns, the triggers that unleash your inner demons - envy, rage, jealousy. Don’t judge, just observe.
Get into your past, into experiences that might have shaped your shadow’s contours. Were you ridiculed? Abandoned? Abused? Understanding the roots of your darkness offers valuable insight and compassion. Once you know your shadows, accept them, not with resignation, but with understanding. Acceptance is the key to disarming the shadow’s power.
Channel your anger into passion, envy into ambition, and fear into caution. Transform your shadow from a monster to a powerful ally. As Nietzsche wrote, “The man who does not value himself cannot be valued.” The darkness can become the fertile ground for self-discovery and transformation. Think of it this way: the Übermensch isn’t someone without darkness but someone who has mastered their darkness.
Step 3: Become who you must be: “Call me whatever you like; I am who I must be.”
- Friedrich Nietzsche
The Übermensch does not conform to the herd mentality. They do not conform to the expectations of others. Instead, they create their own values based on their unique experiences and perspectives. Creating your life code is a deliberate process of crafting principles that fuel your ascent to greatness. It’s the bedrock of your Übermensch self. What do you value most in life?
Your deep values are beyond what is expected of you. The first step is questioning everything - the expectations thrust upon you, the ideals deemed “normal.” Analyze them, dissect their origins, and see if they resonate with your inner compass.
Go into the depths of your being. Who are you, stripped bare of external definitions? What ignites your soul? What brings you a sense of awe and purpose? Explore your passions, your fears, your strengths, and weaknesses. Introspection informs the foundation of your values.
Once you know your values, you can live with integrity and authenticity. The Übermensch is not content with living a small life. They set goals that are so big that they seem impossible. But the Übermensch knows that anything is possible if you are willing to work for it. Immerse yourself in the words and lives of those who dared to forge their paths. Philosophers like Nietzsche, artists like Van Gogh, and scientists like Marie Curie offer valuable insights into their struggles and triumphs.
Step 4: Channel your will to power: “The higher we soar, the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly,” Nietzsche said. Once values clear, the Übermensch is free to create themself anew. This is where the will to power comes into play, the driving force that propels us towards our highest potential.
The will to power is the driving force of the Übermensch. It’s the relentless pursuit of self-improvement and self-actualization - the desire to become the best version of yourself, physically, mentally, and spiritually. It’s about mastering yourself and pushing your limits.
Every setback is a chance to refine your skills, strengthen your resolve, and emerge stronger. It’s the alchemic process where the Will to Power shines brightest. Nietzsche reminds us that “the highest good is not to overcome others, but to overcome oneself.” The Übermensch is not defined by their victories over others but by their victories over themself.
The Übermensch isn’t just a doer but a creator. Channel your Will to Power into shaping your own life and your work. Don’t be afraid to experiment, to break boundaries, and to express yourself. As you learn and grow, your goals, your methods, and your understanding of self will transform. Embrace this fluidity, and never stop striving to become the best version of yourself. No one can build your bridge for you
“Nobody can build the bridge for you to walk across the river of life, no one but you yourself alone. There are, to be sure, countless paths and bridges and demi-gods which would carry you across this river, but only at the cost of yourself; you would pawn yourself and lose. There is in the world only one way, on which nobody can go, except you: where does it lead? Do not ask, go along with it.” - Friedrich Nietzsche
The final step to becoming the Übermensch is to live meaning, transforming the mundane into the extraordinary. Nietzsche encouraged us to “dance through life” to find joy and meaning in the very act of being. “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music,” he wrote. The Übermensch does not wait for life to happen; they create it. They are the artists of their own destiny, leaving behind a masterpiece. But the path to becoming the Übermensch is not for the faint of heart. It is long and full of setbacks.
But the rewards are immeasurable for those willing to take up the hammer. “No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself,” says Nietzsche. Before you go, remember: becoming the Übermensch is a marathon, not a sprint. It’s a lifelong way of life that is constantly evolving."
"What if the real apocalypse isn’t outside us, but within us? In this video, we dive into Carl Jung’s prophetic warnings about the “age of filth” - a time when humanity would drown in distractions, illusions, and emptiness, while the soul withers in silence. Jung foresaw a mental apocalypse: the collapse of meaning, the rise of mass conformity, and the eruption of the repressed shadow into chaos and despair. Yet within this crisis lies an opportunity. By facing our inner darkness, reconnecting with archetypes, and awakening to the Self, Jung believed we could transform the apocalypse into a revelation - a rebirth of consciousness."
"Blood in the Air: The Secret History of How Military Scientists at
Fort Detrick Spent Thirty Years Teaching Ebola to Kill Through the Lungs"
by Milan Adams
Excerpt: "Late October in northern Virginia carries a specific quality of light, thin and metallic, as if the sun itself has begun to withdraw from the coming winter. On the morning of October 30, 1989, this light fell across the loading dock of a commercial building on the outskirts of Reston, Virginia, where a freight truck from John F. Kennedy International Airport had arrived after driving through the night. The building belonged to Hazelton Research Products, a company that imported nonhuman primates for American scientific laboratories, and the truck carried one hundred wooden crates from the Philippines, each containing crab-eating macaques captured from the forests of Mindanao, transported by air through Amsterdam, and finally to this anonymous address where they would spend thirty days in quarantine before being sold to researchers across the country.
The macaques that emerged from those crates on that Monday morning could not have known that they had already been exposed to something lethal during their journey, that a virus had traveled with them across three continents, that their destination was not merely another cage but a historical moment that would change how humanity understood one of the most feared pathogens on earth. They were simply animals, frightened, dehydrated, huddled in corners of crates that smelled of urine and fear. Workers in blue coveralls moved them into a holding room designated with the letter F, a space with concrete floors, stainless steel cages stacked five high, and a ventilation system that connected to adjacent rooms through ductwork that would soon become evidence in an epidemiological mystery.
Within seventy-two hours, the first deaths occurred. Not the gradual decline of illness that veterinarians recognize, but sudden collapse. A macaque found in the morning hanging from the cage bars, motionless, blood crusted around its nostrils. Another discovered in the corner of its cage, having hemorrhaged from its rectum through the night. By November 7, when Hazelton’s staff began documenting the pattern, they noted symptoms that defied their experience: epistaxis, hematemesis, bloody diarrhea, and most disturbingly, blood that refused to clot when drawn for testing, remaining liquid in collection tubes where it should have gelled within minutes of contact with air.
Thomas Geisbert, a twenty-seven-year-old civilian researcher employed at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Frederick, Maryland, received a phone call on November 13. Geisbert was completing his doctoral dissertation in microbiology while working full-time at USAMRIID’s electron microscopy unit, and he had developed a reputation for skill in identifying filoviruses - the family that includes Ebola and Marburg - from tissue samples. The call came from Peter Jahrling, a senior USAMRIID virologist who had been contacted by Hazelton’s veterinary staff. Something unusual was killing monkeys in Reston. Could Geisbert examine samples?
The tissue arrived that afternoon. Geisbert processed them through the negative-staining protocol he had perfected, applying phosphotungstic acid to viral particles and examining them under transmission electron microscopy at 50,000x magnification. What he saw in the darkroom that evening, developing the photographic plates by hand, stopped his breath. Filamentous particles, some straight, some curved into the distinctive shepherd’s crook shape that characterizes filoviruses. Ebola, or perhaps Marburg. In Virginia. In monkeys. In a commercial quarantine facility with connections to the international primate trade.
By November 28, when Geisbert’s identification was confirmed by additional testing at USAMRIID and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the situation had deteriorated. Mortality in Room F had exceeded fifty percent, and more disturbingly, animals in adjacent rooms - Room H, Room J - were showing signs of illness despite never having shared cages with infected monkeys, never having touched contaminated blood, never having been handled by the same staff without protective equipment. The only connection between these animals was air. The ventilation system that maintained negative pressure and filtered exhaust air nonetheless recirculated portions of the supply air between rooms, and viral particles small enough to remain suspended had traveled through ductwork, establishing infection in new hosts through the respiratory route.
Colonel David Huxsoll, commander of USAMRIID, faced a decision. The building in Reston was not a military facility. It was a commercial operation in a suburban office park thirty miles from Washington, D.C. Yet the threat required military containment protocols. On December 7, 1989, Huxsoll authorized Operation Reston - the military takeover of a civilian facility. Soldiers in protective gear joined civilian veterinarians. Two hundred macaques were euthanized over three days. Some received lethal injection of sodium pentobarbital. Others were placed in carbon dioxide chambers. Their bodies were triple-bagged in plastic biohazard pouches, loaded into military vehicles with refrigerated cargo compartments, and transported to Fort Detrick where they were incinerated at 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, temperatures sufficient to destroy viral RNA."
"Reports claim that Russian lab worker may have caused community transmission of deadly pulmonary variant of Yersinia pestis.
For centuries the word “plague” (la peste in French, la peste in Italian, die Pest in German) instantly truck terror in the hearts of everyone. The worst outbreak of the plague, also called the “Black Death,” in history was in 1347. It is now believed to have originated in the Chuy Valley of Kazakhstan and spread along trade routes before reaching Europe by way of rodents such as black rats infesting baggage trains and ships. The rodents were infested with fleas that acted as as vectors for the Yersinia pestis bacterium. The rats and fleas quickly infested ports, trading centers, and overcrowded medieval towns and cities with poor sanitation.
Major European outbreaks occurred between 1347 and 1353, killing an estimated 25–60% of the population in affected regions. The Great Plague of Marseille in 1720 was the last major epidemic in Western Europe, while Russia recorded the Russian plague of 1770–1772 in Moscow.
The cessation of outbreaks in the 20th century is largely attributed to improved urban sanitation. San Francisco experienced a minor outbreak in 1907-08. The last (minor) outbreak in Europe was in 1945 in Taranto, Italy at the close of World War II.
What are we to make of recent reports of the death of a laboratory technician at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Shelekhov, near Irkutsk? Local and independent Russian outlets identified her as 28-year-old Darya (or Daria) Shipilova. She was hospitalized on or about 29 September with severe pneumonia, placed on a ventilator, and died on October 2. Nearly 200 contacts were placed under medical observation, hospital wards were quarantined, and regional officials spoke of anti-epidemic measures. A U.S. State Department official said Washington was monitoring reports of a fatal case of suspected pneumonic plague.
According to the official Russian account provided by the Rospotrebnadzor (federal consumer-health agency) the victim was diagnosed with “pneumonia of unknown aetiology” and that expanded testing did not detect microorganisms linked to her work. It also denied that a laboratory accident involving pathogenic organisms had taken place.
Unofficial accounts, including from the regional outlet People of Baikal, said she told staff she had broken a test tube of live bacteria around 25 September. The head of neighboring Buryatia said she had died “possibly from the plague,” while denying any outbreak in his republic. Some reports also mentioned a field trip near the Mongolian border, so the source of infection - and if it was indeed plague - remains disputed.
Here it is important to understand the distinction between the endemic reservoir of plague - also known as Bubonic plague (from boubon, Greek for “groin” or “swollen lymph node).
Swollen groin lymph node from bubonic plauge.
The Endemic Reservoir (Bubonic): The disease naturally circulates permanently in wild rodent populations, particularly marmots and ground squirrels, across the steppes of Mongolia and Russian border regions like Altai, Tuva, and Buryatia. When humans contract it directly from these animals (via flea bites or handling meat) it typically manifests as bubonic plague.
The Pneumonic Form: Pneumonic plague - the highly lethal lung infection that spreads person-to-person through respiratory droplets - is not independently endemic. Instead, pneumonic plague occurs secondary to a bubonic infection when the bacteria spreads to the lungs, or during sudden localized outbreaks or laboratory accidents.
Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Shelekhov claims it is in the business of studying plague in a region where the bacterium is endemic. Naturally one wonders - as one should wonder about all biosecurity labs operating in the world - if the true purpose of the lab is to conduct bioweapons research.
Japan, the Soviet Union, and the United States have all weaponized the plague bacterium in the past, though these programs were ostensibly terminated by the Bioweapons Convention that went into force in 1975.
Pneumonic plague is known to cause person to person spread, but with far less efficiency than the spread of viral respiratory infections such as the common cold, flu, and COVID-19. Once the bacteria reach the lungs, they can be expelled in respiratory droplets when the patient coughs or breathes closely with others. Inhalation of these droplets can produce primary pneumonic plague in a new host, often within a few days, and that form can then transmit onward the same way.
Bubonic plague does not readily pass from person to person unless it progresses to the lungs. Untreated pneumonic plague is frequently fatal, but antibiotics are effective if given early. According to the latest reports, a plague outbreak in Shelekhov has not been officially confirmed, and authorities say the regional situation remains stable. The incident occurs at a time when the West appears to be spoiling for war with Russia, so reporting from both sides is likely contaminated with propaganda.
Nowadays I often think about Albrecht Duerer’s 1498 woodcut depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
The painting depicts the passage from the Book of Revelation (6:1–8):
"And I saw, and behold, a white horse, and its rider had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer. When he opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, 'Come!' And out came another horse, bright red; its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that men should slay one another; and he was given a great sword. When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, 'Come!' And I saw, and behold, a black horse, and its rider had a balance in his hand; ... When he opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature say, 'Come!' And I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him; and they were given great power over a fourth of the earth; to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth."
"A strange story unfolded in Russia after a 28-year-old employee of an anti-plague research institute in Siberia died from what was described as pneumonia of unknown origin. This event triggered international headlines suggesting a pneumonic plague outbreak, mass quarantines, and a potential lab leak. However, Russian health authorities stated that testing did not identify any microorganisms related to the woman's work, and the epidemiological situation was stable. This raises questions about the narrative's origin."
"Trump just signed an executive order on diesel prices - and it could cut costs by 24.4 cents per gallon. But it won't lower gas prices, and it won't work instantly. In this video I break down what the red-dyed diesel order actually does, who saves money (truckers, farmers, off-road drivers), why the IRS penalty waiver through the end of 2026 matters, and why experts warn about potential shortages. With national diesel at $6.31 and regular gas at $4.36 as of October 6, 2026, even a 64-cent combined federal + state saving still leaves us far above last year's $3.67. You'll learn the difference between normal diesel and red-dye diesel, how the 24.4 cent federal tax deferral works, what happens next year when the tax comes due, and why Goldman says refinery limits could keep diesel high through 2027."
"Is China on the verge of an economic collapse? China has eliminated hundreds of banks as Beijing moves to consolidate its banking system, while serious problems continue to develop in China's property market, local government debt, bad loans and banking profitability. In this iAllegedly report, 670 banking institutions have disappeared, China's struggling rural banks, the property boom and ghost cities, government debt, weakening credit and the billions of dollars being used to strengthen major Chinese financial institutions. Is this simply banking consolidation - or is China trying to contain a much bigger financial problem? What happens in China could matter to the entire global economy, including American businesses, consumers, manufacturers, banks and investors.
China's economy is deeply connected to global manufacturing and supply chains, and financial problems involving Chinese banks, property developers and local governments could create consequences far beyond China's borders. Dan breaks down the warning signs, explains why the banking system matters, examines the connection between property values, debt and credit, and asks the bigger question: is China's economic crisis already underway?"
Ardmore, Ireland - "Want to know where the US is headed? Want a peek at the future? Here it is: more inflation. More than you expect. We depend on rising interest rates and the ‘bond vigilantes’ to ride herd on inflation. Instead, they will drive up the real costs of moderate inflation…leaving hyperinflation as the likely outcome. Our WWII debt was disarmed by inflation. Slow and steady, like termites eating through untreated wood, it cut about two-thirds of the real value of the debt by the 1970s. People hardly noticed. Why not make it ‘work’ for us again?
And you might think — or POTUS might believe — that we could stomach a few years of 10% inflation and thereby wipe out a big piece of all the US national debt. Smooth. Reliable. 10% annual price increases. Wouldn’t it be worth it? Forget it.
Inflation, like a traffic accident or a mugging, only really ‘works’ when you don’t see it coming. Otherwise, lenders and consumers take a different route home. They buy before prices rise...and demand higher interest rates to protect themselves from future losses. The higher interest rates add to the carrying cost of debt, chill the economy and lower the feds’ tax receipts – making inflation much less effective.
Inflation has to be a surprise. When the surprise disappears, the authorities either stop inflating...or they go ‘full Weimar’ into hyperinflation. And the ‘bond vigilantes,’ those heroes who pressure the feds to keep inflation under control, may actually make hyperinflation more likely than you think. Suppose Scott Bessent and Kevin Warsh held a joint press conference, maybe on Halloween or April 1st. Imagine that they announced ‘An End to the US Debt...we’re going to let inflation run at 10% per year until we get this monkey off our backs.’
What would people do? Would they roll down their windows and put their purses where they could be easily snatched? Would they sit contentedly, perhaps holding hands, as the feds take away their retirement money? What would landlords do; offer 10-year leases at today’s rates? How about publishers? Would they offer subscribers a chance to ‘lock in’ today’s price for the next ten years?
And the bond vigilantes? What would they do? They’d dump their Treasury debt...demanding interest of 15% or 20% to offset the inflation losses they see coming. But if the feds had to pay so much more in interest - even more than they gained from their ‘inflation tax’ - the grift wouldn’t work at all. The whole point is to allow the feds to spend more money. But once people expect more inflation, the actual spending power of the government goes down, not up. In effect, when the ‘bond vigilantes’ are in the saddle, inflation no longer ‘works.’ The point is obvious. When you drive through a bad neighborhood, you roll up your windows and lock your doors. You don’t let yourself get robbed - not if you can help it.
Even without an official announcement, people can read the handwriting on the wall. As long as the federal government is running $2 trillion deficits, it might as well post its destination like a cross-town bus. No need to spell it out. The federal debt pile gets bigger. Interest rates go up. Inflation too.
Argentina was faced with the choice two years ago. Its annual inflation rate had soared over 250%. It looked like it might soon go into hyperinflation. Voters knew what that would be like. They recalled 1989-1990, when the inflation rate went to 2,600%. They didn’t want to do that again.
Americans have not been exposed to hyperinflation. They have no memory of it and no immune defenses against it. So, it doesn’t take a genius to see where this leads. Members of Congress may fondly recall those glory years - 1980-2020, when they could borrow and print at will...as interest rates steadily went down. Almost none of them understands why inflation no longer works...or remembers an episode of hyperinflation. In America, it is almost unthinkable. And you certainly won’t win an election by thinking about it. Besides, rising prices can still be blamed on other people. Cuts to welfare or the Pentagon cannot.
Here’s what will happen. The feds will allow inflation to ‘run hot.’ Interest rates will go up. They’ll add fuel (more deficits!)...and let it burn even hotter. And then, consumers will anticipate higher rates of inflation. It will be as if the feds had stood on the Capitol steps and announced their intention to destroy the dollar completely. Households will want to get rid of it like a hot potato - sending the inflation rate even higher. Investors will pull their money out of bonds, out of the dollar and out of the country. Where, when, or how - exactly - it earns its ‘hyper’ prefix, we can’t say. But it will be a big surprise to us all."
"Forty years of work, bills, stress, and showing up - and this is what you get? This gritty *Delta King’s Blues* tune is a humorous look at aging, working hard, and wondering where all those years went. Raw acoustic guitar and soulful harmonica bring a rough, honest blues feel - full of frustration, humor, and hard-earned wisdom. Forty years later, I’m still wondering what the hell happened."
“I cling like a miser to the freedom that disappears
as soon as there is an excess of things.”
- Albert Camus, "Lyrical and Critical Essays"
"Let me tell you a story about a haunted house and all the thoughts it evoked in me. Do we believe we can save ourselves by saving things? Or do our saved possessions come to possess their saviors? Do those who save many things or hoard believe that there are pockets in shrouds? Or do they collect things as a magical protection against the shroud?
These are questions that have preoccupied me for weeks as my wife and I have spent long and exhausting days cleaning out a friend’s house. Many huge truckloads of possessions have been carted off to the dump. Thousands of documents have been shredded and thousands more taken to our house for further sorting. Other things have been donated to charity. This is what happens to people’s things; they disappear, never to be seen again, just as we do, eventually.
Tolstoy wrote a story – “How Much Land Does A Man Need’’ – that ends with the answer: a piece six feet long, enough for your grave. As in this story, the devil always has the last laugh when your covetousness gets the best of you. Yet so many people continue to collect in the vain hope that they are exceptions. Ask almost anyone and they will reluctantly admit that they hoard to some degree.
In capitalist consumer societies, getting and spending and hoarding not only lays waste our powers, but it is done on the backs of the poor and destitute around the world. It is a system built to inflame the worst human tendencies of acquisitiveness and indifference since it teaches that one never has enough of everything.
It denies the primal sympathy of human care for all humans as it teaches that if you surround yourself with enough things – have ten pair of shoes, twenty shirts, an attic filled with things in reserve – you will be safe from the fate of the majority of the world’s poor who have next to nothing. It is an insidious form of soul murder wherein one pulls the shades on the prison-house, counts one’s possessions, and shakes hands with the Devil. And it is sadly common.
From attic to cellar to garage, every little cubbyhole, closet, and drawer in this relative’s house was filled with “saved” items. Nothing was ever thrown away. If you walked in the front door, you would never know that the occupants were compulsive keepers. While there were plenty of knick-knacks in evidence like so many houses where the fear of emptiness rules (the emptiness that is the source of freedom and creativity), once you opened a drawer or closet, a secreted lunacy spilled out seriatim like circus clowns from a small car.
Like all clown shows, it was funny but far more frightening, as though all the saved objects were tinged with the fear of death and dissolution, were futile efforts to stop the flow of time and life by sticking a finger in a dike.
Let me begin with the bags. Hidden in every corner and closet, there were bags stuffed in bags. Big bags and little bags, hundreds if not thousands, used and unused, plastic, paper, cloth bags with price tags still on them. The same was true for boxes, especially empty jewelry boxes. Cardboard boxes that once held a little something, wooden boxes, cigar boxes, large cartons, boxes from every device ever purchased – all seemingly being saved for some future use that would never come. But the bags and boxes filled each other so that no emptiness could survive, although desolation seemed to cry out from within: “You can’t suffocate me.”
Tens of thousands of photographs and slides were squirreled into cabinets, closets, and their own file cabinets, each neatly marked with the date and place of their taking. Time in a “bottle” from which one would never drink again – possessing the past in a vain attempt to stop time. These photos were kept in places where their taker would never see them again but could find a weird comfort that they were saved somewhere in this vast collection. Cold comfort by embalming time.
It so happens that while emptying the house, I was rereading the wonderful novel, "Zorba The Greek," by Nikos Kazantzakis. There is a passage in it where a woman has died, and while her corpse lies in her house, the villagers descend on her possessions like shrieking vultures on a carcass. Old women, men, children went rushing through the doors, jumped through the open windows, over the fences and off the balcony, each carrying whatever he had been able to snatch – sauce pans, frying pans, mattresses, rabbits... Some of them had taken doors or windows off their hinges and had put them on their backs. Mimiko had seized the two court shoes, tied on a piece of string and hung them round his neck – it looked as though Dame Hortense were going off astraddle on his shoulders and only her shoes were visible….
The avidity for things drives many people mad, to get and to keep stuff, to build walls around life so as to protect themselves from death. To consume so as not to be consumed. Kazantzakis brilliantly makes this clear in the book. "Zorba, the Greek" physical laborer and wild man, is different, for he knows that salvation lies in dispossession.
"One day he encounters five little children begging in a village. Their father has just been murdered. “I don’t know why, divine inspiration I suppose, but I went up to them.” He gives the children his basket of food and all his money. He tells his interlocutor, a writer whom he calls “Boss,” a man whom Zorba accuses of not being able to cut the string that ties him to a life of living-death, that that was how he was rescued.
"Rescued from my country, from priests, and from money. I began sifting things, sifting more and more things out. I lighten my burden that way. I – how shall I put it? – I find my own deliverance, I become a man."
In the jam-packed attic where there is little room to move with boxes and objects piled on top of each other, I found a large metal four-drawer file cabinet packed with files. In one file folder there was a small purse filled with the following: four very old unmarked keys, six paper clips, two old unworkable watches, a bobby pin, a circular case that contained what looked like a piece of a human bone, a few old medallions, tweezers, four buttons, an eye screw, a safety pin, a nail, a screw, two ancient tiny photos, and a lock of human hair. Similar objects were stored throughout the house in various containers, bags, boxes, the pockets of clothes, in old ancient furniture in the basement, on shelves, in cigar boxes, in desks, etc.
Old receipts for purchases made forty years ago, airline baggage tags, ticket stubs, school papers, jewelry hidden everywhere, old foreign and domestic coins, perhaps twenty-five old unworkable watches, clocks, radios, clothes and more clothes, more than anyone could ever have worn, scores of old pens and pencils, hand-written notes with no dates or any semblance of order or meaning, chaos and obsessive account-keeping hiding everywhere in contradictory forms shared by two people: one the neat freak and the other disorganized.One dead and the other forced by fate to let her stuff go, to stand naked in the wind.
How does it help a person to record that they bought a toaster for $6.98 in 1957 or a bracelet for $20 in 1970 or that they called so-and-so some undated time in the past? What good does it do to save vast correspondences documenting your complaints, bitterness, and quarrels? Or boxes upon boxes of Christmas cards received thirty years ago? Or brochures and receipts from a trip taken long ago? Old sports medals? Scrapbooks?
Photos of long dead relatives no one wants? Fashion designer shoes and coats and handbags hidden in a dusty attic where you don’t even know they are there. An immigrant mother’s ancient sewing machine weighing seventy-five pounds and gathering dust in the cellar?
Nothing I could tell you can come close to picturing what we saw in this house. It was overwhelming, horrifying, and weirdly fascinating. And aside from the useful things that were donated to charity and some that were taken to the woman’s next dwelling, ninety percent was dumped in a landfill, soon to be buried.
In his brilliant novel "Underworld", Don DeLillo writes about a guy named Brian who goes to visit a collector of old baseball paraphernalia – bats, balls, an old scoreboard, tapes of games, etc. – in a house where “a mood of mausoleum gloom” fills the air. The man tells Brian: "There’s men in the coming years they’ll pay fortunes for these objects. Because this is desperation speaking. Men come here to see my collection. They come and they don’t want to leave. The phone rings, it’s the family – where is he? This is the fraternity of missing men."
Men and women hoarders, collectors, and keepers are lost children, trying desperately to secure themselves from death while losing themselves in the process. In my friend’s house I found huge amounts of string and rope waiting to tie something up neatly someday. That day never came.
Zorba tells the Boss, who insists he’s free, the following: "No, you’re not free. The string you’re tied to is perhaps no longer than other people’s. That’s all. You’re on a long piece of string, boss; you come and go and think you’re free, but you never cut the string in two. And when people don’t cut that string...
It’s difficult, boss, very difficult. You need a touch of folly to do that; folly, d’you see? You have to risk everything! But you’ve got such a strong head, it’ll always get the better of you. A man’s head is like a grocer; it keeps accounts. I’ve paid so much and earned so much and that means a profit of this much or a loss of that much!
The head’s a careful little shopkeeper; it never risks all it has, always keeps something in reserve. It never breaks the string. Ah, no! It hangs on tight to it, the bastard! If the string slips out of its grasp, the head, poor devil, is lost, finished! But if a man doesn’t break the string, tell me what flavor is left in life? The flavor of camomile, weak camomile tea! Nothing like rum – that makes you see life inside out."
On the way out the door on our final day cleaning the house, I found a beautiful boxed fountain pen on a windowsill. I love pens since I am a writer. This one shone brightly and seemed to speak to me: think of what you could write with me, it said so seductively. I was sorely tempted, but knowing that I didn’t need another pen, I left it there, thinking that perhaps the next occupants of this house would write a different story and embrace Camus’ advice about an excess of things. Perhaps."
Look around you, see all the fine possessions you have, how proud you are of it all. Then ask yourself how many of them you will take back into eternity when your time comes. None. No, you will take out exactly what you brought in... nothing, "and all your money won't another minute buy." Fill a bowl with water, and place your hand in it, then take it out. The hole left in the water is how long you'll be remembered. You are, as we all are, "dust in the wind..."
Nixon pulled another when he ended the ability of foreign nations to bring piles of dollars and walk away with piles of gold. He made the tower even shakier as he threw gold out, entirely as a standard. The good news was that Americans could once again own gold. The bad news was that dollars were no longer money – they were cash – not backed by anything.
And could be printed at will. Another Jenga™ piece on top. The tower becomes a bit wobblier. And wobblier still as Nixon and Ford and Carter start printing. I mainly blame Nixon, since he got the ball going, and it took the hand of Reagan reaching out to steady the tower, though that created the very deep 1982 recession.
Reagan, though, added his bit as well. Sure, it made sense to try to spend the Russians into the ground – after the 1982 recession the economy came roaring back as The Wealth Pump started in earnest and the stock market soared. But during this time, the market cheered as jobs left the United States. In many cases, the jobs were subsidized by the country taking them. They wanted to build up the industrial expertise so that they could make world-class products and were willing to pay for their economy and workers to learn how to do it.
On the government side, fiscal responsibility seemed to come back for a bit with Bill Clinton. Now, don’t thank Bill – it was entirely based on Newt Gingrich stopping all the nonsense for a few years that primed the pump of the economy. While Hillary is an ideologue, Bill was always in it for the hot chicks. Sure, there were shenanigans, but the Jenga™ players were mostly playing it safe during that time period.
But when the recession hit in 2000? George W. Bush really wanted to open the floodgates, so he started stacking as high and as fast as he could. War helped him move a few Jenga™ pieces, and low interest rates in his “everyone who breathes should own a McMansion” policy fueled an amazing set of bubbles that ended up including housing, natural gas, crude oil, and what was left of my hair.
The path out of the Great Recession was a simple one. Print more money. People aren’t buying United States Bonds? Heck, the Fed® can buy them now. We can also pay Wall Street to launder all the bad debt and make sure that irresponsible bank vaults get filled to the top with cash. Because, why not?
Obama took some Jenga™ pieces from the very bottom and put them up top because he wanted to get health care into the system.
Trump didn’t add too many blocks to the top of the board, at first. Trump was mainly because he was focused on deals – immigration, trade, covfefe. But he couldn’t make a deal with COVID. His instincts were bad and his solution was just to stack more blocks up top by printing money and cramming it down people’s throats as fast as he could.
Biden doubled down on that strategy: importing illegals by the truckload to paper over the economy that no longer serves its citizens, spending billions to “reduce inflation” and now nobody wants to buy the bonds. Thankfully, the banks are scrambling to create weird new structures so they can pretend that the loan that they made at 4% isn’t costing them when they’re giving 5.5% on CDs.
The tower is now, really, really tall. And really, really shaky. And these things never end slowly – they end either with mass social unrest, a big war, or both when the tower finally collapses. And others have just given up."
"It's always good to remember that life isn't easy. I don't mean to say that life is always hard in the sense of it always being painful. Clearly there are times when we're happy, when things are going well, when we feel that our life is headed in the right direction and that even greater fulfillment is just ahead of us, etc.
What I mean is that even when we have times in our life that are good, that doesn't last. In fact, often the things we're so excited and happy about later turn out to be things that also cause us suffering.
For example, you start a brand new relationship and you're in love and it's exciting and fulfilling. And then you find yourself butting heads with your partner, and you hurt each others feelings. Maybe you even split up. Does that sound familiar?
For example, the new job that you're thrilled about turns out to contain stresses you hadn't imagined. Has that ever happened?
For example, the house you're so pleased to have bought inevitably ends up requiring maintenance. Or perhaps the house value plummets. Or perhaps your circumstances change and you find it a struggle to meet the mortgage. Maybe you've been lucky, or maybe you've been there.
Happiness has a way of evaporating. Unhappiness has a way of sneaking up on us and sucker-punching us in the gut.
On a deep level, none of really understand happiness and unhappiness. If we truly understood the dynamics of these things, we'd be happy all the time and would never be miserable. We'd be enlightened. But pre-enlightenment, we're all stumbling in the dark, and sometimes colliding painfully with life as we do so.
This being human is not easy. We're doing a difficult thing in living a human life. It's good to accept all this, because life is so much harder when we think it should be easy. When we think life should be straightforward, and that we think we have it all sorted out, then unhappiness becomes a sign that we've failed. And that makes being in pain even more painful.
We haven't failed when we're unhappy; we're just being human. We're simply experiencing the tender truth of what it is to live a human life.
So when you're unhappy, don't beat yourself up about it. Don't fight it. Accept that this is how things are right now. Often when you do that, you'll very quickly - sometimes instantly - start to feel better. By accepting our suffering, we start to move through it. And as you look around you, realize that everyone else is doing this difficult thing of being human too. They're all struggling. We're all struggling. We all want happiness and find happiness elusive. We all want to avoid suffering and yet keep stumbling into it, over and over.
Many of the things that bother you about other people are their attempts to deal with this difficult existential situation, in which we desire happiness, and don't experience as much of it as we want, and desire to be free from suffering, and yet keep becoming trapped in it. Their moods, their clinging, their anger - all of these are the results of human beings struggling to find happiness, and having trouble doing so.
If we can recognize that this human life is not easy - if we can empathize with that very basic existential fact - then perhaps we can be just a little kinder to ourselves and others. And that would help make this human life just a little easier to navigate."
"When my atheist engineer grandfather died, my atheist engineer grandmother leaned over the body in the hospice bed that had contained half a century of shared life and love, cradled the cranium in which his stubborn and sensitive mind had dwelt, and whispered into the halogen-lit ether: “Where did you go, my darling?”
Whatever our beliefs, these sensemaking playthings of the mind, when the moment of material undoing comes, we - creatures of moment and matter - simply cannot fathom how something as exquisite as the universe of thought and feeling inside us can vanish into nothingness.
Even if we understand that dying is the token of our existential luckiness, even if we understand that we are borrowed stardust, bound to be returned to the universe that made it - a universe itself slouching toward nothingness as its stars are slowly burning out their energy to leave a cold austere darkness of pure spacetime - this understanding blurs into an anxious disembodied abstraction as the body slouches toward dissolution. Animated by electrical impulses and temporal interactions of matter, our finite minds simply cannot grasp a timeless and infinite inanimacy - a void beyond being.
Pillars of Creation, Eagle Nebula, Messier 16
Even Walt Whitman, who could hold such multitudes of contradiction, could not grasp the void. “I will make poems of my body and of mortality,” he vowed as a young man as he reverenced our shared materiality in his timeless declamation that “every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.” It was easy, from the shimmering platform of his prime, to look forward to becoming “the uncut hair of graves” upon returning his own atoms to the grassy ground one day.
But then, when that day loomed near as he grew old and infirm, “the poet of the body and the poet of the soul” suddenly could not fathom the total disbanding of his atomic selfhood, suddenly came to “laugh at what you call dissolution.” And then he did dissolve, leaving us his immortal verses, verses penned when his particles sang with the electric cohesion of youth and of health, verses that traced with their fleshy finger the faint contour of an elemental truth:“What invigorates life invigorates death.”
I wish I could have given my grandmother, and given the dying Whitman, the infinitely invigorating "Mr g: A Novel About the Creation" (public library) by the poetic physicist Alan Lightman - a magical-realist serenade to science, coursing with symphonic truth about our search for meaning, our hunger for beauty, and what makes our tender, transient lives worth living.
Toward the end of the novel, Mr g watches, with heartache unknown in the Void predating the existence of universes and of life, an old woman on her deathbed, the film of her long and painful and beautiful life unspooling from the reel of memory, leaving her grief-stricken by its terminus, shuddering with defiant disbelief that this is all. “How can a creature of substance and mass fathom a thing without substance or mass?” wonders Mr g as he sorrows watching her succumb to the very laws he created. “How can a creature who will certainly die have an understanding of things that will exist forever?”
And then, as a faint smile washes across her face, she does die. Lightman writes: "At that moment, there were 3,147,740,103,497,276,498,750,208,327 atoms in her body. Of her total mass, 63.7 percent was oxygen, 21.0 percent carbon, 10.1 percent hydrogen, 2.6 percent nitrogen, 1.4 percent calcium, 1.1 percent phosphorous, plus a smattering of the ninety-odd other chemical elements created in stars.
In the cremation, her water evaporated. Her carbon and nitrogen combined with oxygen to make gaseous carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide, which floated skyward and mingled with the air. Most of her calcium and phosphorous baked into a reddish brown residue and scattered in soil and in wind.
But then we see that every atom belonging to her - or, rather, temporarily borrowed by her - truly does belong to everything and everyone, just as you and I are now inhaling the same oxygen atoms that once inflated Walt Whitman’s lungs with the lust for life: "Released from their temporary confinement, her atoms slowly spread out and diffused through the atmosphere. In sixty days’ time, they could be found in every handful of air on the planet. In one hundred days, some of her atoms, the vaporous water, had condensed into liquid and returned to the surface as rain, to be drunk and ingested by animals and plants. Some of her atoms were absorbed by light-utilizing organisms and transformed into tissues and tubules and leaves. Some were breathed in by oxygen creatures, incorporated into organs and bone.
In a passage evocative of the central sentiment in Ursula K. Le Guin’s spare, stunning poem “Kinship,” he adds: "Pregnant women ate animals and plants made of her atoms. A year later, babies contained some of her atoms… Several years after her death, millions of children contained some of her atoms. And their children would contain some of her atoms as well. Their minds contained part of her mind.
Will these millions of children, for generations upon future generations, know that some of their atoms cycled through this woman? It is not likely. Will they feel what she felt in her life, will their memories have flickering strokes of her memories, will they recall that moment long ago when she stood by the window, guilt ridden and confused, and watched as the tadr bird circled the cistern? No, it is not possible. Will they have some faint sense of her glimpse of the Void? No, it is not possible. It is not possible. But I will let them have their own brief glimpse of the Void, just at the moment they pass from living to dead, from animate to inanimate, from consciousness to that which has no consciousness. For a moment, they will understand infinity.
And the individual atoms, cycled through her body and then cycled through wind and water and soil, cycled through generations and generations of living creatures and minds, will repeat and connect and make a whole out of parts. Although without memory, they make a memory. Although impermanent, they make a permanence. Although scattered, they make a totality."
Here we are, you and me, Walt and Alan, my grandmother who is and my grandfather who is no more - each of us a trembling totality, made of particles both absolutely vulnerable and absolutely indestructible, hungering for absolutes in a universe of relatives, hungering for permanence in a universe of ceaseless change, famished for meaning, for beauty, for emblems of existence. Out of these hungers, out of these contradictions, we make everything that invigorates life with aliveness: our art and our music, our poems and our mathematics, our novels and our loves."
.jpg)
