The insincerity of social media and influencer culture is nothing new. Mr Beast set the supreme standard for success, study algorithms, what appeals to the mob glued to their screens, master thumbnails, edit a shiteating grin and you will be loved. Pewdiepie, Angry Video Game Nerd, Fouseytube, etc pioneered and invented the wheel so to speak when it came to viral and popular content. It was a different world for them, entertainment and genuine reviews were popular, even if at times they were infected with skits, characters and performance ‘reality.’ They became famous, influential and wealthy. The traditional media, and more importantly the government and corporate backers still invested in the orthodox outlets, slowly took notice.

Thereafter the Paul brothers and numerous other influencers clawed their way to prominence. Video game reviews and dancing, silly skits for children were appealing. In the age of kidification, where adults prefer to consume ‘child safe’ content the online importance and status of these content creators rose. To the point that men like Destiny, are considered important minds simply because of social media followers. Debate in itself is now all theatre, it exists for entertainment. More content.

Politics, but above all “pwning” certain groups or drowning oneself in ‘liberal tears’ became a popular past time. Once 4chan defeated Tumblr, the floodgates of dominance reigned supreme. And no amount of screaming pink haired moderators or memers could stop the invasion. Pepe the Frog to taking down Shia LeBeouf’s flag, all moments of triumph for the troll. The genius, whether intentional or accidental, of Donald Trump was in becoming the troll in chief. He mastered inflaming the despised or established. It was in the emotional reaction of his opponents and critics, that his supporters and even non-political, especially for the terminally online enjoyed, relished in.

Milo Yianopolis, Michael Malice, to a degree a younger Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk all indulged in some way with the online theatrics of targeting the low hanging fruit of their political rivals. Burning their strawman and constantly reminding the audience, stereotypes are true. Debates or statements became memes, to be responded to, reacted on and so on. A circular economy of outrage response content. Where viewers, for whatever reason, needed a persons face super imposed over footage, to point and nod. It is the laziest form of content, yet, it’s popular and the ‘creators’ are rewarded.

Adjacent to all of this, emerged the criticverse, in the declining years of the 00s ‘angry’ or ‘irate’ nostalgic movie and game reviewers arose the anti-woke critics. Ghostbusters, 2016 and the films, shows and media thereafter provided online critics with endless content to destroy. It turned out that viewers would rather watch a 5hr long condemnation of a movie made by an account like Mauler, than the property he is dismantling. The Critical Drinker, Nerdrotic, Little Platoon and so on became not only movie reviewers but social critics. A reaction to the social lecturing and propaganda clumsily infused into most media. To react and reject the corporate and government junk was not only entertaining, but profitable. The postmodernist destruction of the past through remakes and unwanted sequels in itself destroyed by the postmodernist emergence of supreme criticism. Nothing is created, only destroyed or adapted into a miserable for money property.

After Covid, the private equity firms and tech bro billionaires reinvented themselves and found new frontiers to invest into. Influencers, and non-woke outlets, became popular. Zuck was rolling on the jiu jitsu mats and suddenly Musk had pissed of the very same, former Tesla drivers who had made him a star. Many in the public had grown tired of the brow beating and aristocratic lectures from government, corporate and Hollywood elites. So, some turned to tech billionaires and influencers who above all else, annoyed or angered them, the despised privileged class. So, they embraced a privileged class of billionaires. The mainstream left, or establishment class are that hated by most outside of government and corporate sectors.

With all of that in mind, and the ever present reality of the online troll. You have the incarnation of Nick Fuentes. Perfectly encapsulating the resurgence of Nazi or Hitler apologists, along with the tankies inclination to praise Stalin in conjunction with the conservative revitalisation of anti-women’s liberation. The many groups hear what they wish to hear, a common phenomena of the ASMR podcast listeners in conjunction with the ‘shorts’ of TikTok, YouTube and Instagram where a selected segment is edited accordingly to invoke engagement. Take the recent end segment of Pete Hegseth doing pull ups to failure. His critics gleefully sharing the last ten seconds of a man who had just pushed through numerous exercises, while in the final stages of failure. To those who don’t train or with disingenuous intent, it’s used as a slur against him. Those making such slop are less inclined to gain support from any critical thinker even if they may politically agree.

But Fuentes is above such a thing, in that he is volatile not because he is a madman or a vile political thinker. He is a content creator. His only stock in trade is to inflame, enrage and engage. And, he is being rewarded for it. Instead of letting him snuff out into irrelevance, he and others like him, and many will emerge, are rewarded. They receive behind the scenes backing and funding, they are pushed into positions where they shake the right hands, constantly validated by gatekeepers and then are invited onto bigger shows who, when he says something obscene or controversial, the statements are dismissed and ignored. He is saying things many now agree with as a reaction to the past decades, status quo. An extreme reaction for extreme arrogance.

You can’t defeat or cancel some one when they stand for nothing. The point is they, don’t have any position other than to shitpost, to incite reaction. The large platforms sit across with a straight face and pretend to be reinvigorating political conversation as though they are the next William F Buckley or even, Dick Cavett. It’s not that we now have trolls like Andy Kaufman, or derailed as a Mayhem Miller. Instead, the point is to have no point and to sow discontent, with adversarial opinions and talking points which are nihilistic contrarian. The new conservatism is not so much to conserve, rather to oppose and embrace a caricature of the past, one that never really existed, only in the television screen. And for those hooked on screens, that’s real enough.

The revealing truths is not in those who do this for the sake of the laughs or as an inner joke. But, the people taking them seriously. The media and influencers interviewing them who don’t challenge the statements or push back. In turn revealing a desire to ride the fame, or perhaps enjoy the wealth and attention such a personality has or brings with them. Or, to claim such a person is funny or charming. John Wayne Gacy dressed as a clown and made children laugh, Ted Bundy’s charm was his edge. These are not moral indicators.

Fuentes has also come about at a key social moment for some Western nations. And, especially for those constantly on social media. The war on Gaza has revealed the malicious nature of the State of Israel, even those who otherwise are not antiwar, are witnessing an active genocide. Because Israel is a theological state, it’s associated with world Judaism. Antisemitic Jew hatred is a constant sentiment and trait that is never far from the surface in many Western cultures. The actions of Israel and the establishment blindness, tolerance and enabling of these actions have in turn invoked bigoted hatred of all Jews. In turn any criticism of Israel is construed as anti-Jewish which has further allied affairs.

This in turn reinvigorates the Holocaust denialism or, “Hitler did not know” or “is not that bad”, revisionism found in the pages of David Irving, but also common in the online history community such as channels like Zoomer Historian, who delicately weave racialist, fascist and pro-Nazi sentiment in well crafted documentaries. As Irving did, they ensure omissions, admissions and the editing of facts are placed and timed accordingly. And then you have the outright denialism which uses simplistic and idiotic methods, such assuming all of those murdered were gassed in the chambers, and not shot, hung, burned in synagogues, starved, gassed in mobile kill vans and so on. Or that the numbers were invented to push a Zionist project. What was once a running joke on Norm McDonald Live, is now a serious talking point among memescholars.

Distrust and hatred of migrants is ever common and a constant for most nations. There is a love-hate for most migrants and even as one may walk through China town, a nationalist will go on about other migrants not assimilating, or bringing their culture with them. The labour market is both full of cheap, slave labourers from overseas but when those migrants are not in abundance, the jobs are then exported overseas anyhow. Instead of considering taxes and regulations killing and destroying the economy and industry, the cry is, “de took aur jobs!” Not to mention to destruction of sound money which is now just inflationary debt bucks and the damage this has done to nations and communities.

The hatred of gays, trans and all the other colours of the rainbow is a popular position among conservatives and anyone who has had woke identity politics pushed onto them. It turns out many individuals inside the above mentioned demographics also don’t like being turned into a political token. The hetero-normative outlook assumes a particular perspective when it comes to sex and sexuality. If a persons religion governs this outlook, they should understand that is their own choice, not for the world to be forced to embrace. If one has insecurities, bigoted, or perhaps even closet confusion when it comes to people who are different, that is an internal conversation for them to have. To hate, and claim all have a mental illness who do not fit the parameters of a certain sexual spectrum is deranged and stands against individual choice and rights.

Coercion is the issue, ie forcing either, or any world view onto others. To hate people from this group has become easy and popular do. Mostly in part as a reaction to the woke pollution into the kink, gay and trans scene. From within these communities there is a need to conceal ones beliefs and identify, should it not fall in line with the approved ideology imposed of kink-gender, inc. It’s safe to say, “it’s not for me,” unfortunately we now live in a world of narcissistic views, the disdain for the different. In all things.

Which brings us to the hatred of women. The belief women are emotional and need to be governed by men. Is an interesting statement coming from an online community of males who are emotionally charged when it comes to expressing their entitled views. Not to mention, should we look at demographics, it’s among males who are reading less, losing critically thinking, avoiding toil and spending more time gaming, gambling and on social media. Now, this does not mean that from within the female demographic there are not issues, generally in a higher level. The point being is that as individuals we should be responsible for our own actions and treated accordingly.

To claim women must be breeding cows, wives to be taken and had. Or, that any woman who is over a certain age, childless and unmarried has no value, or should be discarded, is obscene. The issue is not with men like Fuentes, who I suspect like the Tate brothers, spits out words with the intention of angering and upsetting people. While, signaling to those who agree with him. But, also those who just want to laugh and see the world burn. Identity politics, has in itself created a class of political supremacy, whether through DEI or claiming all white men are devils, etc, it will invoke reactions and rejections, Which will become extreme. The blatant bias of Israel first in US politics has exposed hypocrisy to be rejected. In turn the America first or even West first hypocrisy tends to be less apparent, except for the planets other 7 billion people. There is fuel in all forms of collectivism, to hate groups and in turn seek to protect other groups. To ignore individuals.

The critics of Fuentes will have as much success as parents and teachers trying to rationalist and figure out, ‘6 7.’ The point is in the reaction, the lack of meaning and for many who have grown up watching a depiction of unreality through the screens, nothing has any meaning and meaningless humour or stirring a response, any response is the point. If there is even a point at all. We live in a world of simulacra of simulacra ad-nauseam and where the meta is in the micro meaning of meta references that in the end are a meaningless meme, whereby the meaning is in the reference to the meme itself. If you add in hate, bigotry and insecurities you will have a world where such content thrives.

This is the key point. In the age of slop and insincerity, everything now exists with the disposable short term intent of entertainment, and to make money. Fuentes, is likely not as serious with most of the things he says. Which is why it’s easy to find contradictions. That’s the point. He has no position. It is like grabbing steam. Those who do believe in him, or sit across from him and take him, or make him serious, they are more problematic. Even if unknowingly they are legitimising the illegitimate and are ruining whatever ideology or political philosophy they themselves claim to champion. I don’t think shitposters should be censored, banned or cancelled. I think we, as viewers on the other hand need to be and do better. If we live in an age where status is a spiraling race down the drain, then that’s on all of us. If we don’t take the world serious and reward those who do anything for engagement or are screen creatures, then maybe the jokes on us all.

The 2010s will perhaps be remembered for the decline of critical thinking and the ascension of dependency. Only to be fast tracked into the 2020s. There was a time, in the before, even among partisan political voices, when we could juggle reason with ideology. A regard for some forms of critical thinking, or the placating of objections raised by libertarians and the opponents of said policies or desires. There was a conversation. An understanding of the dangers of too much power, or control.

This was a time, when most institutions and governments pretended or did care about censorship, surveillance and the right to choice and opinions. The threat for most individuals was understood to come from groups or governments that suppressed and imposed control on them. However it was framed, it was understood that human beings had rights. Those rights were mostly regarded and understood to be sacred. It’s why Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning became such contentions figures. Heroes for many in public, and even media.

The West, at least for a time, stood as if it was a champion for liberty and individual rights. Into the 21^st century, it’s been the West that has become focused on big tech solutions for all things, and to homogenise society into a gentrified and allowable way of life. This has been achieved through bribery and ever so subtle sticks. But also, comfort.

Money has lost most of it’s value. It now exists as debt and fiat. Despite this, it’s now the most precious thing for humanity, that which all things are valued and done for. Everything in life requires money, and this means people will look the other way, decide their principles, morality and priority based on this belief. Government not only controls the printing press, it’s also the monopoly of the land. In the West, it’s generally the biggest employer, directly and through contracts and with welfare it supports and enables lifestyles from cradle to grave. People now regard their entitlements, that which comes at the expensive of others as being more important than rights. People also value income, and financial security above rights and any concept of principles.

In fact rights are fluid. Crisis and laws come about which either obviously or subtly shift what was once regarded as a right, into being denied. This can come via licensing, regulations or paywalls, to the outright prohibitions on things. The dangers, often imagined, or extreme in example are all that’s needed to stir up the mob. The professionals who work for the State, will enforce all and everything they are paid to.

There is also social credit. The death of critical thinking means that less people are capable of analysing a situation or concept without an emotional reaction. A reaction that generally reduces abstracts into soundbytes or simplified parameters. Instead of analysing or understanding laterally, depth of perspectives or wider implications the responses to all things generally revert to, more funding, ie more tax or debt money, another law or regulation to ban and prevent a thing. In short, the common response is the appeal to authority.

Anyone who challenges or questions a law, or attempts to publicly explore an abstract or decision are set upon by an emotional mob who only use slurs or argue from positions of feelings. Words such as “racist”, “Nazi”, “Fascist”, “Pedophile” and so on are thrown around with reckless abandon in place of any nuanced discourse. These words are used with such abandon, that the value of them is ruined. And, should anyone attempt to have a conversation publicly this is can be considered as ‘radical’ and thus dangerous.

Even those who wear the shirts of punk bands and cosplay as left wing, from the comfort of their corporate garnered lifestyles use the term, ‘radical’ as a slur. Somehow free speech, has become a ‘fascist’ or at the very least, ‘alt right’, red flag. For the left to reject free speech is an indictment of all things, once valued by the champions of left wing ideologies. The real, left.

Which brings us to the usage of ‘right wing’ as a slur among allowable argument points. As one who despises all forms of coercion, political or otherwise, I find it fascinating that politics has become so entrenched into one faction, the other side is now seen as pariah and viewed as an extreme danger. Yet, the commonality of both wings of government are rather similar. And, they are attached to the same beast. The monopoly of control. Whether a political regime or administration swings left or right, usually means little to most of the employees of that beast.

Big tech, technology in general was a promise for freedom. It turned out a lie. The more efficient a thing becomes, the more humanity uses it. Or, abuses. There is never enough. The compulsion to want more, to control nature, to organise, order and contain and force all things in life, is a deep routed need for many human beings. It’s not enough for a person to have a different opinion or way of life, they must be shamed, or coerced to be like everyone else. The frontiers are gone, it turns out Manifest Destiny is welfare, government jobs, corporations, AI slop and more data centres. Though, you can order from Temu or Amazon more Labubu’s. When that trend is done, and they are to buried in landfill above the fidget spinner, shopkins and beanie baby you can find another thing to spend debt on.

It’s a curious thing, we can watch in real time babies blown to pieces and gatekeeper established adults will claim antisemitic for any condemning the murder. Boats blown to pieces in international waters, assassination of unknown strangers based on assumptions by government which bases it’s legitimacy on the rule of law and concepts of due process. We see social media creatures gain prominent platforms and granted serious consideration by claiming that women should be subservient to men. We live in an age of endless moralist drives to ban media or censor it, either in the ongoing kidification of society, to protect children, even if they are not the intended audience or, under the guise of religious puritanism. To be supported by emotional appeals to authority, or bots. Those who criticise are stuck, the alternative, is to again, appeal to authority in a tug of war of begging the establishment.

The human body, your body is a domain which does not belong to you. Your access to medicine, food and how or what you do with it is decided and determined by professionals who make decisions based on cookiecut assumptions, metrics, regulatory determinations, greedy self interest and for insurance purposes. You are denied agency, because many want a public health state, the monopoly to guide, guard and control their body. It means everyone one of us are denied choice and options. Our bodies are controlled beneath the guise of, ‘common good’. To challenges this, or question the wisdom of any decisions, let alone the right of government and experts to know with a godlike omnipotence what is best for all or any, is considered to be conspiratorial. Reduced to an anti-social slur.

If not for what we ingest into the body, or do with or to it. That after all, is a cost to the public health system. Or Insurers. Therefore the collective decides on your behalf. As for your mental consumption, that is also to be regarded. If a thing, words, images or ideas may trigger or offend some, therefore it can be considered dangerous and hateful. To be offended, to offend and to challenges was once art and for literature. The indulgences of expression and philosophy. In the modern age of infinite diagnosis and ‘mental health crisis’s’, anything challenging and outside the normative parameters of mob think, or whatever satisfies intelligentsia, corporate or otherwise is an affront and can be censored, modified, redacted and removed from all existence. May I have permission to get that surgery, try that medication, to have the supplement? I will pay for it myself. “Denied!”

We have reached a fascinating cultural point, the meaning of media and properties from the middle to late twentieth century have now been modified and adapted to sooth a child like need for vapid spectacle and, to satiate the ever important appeal to authority. The once vaunted anti-establishment thinking, radicalism of the past is now avoided or down played as dangerous. Words, thoughts. Dangerous.

The decline of critical thinking is further diminished by the endless streams of slop fed before the eyes of those who have no time for anything other than social media, gaming and streaming shows. Enter, AI. Soon it will be a corporate or government job to merely prompt software. To request it write emails, generate forms, and the likes so that other agentic AI may read and respond. Perhaps a UBI already in place, or just another stage of senseless administration and ‘just because’ layers which human governance seems fixated with. To prompt an AI, so that it may brow beat humans on and bots alike on ‘saving the planet’, from within air-conditioned offices, while the data centres required chew up more power than ever needed for all of prior human history. The pollution is exported overseas, so you can feel good about it. They suffer, the poison is theirs, import the tech and junk. Feel good about it, net zero, renewables, whatever the lie. In Africa, Bangladesh is where they get to die. But YOU get to fill good, when you recycle and they take the rubbish. Mountains of Western trash towers in poor nations, carbon colonialism, pollution imperialism, as it was and ever shall be.

The obsession with software that only spies, or is pointless, leading to all appliances into becoming devices. More rare Earth dragged from the ground, with lengthy half lives, toxic and exhaustive mining, logistic lines that span the planet to manufacture so that a fridge may tell you, “the milks expired.” The human nose so mutated into redundancy we further become a French Bulldog of a species. Choice is one thing, in time this, and all things digital and with an interface and software that controls, spies and catalogues will be mandatory. It’s the march to the inevitable. The digital ID, the chip in the body, to be scanned, a QR code for each one of us, all dystopian and cyberpunk fears. Yet, here we are ever slowly sleep walking, or running in this direction. If we are all dependent, our religion is debt and adherence to the collective, we must do what is right, that’s to comply.

Why are we here?

Comfort, dependency. Cowardice. The indignity of belief in authority above all else. The the powerful, political or billionaires alike embraced to steer all of humanity into a betterplace, TM. Utopia..You can subscribe to it, not that you will have a choice.

The ancients once believed in Gods. The planet was governed by super beings, each with their own quirks and interests. Humanity has again discovered the gods. With mythologies and religious zealotry, desire for reward and vengeful retribution, these gods are both humans of wealth and political fiat, and the sacred institutions. The monopoly of state and too big to fails. The world exists for them. Just as humans once sacrificed, worshipped and prayed in the many temples of the past, you do so today. Your reward, access to debt, fiat, slithers of on controlled comfort, choice is dangerous. The sea of chaos is forbidden.

Joni Mitchell once said, “they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” Parking lots, means “jobs” and “progress”. So, that’s all that matters, the gods hate Luddites, freedom, or anything for that matter which denies them control and power. And you, you love them for it. Because that lil French Bulldog has no choice now, but to sit on the lap, and live from vet visit to vet visit.

What happens when the language of “protecting the homeland” is used to sell a new regime change next door? We sit down with Kelley Vlahos to map the quiet return of neoconservative logic through a Venezuela push that’s packaged for a nationalist audience. The pitch is simple and potent: cartels, chaos, and a dictator at our doorstep. The implications are anything but simple. From asymmetric risks and migration shocks to the legal fog around authorizations, we trace how a narrow narrative can lock in a broad escalatory path.

Behind the scenes, personnel is policy. Kelley breaks down how Marco Rubio’s dual grip on State and the NSC, with backing from key advisors, is steering decisions while restraint voices get sidelined. That power shift collides with a Right already strained by Gaza and Ukraine, where “America First” voters see mission creep rather than clear interests. If Venezuela becomes the next front, we explore whether the movement fractures into a real civil war over foreign policy—and what that means for 2028 and beyond.

Then we follow the money and the metal. A deep dive into missile economics exposes a harsh constraint: U.S. interceptors cost multiples of Russian equivalents, stockpiles are thin, and production timelines are slow. After Ukraine, Red Sea intercepts, and Israel’s defense needs, the idea of adding Venezuela to a global posture looks like wishful thinking. Strategy cannot outrun logistics. We lay out what a sober path would require: honest objectives, congressional oversight, a rebuilt industrial base, and a tighter definition of vital interests.

If you value clear-eyed foreign policy and real debate over slogans, hit follow, share this episode with a friend, and leave a review with your take on Venezuela: deterrence, diplomacy, or something else?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Over the years I have come across plenty of books that were destined for landfill. Whether through the various work places I had been, the charities which moved individuals from independence to “assisted” living and then the charity shops places themselves which can’t afford the bin fees to dump the excess they receive. Among these books, I have come across notes and journals. Small increments of intimate writing, sketches from a human past long forgotten but for these ink spots on paper, they remain as remnants that once mattered.

I had the intention of writing something cynical or even dreary, instead I found in the handwriting of those now long dead, some thoughts that seemed important enough to type up. From the minds of those who in their lives, a century or decades ago had a future ahead of them, reflected and observed, or even lashed out at a world around them.

Perhaps, this is a follow up to the meandering prose The Inner Light, or maybe inside of these words is an illuminating energy for any who care to read or ruminate upon. As we as a species once did.

In a diary, I found at a woman’s house who had passed away, she was in her late eighties, her family wanted, “everything thrown away,” so accordingly her life’s possessions reduced to landfill and the precious real estate she had lived in, the priority for the living, those who knew her and those who professionally gain from such occurrences. I salvaged what I could, to donate, or even keep. There is a tragic inhumanity to discarding photos, and notebooks like this. Physical media, technology once impressive now reduced to, meh, thrown away. The technology most often to be discarded, the book, especially those handwritten by regular people. A person like Mary and her diary.

Dated 1962, Mary wrote, “the birds have the idea to fly far and wide. They don’t see boundaries or care for language. They fly, high and wide. They visit where they please. It’s for us, mankind, to bury them inside cages. Imagine that, a creature capable of freedom, to clip their wings and cage them so we may watch them, make them sing for us. Imagine that.”

Imagine that. It’s with eerie camaraderie of thought that I reflect upon a piece, I wrote almost a decade ago which carries similar observance. Mary added further down the page, “I clipped my wings, or had them clipped for me. Who knows any more?”

She wrote in lovely handwriting in 1967, “I see they have sent more young men to another country to fight a war. I wonder what the gain would be. To stop communism? That’s what they claim. I wonder if they send warriors to fight the Viet-Namese over there so the politicians and powerful remain safe here. It seems pointless.”

And from 1968, “I have stopped believing in love. I must hear it in every song lyric. I don’t care for it. I will not have it. I have loved twice. Alistair and Nigel. Both loved me, I them. Alistair and I were young. Nigel, he should have known better. He picked a career over our love, now he travels the world and I stay here, lost and heartbroken. It’s what a man must do I am told. And, what a woman must wonder, hope for his safety and remain locked at home in blue tears? I will not have love spoken to me again.”

Many books have in them inscribed on the side of pages in tiny hand writing notes and thoughts to accompany the prose. One such book, a Penguin edition of The Essential James Joyce, Devesh had written his name in the early pages, along with the date 1995. I am assuming it was around that time when he wrote his notes.

“Why must he select words so ugly? He for a moment can write with elegance and superior texture and now he must be ever so dreadful.”

A few pages later, he wrote, “I wept.”

Among a pile of family bibles dating back to the late nineteenth century, I found a note book dated 1933 with glorious penship. The author, I am assuming a woman by the name of Bea. Much of the writing is on Christ and the human relationship with God. It is a selection of biblical quotes and additional thoughts relating to them. Beyond, I found a gentle sentence, “if I could find it in my heart to love my brother as much as I do God, then I would be a better sister.”

The following page she had written, “the measure of a man is in his character. Not his words. The measure of mankind is in the wisdom it finds from words.”

Another lady whose home had been reduced to a house for sale, had a library full of mystery and crime fiction. Agatha Christie, P.D. James, Ruth Rendell and vintage Dorothy L Sayers books. Alongside a row of books, she had a pile of notebooks filled in her handwritting, picking through clues and her own thoughts. Adding dates and page numbers, accordingly. Attempting to solve the crimes along with the author, page by page and sentence by sentence. At the end of one page full of notes she had written, “it’s never the most obvious lie, only the most ambitious truth told over and over again.”

Other journals and notebooks were less profound, slight monuments to the mundane of life. Bills to be paid, shopping lists, items to be bought. Others are notes on income, accounting for a household. What may seem ever modest in today’s inflated world, was dear and went far in a time before easy credit and debt dependency. In one note book payments and incoming money written light, along with slashing sentence written by a heavy hand, “You are a failure!”

And near the end of one such notebook, “Kill yourself, no one will miss you.” Many of the books, were from suicides. I am uncertain as to whether this one was. They all remain clumped together, thrown and discarded. Unimportant pages according to the living. Landfill.

When Bradbury imagined his fireman who burned books. The symbolism was dystopian and obvious. We live in a world now of proud illiteracy, it’s not just that books are seen as a hindrance in their physical form. Even online, they are things not to be read, unless they are trending, and forgive me, light escapism. In the many piles, I was unable to rescue, re-home. Were countless thoughts and whispers written in ink along with the printed words telling stories, revealing knowledge and recording history. All to be buried beneath dirt and rubbish.

Other books I have saved from landfill, to be pulped into cat litter. Feline toilets. An excess of books with no readership is one thing, a disdainful public above reading is an all together fascinating state of humanity. As the online content creators produce digital slop, artificial bots generating streams for the feed to be forgotten and many books what may reduced to memes and vapid quotes. There lies countless millions of words, wrapped in wisdom and experiences. Glimmers of alien and familiar viewpoints. many now lost to the edge of time.

In a page from a water soaked journal written by John, dated 1978, “I hope what comes in the next decade is a better world. A smarter age. To think soon it will be a new century, to call it the 21^st century. The time will be a bright future and wise, smart people every one well read and enlightened. Healthy in mind and body. No more wars and slavery when the people are secure with knowledge. The 21^st century.”

John also wrote, later on that year, “I love my wife. More than ever now that she is gone. Burying the woman you love is the hardest thing a man can do. I wish it was me and not her. I wish I took the cancer from her body. I hope in the coming years we learn to beat cancer and other diseases. I wish I had the answer and was a smarter man and a better one. I love you Carole with all of my soul. I wish I was a better man and husband for you. I am sorry. You deserved the promises I made. I failed you. I love you.”

Lost inside of pages, are human moments that are not fabricated for the frenzy of diminished attention spans. There are intimate moments, and triumphant ambitions. Language allows us to frame and understand things beyond the material, the present. The abstract, to spiritual and the elements beyond us.

I will end on one final entry, Jane, from perhaps 2005 wrote, “I was blessed with another grandchild. Five now. Tabitha is healthy and like her mother a little shit. I don’t have favourites, no mother should. If Tabitha grows to be a shit like her mother, I will have grey hairs. Too late, they are already grey!”