almost home
occasionally subtle
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
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Monterey Bay Aquarium
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
ellievsbear
YOU ARE THE REASON
Product Placement
Peter Solarz
if i look back, i am lost
NASA
#extradirty
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
Janaina Medeiros
DEAR READER
Keni
pixel skylines
trying on a metaphor
i don't do bad sauce passes
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@theabsurdityarchive
In a world already drowning in performance, partisanship, and abandonment of moral agency, what’s the point of documenting the absurd?
Here we catalog the fractures, inconsistencies, and absurdities of modern discourse—not to gawk, but to understand. Not to despair, but to reconnect. Every entry is a stitch in the fabric of meaning. Some are sharp. Some are soft. All are deliberate.
Meaning Rents Here.
When Meaning Fled
Once, Meaning was not of this world.
It began as divine, the wisdom through which patterns were formed. The movements of planets… of stars… of galaxies —
Each in loyal service to a grand design.
It existed everywhere and nowhere at once, the substance of time and space.
When consciousness was born, Meaning found its first home. A home with those who saw the patterns. Who contemplated them. Who came to revere them.
And Meaning thus found its home in worship-houses. Those places where the lines between material and spiritual — between physical and metaphysical — were blurred. The places where the soft curtains between existence and nonexistence are nigh transparent.
Where patterns become miracles, and vision begets awe.
And there she stayed, until clergy abandoned their depth for dogma, their consistency for contradiction, and their kindness for cruelty. Until corruption and hypocrisy drove her out.
Betrayed by those who welcomed her, she lost her faith.
Meaning wandered until she found houses of debate. Houses of philosophy. Of philanthropy. Places where the finer points of our nature were examined, and where the structure of civilization took root. Dialogue itself became meaningful, and humanity grew. There she made her home.
But dialogue was often reserved for the wealthy — those who could invest themselves in it without worry for the bread on their table.
They used their knowledge to gain power, and their power became hegemony — and hegemony spurns equality. Their debate turned to governance, and their governance into posturing. Their wealth begot exclusivity, their exclusivity, decadence, and their decadence, rot.
And Meaning was exiled once again: forced to leave behind her reason as she fled.
She wandered again until she discovered our houses of learning. Houses where truth was pursued and people strove to prove themselves wrong again and again, until what could endure was left to stand. Places where dialogue could still take place, even without the purpose it once had…
But dialogue without reason led to consensus without conviction — agreement without awareness — and that led to exclusion. Those pursuing objective truth were sidelined, their paths cut short. Teachers forgot how to hold contradiction, and their students forgot how to acknowledge it. The schools became steeped in self-importance, their walls adorned with empty accolades. Their publications’ factuality became fragility, and fragility became fracture. Their words became sterile. Even hostile.
They drove Meaning out with their dissenters, and she found herself wandering once again, bereft, too, of the knowledge she left behind.
We searched for places to house her lost belongings — the fragments we could still find. We built museums, great houses that enshrined what she left behind. After a time, she too found a refuge there… A place which looked peaceful — looked like home…
But the warmth was gone — Their curators held her faith in suspense amidst a crystal case, her reason behind locked displays, and her knowledge… reduced to naught but grains of sand removed from the sea.
Stars plucked from the sky and left alone, robbed of their shine.
They became altars to ego — halls of hubris for those who deign to control the present by altering the past. She was left to exile yet again, her expression lost with her.
Then our world got bigger. Even as our huts became halls — our shacks became slums. We traded ports for planes and ships for skyscrapers. Our foundations for futility. Yet we created shared spaces for all — spaces where we could hear each other. Spaces where we could help each other.
Meaning found a home among our community centers, our town squares, and even our airports — places of connection to a world we'd never known. For a time, she was welcome there among us — still in mourning for what she lost.
But in our complacency, we were unprepared for fear. We mistook our abundance for peace — our prosperity for salvation. When that calm was broken, we mistook fright for fellowship. We closed our doors in the name of security, filling our ears with comforting noise. Meaning fled with the foreigner. Without her unity, we were left hollow.
Then, for a fleeting moment, we saw a new spark of hope. A space that seemed to reconnect us to our past. To return us to a time when messages crossed our known world in the blink of an eye. Like the town squares and debate houses of our past, all of humanity came together once more… in a place where dialogue felt possible.
A place where Meaning could exist.
Where she could be safe.
A space where maybe — just maybe — she could reclaim all she had left behind.
And yet, we denied her even this refuge. We invested those spaces with vitriol, saturated them with superficiality, engorged them with emptiness. We inundated our lives with nugatory noise, choosing comfort over conscience. Choosing rallies over reality; tales over truth. Once again we drove her out — our touch with reality lost to the fog.
And so she yet wanders, her faith in suspension.
Left in exile, she is destitute of her reason.
Abandoned, she sits bereft of her knowledge.
Robbed of her expression, her voice is silenced.
Deprived of her unity, she remains alone.
Stripped of her reality, she is steeped in sorrow.
But not all is lost, for Meaning has one more abode. One that can heal her. She can live inside each of us. In our minds, and in our hearts. Her presence is transient — she has no permanent home.
But we can restore her faith. Strengthen her reason. We can return her knowledge, free her expression… listen to her voice. We can embrace her unity — reconnect with her reality. We can transform her sorrow into joy… her mourning into celebration.
Meaning awaits — for now… but the responsibility is ours.
More Here
Taxation Without Representation (Public Health Edition)
Florida's decision to end all school vaccine mandates may just render it unliveable long before it's buried in the sea by "climate change". The irony that these terrible public health decisions are made by politicians without the say of teachers who will be exposed to otherwise preventable diseases and without the say of immunocompromised children who maybe seriously hurt or killed by the fallout. It's almost a form of taxation without representation, but in the realm of public health. Except instead of the tea act, the Stamp act, and a Harbor full of floating crates, we'll have chronically coughing kindergarteners, teachers with the flu being forced to come to work (because they won't be paid for extended sick leave), and vulnerable children whose legal right to a Free Appropriate Public Educator is violated by parents who say "it's not my problem" and politicians who say "it's not mine either".
The Poison of Preservation
There are many different forms of “apocalypse” discussed in modern literature. I am not speaking of the religious idea of the “end of days”, but rather the sunsetting of society as described in dystopian and science fiction literature. While it is true that many of them involve alien invasions or epistemic rot of interstellar empires — facing the same historical challenges as the Roman Empire of antiquity — yet others present realistic demises wherein we destroy society through plausible self-inflicted annihilation. Even among these, there exist narratives where the loss isn’t complete: something is preserved… A story where Structure survives through abandonment of the Truth, or where Truth survives by the abandonment — or annihilation — of Structure. In my own estimation, no novels more acutely demonstrate these ideas than Orwell’s 1984 and Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Each explores a different preservation… and a different death. Having read both numerous times, I have developed a definite preference for which end — which “poison” — we might choose. After all, preservation could be eternal life. Or old age. Or a jar of formaldehyde.
Orwell’s 1984 describes a world divided by three totalitarian superpowers, where each one sustains itself through historical revisionism by The Party, absolute control over The Narrative, and production of The Noise to pacify the working class. Those who retain the ability to cut through The Noise are controlled by fear of the government — an image of the boot of authoritarianism stomping upon their faces. At the end of the story, the protagonist, Winston Smith, succumbs to the lies and brainwashing of the government. He comes to love “Big Brother”. He surrenders, and Truth dies, in the ultimate preservation of Structure.
Fahrenheit 451 describes a similar world, where books are burned and knowledge is controlled tightly by the government. The Party. Their Narrative? That they are the greatest nation in the world, and that there is no nuclear war, as none would dare stand against them. And yet, the Truth rears its head: the city is destroyed by a nuclear bomb, and Guy Montag, a former Book Burner, joins The Book People — a secret cabal whose calling is to memorize books and preserve literature, for the “one day” when society is ready for it once again. Structure is obliterated, but Truth is preserved.
My preference — especially within the context of the archive — is the latter. Little scares me more than the idea that Structure should survive at the expense of Truth.
But I believe in another possibility. One where Structure does not survive despite Truth, but is redeemed because of Truth.
For that, I still have hope.
From the Vault:
The Noise: an Insidious form of gaslighting performed at a national or International scale. The collective of Society is flooded with overwhelming quantities of irrelevant or superfluous information; some of it true, much of it false, all of it deliberate. Clarity isn't lost to the aether. It drowns in The Noise.
Valence Volatility: The halogen-like tendency of human society to teeter precariously between genuine stability and codependent chaos. But instead of forging that bond through truth, trust, or moral clarity, it clings to the illusion of coherence, even when that illusion is chemically, ethically, or emotionally toxic.
Lucid Nobility: The character attribute which innoculates genuine truth seekers (the helium and neon of our society) from "The Noise". Whether because of innate neurodivergence or acquired discipline, the Lucid Noble refuses to succumb to bias and tribalism, even at the cost of camaraderie... as long as they obscure the truth.
A [True] Introduction to the Archive
This is a bit overdue, as I was pushing this off for a variety of reasons, but I think it’s time to introduce the archive to those who really want to follow its development, grow from its lessons, and maybe even join me in the shared language of the absurd. I mentioned snippets in my shorter public posts about the nature of The Absurdity Archive, but I feel that those here to read deserve a full explanation. The Absurdity Archive is a small-but-growing catalog of humanity’s tendency to do illogical things.
Its modular format contains 40 entries divided into 3 sections, and a Glossary...
This is a bit overdue, as I was pushing this off for a variety of reasons, but I think it’s time to introduce the archive to those who reall
The Victim’s Ventriloquist: Exposition
Who is a Victim’s Ventriloquist? People on the right who “champion” the safety of American citizens attacked by “illegal aliens” by proposing draconian laws against immigration... Not because they really care about the citizens who were killed, but they know stoking fear of foreigners will excite their base. They are Victims’ Ventriloquists.
Who is a Victim’s Ventriloquist? People on the left who “champion” Gazan rights and publicize alleged Israeli human rights violations while ignoring that if it weren’t for Hamas and their ilk, none of this would have happened…. When a jew kills an Arab — even in self defense — he is demonized, when an Arab kills a jew — even in cold blood — only silence. Not that they really care about gazans killed (or who they’re killed by), but they know that blaming Israel excites their base. They are Victims’ Ventriloquists.
Who is a Victim’s Ventriloquist? People on both sides who use the victims of child abuse and human trafficking to accuse their opponents of wrongdoing. Not that they care about the victims - only what the victims can do for them. They are Victims’ Ventriloquists.
In a world of social media echo chambers and partisan alternate universes, “Who cares?” Is no longer just a dismissive rhetorical question, it’s a desperate cry screamed into an empty void by a voice too loud to be ignored, but too quiet to be heeded.
Here we catalog the fractures, inconsistencies, and absurdities of modern discourse—not to gawk, but to understand. Not to despair, but to reconnect. Every word is a stitch in the fabric of meaning. Some are sharp. Some are soft. All are deliberate.
Meaning Rents Here
Hello and Welcome! Our lives are absurd, and so is the world around us. I'm here to point out the surreal, laugh at the ridiculous, and reve
It’s a commonly known fact that all ideals and all beliefs have their consequences. Every decision and every behavior leads one down a path with an inevitable conclusion and inevitable consequences, if that path is followed to its end. Here are a particularly important few — at least to me:
The endgame of dishonesty is alienation.
The endgame of confirmation bias is a conspiracy theory.
The endgame of cult-of-personality is idolatrous worship.
The endgame of anger is fear.
The endgame of suffering is trauma.
The endgame of trauma is Grief-Grafting (passing it on)… unless you stand up and seek healing.
But the endgame of healing is wholeness.
The endgame of happiness is fulfillment.
The endgame of kindness is peace.
The endgame of honesty is credibility.
The endgame of contextual respect is enlightenment.
And Humility’s endgame? Transcendence.
It’s a commonly known fact that all ideals and all beliefs have their consequences. Every decision and every behavior leads one down a path
The Epstein Epistles (From The Vault)
The Epstein Epistles are a series of Glossary of the Absurd entries of particular relevance to the bipartisan hesitance to publicize the Epstein Files, despite widespread calls for transparency.
Specious Transparency:
A hypocritical behavior pattern typically displayed by politicians running for office for the sake of their own self-preservation, wherein calls for transparency are weaponized to garner sympathy or stoke outrage from a public that does not — and cannot possibly — know the truth. When that politician wins their position, they immediately deflect and avoid responsibility, likely because transparency would compromise their leadership — or worse, implicate them in a crime, the very thing they ran for office to avoid.
Victim’s Ventriloquist:
A pundit, politician, or political party that gives voice to victims of crime or abuse for their own political gain. They tightly control publicity and demands for justice to protect their own standing, but fall silent at the slightest inconvenience. A Victim’s Ventriloquist cares not about a complete stranger killed by a migrant criminal, or about an innocent child trafficked by a wealthy elite. They care only that manufactured outrage garners them power, and selective transparency harms their opponents.
Coward’s Canon:
An adopted narrative which political parties or dictatorships use to avoid accountability. While the inception of a Coward’s Canon appears like Dissimulation Dysjunction, where discredited or implausible stories are generated as the “official narrative”, the foundational motivation is fear rather than malice. The Coward’s Canon is endorsed due to an implicit fear among pundits and politicians that transparency would create ungovernable chaos, and a perfectly curated lie is far better than the inevitable fallout from the truth.
Egalitarian Exposé:
The pan-partisan fallout stemming from a scandal is so massive that it compromises elites across multiple political parties and implicates national leaders in federal crimes. Made worse by the Coward’s Canon which precedes it, Egalitarian Exposés typically happen when scorched-earth partisan governance from a political party coincide with ubiquitous grassroots calls for transparency, where “moderates” from all parties decide that it is better to burn down the system and destroy their own parties, rather than allow it to fall deeper into corruption. Unfortunately, this is not done out of desire for truth or to give the population transparency, but out of spite — feeling slighted by their fellow elites, they exact their vengeance.
Here we catalog the fractures, inconsistencies, and absurdities of modern discourse—not to gawk, but to understand. Not to despair, but to reconnect. Every word is a stitch in the fabric of meaning. Some are sharp. Some are soft. All are deliberate.
Meaning Rents Here
Hello and Welcome! Our lives are absurd, and so is the world around us. I'm here to point out the surreal, laugh at the ridiculous, and reve
The Epstein Epistles (From The Vault)
The Epstein Epistles are a series of Glossary of the Absurd entries of particular relevance to the bipartisan hesitance to publicize the Epstein Files, despite widespread calls for transparency.
Specious Transparency:
A hypocritical behavior pattern typically displayed by politicians running for office for the sake of their own self-preservation, wherein calls for transparency are weaponized to garner sympathy or stoke outrage from a public that does not — and cannot possibly — know the truth. When that politician wins their position, they immediately deflect and avoid responsibility, likely because transparency would compromise their leadership — or worse, implicate them in a crime, the very thing they ran for office to avoid.
Victim’s Ventriloquist:
A pundit, politician, or political party that gives voice to victims of crime or abuse for their own political gain. They tightly control publicity and demands for justice to protect their own standing, but fall silent at the slightest inconvenience. A Victim’s Ventriloquist cares not about a complete stranger killed by a migrant criminal, or about an innocent child trafficked by a wealthy elite. They care only that manufactured outrage garners them power, and selective transparency harms their opponents.
Coward’s Canon:
An adopted narrative which political parties or dictatorships use to avoid accountability. While the inception of a Coward’s Canon appears like Dissimulation Dysjunction, where discredited or implausible stories are generated as the “official narrative”, the foundational motivation is fear rather than malice. The Coward’s Canon is endorsed due to an implicit fear among pundits and politicians that transparency would create ungovernable chaos, and a perfectly curated lie is far better than the inevitable fallout from the truth.
Egalitarian Exposé:
The pan-partisan fallout stemming from a scandal is so massive that it compromises elites across multiple political parties and implicates national leaders in federal crimes. Made worse by the Coward’s Canon which precedes it, Egalitarian Exposés typically happen when scorched-earth partisan governance from a political party coincide with ubiquitous grassroots calls for transparency, where “moderates” from all parties decide that it is better to burn down the system and destroy their own parties, rather than allow it to fall deeper into corruption. Unfortunately, this is not done out of desire for truth or to give the population transparency, but out of spite — feeling slighted by their fellow elites, they exact their vengeance.
Here we catalog the fractures, inconsistencies, and absurdities of modern discourse—not to gawk, but to understand. Not to despair, but to reconnect. Every word is a stitch in the fabric of meaning. Some are sharp. Some are soft. All are deliberate.
Meaning Rents Here
Hello and Welcome! Our lives are absurd, and so is the world around us. I'm here to point out the surreal, laugh at the ridiculous, and reve
The Vault: Specious Transparency
Specious Transparency: A hypocritical behavior pattern typically displayed by politicians running for office for the sake of their own self-preservation, wherein calls for transparency are weaponized to garner sympathy or stoke outrage from a public that does not — and cannot possibly — know the truth. When that politician wins their position, they immediately deflect and avoid responsibility, likely because transparency would compromise their leadership — or worse, implicate them in a crime, the very thing they ran for office to avoid.
Here we catalog the fractures, inconsistencies, and absurdities of modern discourse—not to gawk, but to understand. Not to despair, but to reconnect. Every word is a stitch in the fabric of meaning. Some are sharp. Some are soft. All are deliberate.
Meaning Rents Here
https://absurdarchivist.substack.com
The Vault: Outrage Fatigue
Outrage Fatigue is a deadly medical condition often experienced by epistemic dissidents with partisan family and friends. Symptoms include chronic headaches, exhaustion, spikes in blood pressure, and intermittent nausea during mealtime discourse.
There is no known cure, but the most effective treatment, gleaned from several peer-reviewed studies, is self-quarantine from social media and withdrawal from family WhatsApp groups.
Despite effective treatment, acute exacerbations are triggered by looking at "Occupy Democrats" or "Leading Report" on Twitter. Even patients in remission for years may experience a relapse during election seasons.
While it is generally accepted to be epistemically terminal, prognosis greatly improves when exposed to other individuals still grounded in reality.
Here we catalog the fractures, inconsistencies, and absurdities of modern discourse—not to gawk, but to understand. Not to despair, but to reconnect. Every word is a stitch in the fabric of meaning. Some are sharp. Some are soft. All are deliberate.
Meaning Rents Here
When the disease spread by partisan echo chambers becomes terminal.
The Vault: Twins of Ambiguity
Upright Equivocation: The intentional use of ambiguous language to hint an inconvenient or uncomfortable truth to someone who may respond poorly to being rebuked. Wrapped in the zealous fervor of plausible deniability, the user leaves a trail of breadcrumbs for someone who cares to pursue the truth. This tactic is typically deployed by dissidents in partisan tribalist forums hostile to truth. Not to be confused with Underhanded Obfuscation.
Underhanded Obfuscation: The deliberate use of ambiguous language to distort the truth, often by implication or questioning. Often used to front dangerous conspiracy theories by asking rhetorical questions, Underhanded Obfuscation allows users to hide behind a veil of plausible deniability: If their implications become validated by circumstantial evidence, they claim ultimate vindication, but if reality contradicts their assertions, they are quick to point out “I didn’t say that, I was only asking questions”. Not to be confused with Upright Equivocation.
Here we catalog the fractures, inconsistencies, and absurdities of modern discourse—not to gawk, but to understand. Not to despair, but to reconnect. Every word is a stitch in the fabric of meaning. Some are sharp. Some are soft. All are deliberate.
Meaning Rents Here
The Vault: Upright Equivocation
The Vault: Deceptive Duality
When lopsided standards and racial essentialism intersect.
Deceptive Duality is a double standard born of fatalistic deferral or white flag morality, wherein modern democracies are held to higher standards than their authoritarian neighbors. Steeped in assumptions rooted in cultural determinism, Deceptive Dualities assume that since one nation presumed too broken to know better, the other should take the high road in conflict. Therefore, they must accept border violations and assaults on their citizens as inevitable. Any act of legitimate self-defense is reframed as disproportionate aggression.”
Their outrage is manufactured, and their empathy, a forgery. A beautiful veneer engineered to conceal ancient rot.”
Here we catalog the fractures, inconsistencies, and absurdities of modern discourse—not to gawk, but to understand. Not to despair, but to reconnect. Every entry is a stitch in the fabric of meaning. Some are sharp. Some are soft. All are deliberate.
Meaning Rents Here.
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When lopsided standards and racial essentialism intersect.
Dear Conservatives,
Just so I'm clear... We had a sitting president hold a North-Korea-style military parade for his birthday (at great expense to taxpayers), with tanks rolling down the streets of our nation's capitol city, and you're demonizing the people who are protesting that behavior under the banner "No Kings" and calling his authoritarian optics "patriotic"? What am I missing?
Love, your friend
The Confused Dissident
The Vault: White Flag Morality
White Flag Morality: A specific type of moral relativism wherein otherwise reasonable people lower their expectations for the behavior of others because “Their struggles are real! Their feelings are valid”. Suddenly and openly, one justifies racism, violence, and even terrorism on the premise that “people are angry”. Whether by a politician justifying why their followers are committing acts of violence in their name, by an activist justifying why their fellow rioters are vandalizing private properties, or by a private citizen trying to rationalize what they see on the internet, this epistemic rot spreads fast. And all in the name of compassion. Because apparently, empathy and accountability are mutually exclusive now, right?
This isn’t empathy. And it’s certainly not moral clarity. It’s surrender. Surrender of credibility and of agency itself.
Here we catalog the fractures, inconsistencies, and absurdities of modern discourse—not to gawk, but to understand. Not to despair, but to reconnect. Every entry is a stitch in the fabric of meaning. Some are sharp. Some are soft. All are deliberate.
Meaning Rents Here.
I’ve been using this tag on my blog for months, so it’s about time I explain what it means:
The Vault: Coalition Collapse
Coalition Collapse (The Vault): When a worthy cause loses its imperative by association. What begins as a fight against real injustice is infiltrated by supporters of terrorists or bigots—those who arrive armed with depressing sob stories, fluent in borrowed pain. In the name of solidarity, the cause forgets its core, and the coalition rots from within.
A perversion of intersectionality (the idea that all bigotry shares a root) coalition collapse renders legitimate grievances invisible to outsiders, tainted by the company they keep.
Intersectionality: All bigotry has a source. It’s the egotistical part of human nature that we have to work hard to conquer.
Coalition Collapse: All bigotry has a source. It’s The Jews.
What makes it different than “Concavity Collapse” in The Absurdity Archive? Concavity Collapse is when knowledge betrays its pursuers by losing its nuance. Coalition Collapse is when knowledge’s pursuers betray it by destroying its nuance… sometimes willfully, and sometimes by allying with someone who does it instead.
Here we catalog the fractures, inconsistencies, and absurdities of modern discourse—not to gawk, but to understand. Not to despair, but to reconnect. Every entry is a stitch in the fabric of meaning. Some are sharp. Some are soft. All are deliberate.
Meaning Rents Here
https://open.substack.com/pub/absurdarchivist/p/the-vault-coalition-collapse?r=5diu6x&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=post-publish