Bullshit King
2026-05-04
Being good is a privilege.
I was thinking about how life has gone over the last several years, and I came to a stark realization that if my circumstances weren't as favorable as they are, I'd have done a whole lot of worse things just to get by. It's easy to have morals when you have a roof over your head, running water, and food to eat. In times of greater desperation, I probably wouldn't have been so ethically charged with my decisions. The stability of economic privilege makes pretty much any ethical stance one of privilege to me, and I think that's why I'm so disgusted by internet moralizing. It takes a lot more guts to admit to being wrong than it does to boldly claim being right, and that kind of intellectual honesty is so important to me—I can spot a load of bullshit from a mile away. I'm reminded of that scene in Breaking Bad where Walt is flunking a student, and as the kid tries to talk his way out of a failing grade, Walt just plainly tells him "don't bullshit a bullshitter." In the same way I can cut to the pure honesty of a given subject, I am also painfully aware of how that comes from my ability to obscure certain truths.
But even beyond a pursuit of intellectual truth, I try to make sense of things that probably have no place being made sense of. I think of dreams, hallucinations, and the otherworldly experiences I've had, and it makes me realize the dangers of my own intellectual and creative proclivities in a way that makes them even more difficult to confront. While I was mostly asleep over the weekend, there was a constant flow of dreams that led to so many different lines of metaphysical questioning. I'll tell you one that stood out: I was sitting in some virtual room à la the Metaverse, and for whatever reason I decided to do a sign of the cross and say the Jesus Prayer. Then out of nowhere, a virtual guy dressed like someone straight out of first-century Rome came up to me—tunic and everything—and I decided to shake his hand. It felt just like I would've been shaking someone's hand in real life, but here I was in this virtual dream landscape interacting with its 3D locals.
How do you even begin to approach something that insane with intellectual honesty?
Like I've been saying for quite some time, I've grown much more comfortable with not knowing things or having answers to certain questions. When I was younger and as the world was coping with the seismic cultural shifts of the internet, it was a strange luxury to have all the answers to so many questions inside a little machine in the house. But as I've gotten older, the realities of this answering machine have become more stark and harrowing; there's no room for my mind to really wander because most basic answers are a simple search away. It can take a simple query, turn it into a mini-obsession, and evaporate into thin air over the course of a few hours. Many say this kind of thing makes the world feel smaller, but to me it's a view into the sheer depth and magnitude of it—and it makes me feel like I have to carry a weight most would find too constantly burdensome. On the one hand, there's joy in carrying it sometimes, and wonder can still be found in certain small novelties; when it's a constantly dopaminergic shot of small novelties, though, being zapped makes sense.
Writing here helps combat that. I was sent a clip of this one podcast guy called I, Hypocrite and it was strange how he had his show formatted. I know that a lot of people like that kind of commentary format, and it was also strange because the speaking audio was only playing through one channel in my headphones—which means that by design, you are to listen to it with one ear out, like if you're out and about doing stuff or whatever else. You know how they say talk is cheap? Well, that's how I feel listening to stuff like that. I don't want to be one of those guys who winces at the idea of not-reading like I'm some kind of pretentious hyper-genius, but it just feels like listening to some guy yapping for an hour isn't really ever going to be as intellectually stimulating as reading something with a bit of rigor to it. That's the thing with writing: forcing your thoughts to slow down so that you can correctly articulate them is an important part of that cognitive plumbing, so to speak.
Staying sane is a job and a half, I'll tell you that. The constant temptation for resignation and despair is a strange thing to feel tempted by, but I guess that's just one of the unique features of Current Year, isn't it? I'm glad we have some kind of language for it, even if it's mostly clinical. I keep having to remind myself that all I'm looking for is what to do today, and that's it. I've been feeling good lately, almost too good. Last night, I could feel myself climbing into mania a bit, and even after taking another Olanzapine, I woke up an hour before I usually do. Many would take that as a good sign, but I know myself well enough to approach something like that with caution—because firstly, that kind of serendipity doesn't last, and secondly, too much good energy inevitably leads me into making some kind of shitty impulsive decision. Finding temperance when my mind speeds up like that is a tough thing, but I'm thankful to have a few different sources of grounding to help out with that. In all of it, my only aim is to give God my whole heart, no matter what the day brings.
I just want to feel normal, be normal. Having the lucidity of these entries helps because it's a direct source of proof that I'm not completely losing it. If I can produce a seemingly rational and sensible thought for the day, that's a good day. All this other gobbledygook about "current events" or whatever other words for sensationalism there are—it doesn't mean a thing to me because I just have this page with words on it, and I don't need anything else. For you, I hope you feel more recentered after reading this, maybe even less alone. I'm right here with you, even if you don't let me know. I see you, wherever you are, and hope nothing but the best God has to offer us. Even in those times where things aren't so good, we can all do with a little bit of compassion.
Just try not to bullshit anybody, okay?
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