Doctor’s Visit—America is going the way of Rome. Surfeited, gluttonous ostentation has led to cultural decadence. One can check the pulse as see we are utterly impulsive.

Hearing Aids of the Future—The modern man is increasingly solipsistic. He chooses to live isolated and enclosed in the ether. Conveniently, Apple has stated that AirPods will soon be able to act as hearing aids! He who has ears let him hear…

On Pop Music—Popular music today suffers from a profound amnesia. In fact, it forgets every fifteen-seconds which is why it repeats the same four chords so often. Coincidentally, so too does the listener. Thankfully, the suffering only lasts for about two minutes and thirty-seconds.

παιδεία & Destiny—In the absence of a divine destiny we have no destining and therefore lack a destination. We no longer inculcate—we educate but with no viewpoint, no frame of reference. Our cultural amnesia has forgotten wherefore, thus we educate but for no reason since we lack a rationality. We are leading future leaders but to where?

Ockham’s Razor Redefined—There is a pervasive and overwhelming feeling that something is wrong with American society. Manifold explanations are given, but the truth of matter defies Ockham’s razor. Propaganda no longer needs to convince because ideas are disseminated via social media pre-reflexively. This creates the illusion that such opinions are unique, sui-generis, and autonomous. These ideas, in reality, are alien in nature but the illusion of freedom persists nevertheless. All knowledge is permeable.

On Megalopolis—Francis Ford Coppola’s new big-screen flop is good in theory but falters in execution. Idealistic, the movie delivers one of the worst lines near the end when the main character Cesar Catilina, played by the handsome Adam Driver, stands up before the population of New Rome and declares, “We are in need of a great debate about the future.” This is hilariously absurd…Society is wholly unable to conduct itself in a debate! Due to the memeification of life itself, all conversation has devolved into real-life trolling. In the absence of rationality, emotion prevails. For emotion is swifter, more immediate, and markedly more potent than ratio. There remains now just one global, monotonous, guttural groan of complaint and regret. Debate cannot and will not save our democracy since our debates are driven by bots, AI outrage, and “user engagement.” Ironically, the best line of the movie is delivered by the antagonist of the film, mayor Cicero, when he retorts: “[All] utopias [eventually] turn into dystopias.”

Cultural Narcissism—The modern man has an aversion to face-to-face conversation. For him, it remains to painful, slow, and boring for his hyper-active soul. It’s much easier—indeed, there is much less resistance involved!—when strangers affirm you in an online echo-chamber. Any differentiation that he has achieved, historically speaking, has gone by the wayside. For he has retuned back to the predicament of Narcissus, in love with the comely reflection and fair beauty that gazes back through his smart phone. This excess sameness has created a culture of love—forsooth!—where everyone is in love with themselves. In sum, modern man can’t stand face-to-face communication; no, he would much rather talk to himself. But where sacrifice is found wanting, so too does love remain hidden.

Prometheus: The Poem of Fire—Alexander Scriabin’s Le Poème du Feu is brilliant in its ability to sonically capture that antediluvian mystery, magic, and darkness. Therein lies a captivating enchantment at the potency and sorcery of fire. Mankind has utterly transcended this mystery and not for the better. Technological power has taken ahold of us; fire has become a wildfire. Helpless before her power, we transfix our hypnotic gaze upon her licks of flame, awaiting cosmic conflagration. Scriabin’s mystical hexachord is not man’s salvation, for that was never his intention. Rather, it’s sheer love & death, beauty & chaos. It is the eternal pleroma of the ancient Greek Platonists and the cosmic conflagration of the ancient Stoics. It is Nietzsche’s Will to Power: the eternal recurrence of all things. At the conclusion of the piece, in the midst of the orchestra’s final F sharp major, one can hear the eternal tortured shrieks of Prometheus turn into laughter.

Nature the Conqueror—There is a stubbornness that exists as integral to Nature that man has utterly underestimated. This stubbornness is also eminently patient. Man, in his continued struggle against Nature to objectify all things for usefulness, has waged war against against a god who will have the last laugh. In Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead the protagonist Howard Roark represents the embodiment of egoism, individualism, and capitalism. His architectural achievements, therefore, represent mankind’s creative domination over nature. But the nature of Heraclitus is a Being in flux, and she will always reclaim what once belonged to her. For even if the foundation has not yet shifted, one still is required to bring the building up to code. After all, both theologians and insurance actuaries know that Acts of God is not a category one takes lightly!

On Capitalism—Capitalism is ironic in its inability to exist outside a collective environment. The freedom of the individual qua individual is only operable insofar as one can exist vis-a-vis the massa damnata. It does no good to accumulate capital if one has no one to sell it to—nor to amass wealth if no one can look upon your ostentation. When the collective no longer buys into the dream of becoming the individual then the system fails.

The Leper’s Fate—Society suffers from a “grass is always greener” sickness whereby it is constantly seeking things that are: bigger, brighter, better. Capitalism loves this and touts products as the cure. A rejection of this mindset is viewed by society with skepticism in the same way we feel unjustified when someone does not voluntarily participate in our specious behavior. A total rejection leads to ostracism as a leper was quarantined outside the camp in Ancient Israel in an attempt to maintain the health and integrity of the communal whole. Indeed, Socrates was put to death and so was Jesus. But it is much better to be a martyr than a feckless bourgeois.

O Pharmake, confront thy death!—Foul-tasting medicine is best drunk quickly so as to not prolong the sickness and ensure rapid recovery. A spoonful of sugar perhaps can make the medicine “go down,” but it is this very bittersweet commingling that we vehemently reject. For we are not seeking a “going down,” but an apotheosis, and this can only be achieved when the phantasmagoric is swallowed straight with no chaser. Therefore, death must be confronted and subsequently accepted early and immediately. Those who do not lament, as if surprised, crying out: “how could he be taken from us so early!” But those who leer upon death’s countenance can boldly proclaim, “My God! How did this man live so damn long?” For it is not the mere length of a life—a very flat way of thinking (and an improper way to calculate at that)—that one must use to ponder its significance, but its depth.

On the difference between the ISFP & the INFJ psychological types—The ISFP suffers from a cementing, an inherent heaviness that keeps them absorbed in the world. Consequently, when they project their art, music, or creativity into the world, they give an ironic head nod to the world-chaos as it exists and simultaneously give outward form to their inner feeling. Their existence matches the rhythms of the world, and is one constantly in motion, change, and flux. The INFJ, on the other hand, is constantly floating, or more correctly is wanting to float, upwards. The ISFP’s soul directly experiences the cosmic suffering and yet embraces and accepts all of its moral ambiguity. In contradistinction, the INFJ’s soul envisages this cosmic suffering, feels the pain psychically, mediately, and universally, and then ever and anon attempts to flee her prison of a body into the realm of the ideal. The INFJ’s existential estrangement, and her inability to psychically relate to the external world save through her Fe, creates an incarnate alien subject that longs to return to her true home. Her spirit is like a balloon of helium which, once untethered, floats freely upwards into the stratosphere until it bursts and is again absorbed into the celestial being, or die Alle.