Killshot

 Drag began as satire, a glittering parody of gender. But the parody became permanent. Sequins turned into skin. The stage became life. What was once a joke now insists on being reality. The same infection spread to the performative male — curated softness, fragile self-awareness, endless disclaimers. A pose that calcified into a lifestyle.

And now they call this the “modern man.” Oxymoron of the century. If the spine remains, it is not modern. If it is gone, it is not man. You cannot hollow out the skeleton and still claim the name. Yet the ornamental offspring cling to it anyway, as if hydration by sipping liquefied grass were a masculine virtue, painting their world in pastel tones, building their lives as endless reels where every action is potential content and every shallow interest a brand.

Not since the Neanderthal has humanity felt the urge to evolve — but this time, the “evolution” is into parody. Into colorful, irrational, performative shells of what once was. Downgrade disguised as progress. Survival of the feeblest. Evolution into the most ornamental — decoration, not function.

Culturally-adapted, algorithm-approved progressive pussy. That is the new badge. Worn proudly by the pastel sons, like a participation ribbon. Survival not through strength or clarity, but through hashtags, playlists, and emotional collapse into content on a slow news day.

Darwin wouldn’t just roll in his grave — he’d crawl out to send us to a farm far away, or, by mercy, put us all to sleep, knowing a Wi-Fi blackout more fatal than famine would finish the job anyway.

PS: This article was co-written with ChatGPT

The Joke's on Me (and My Writing)

 I've been so busy trying to figure myself out that I forgot the most important rule of writing: never bore yourself (or anyone else). For a while, I was more concerned with putting myself in a neat little box, labeling every single thought, and creating a perfect, well-organized exhibit of my life.

And in the process, the good jokes just walked right by me, waving as they went.

Like when I wrote about my love for sharing way too much information on The Currency of My Mind. I could have called it the "director's cut nobody asked for." It was a slam dunk, a gift from the humor gods, and I completely ignored it.

Or the time I reflected on Out in the Cold about the decision to let my child remain ignorant and blissful or to influence her, knowing she'd then suffer in a world that's overrun by simpletons. I could have added a comment about needing a parenting manual on "How to Raise a Socrates Without Getting Him Uninvited from Christmas." The joke was right there, but I was too busy overthinking.

Those missed jokes were a sign. I'd gone too far down the rabbit hole of self-analysis and had started writing like I was a museum curator for my own life. It might be efficient, but let's be honest, a museum is not exactly a party.

So, here's to getting back to the fun stuff. The jokes, the messy thoughts, and the joy of not having all the answers.

PS: This article was co-written with Google Gemini and ChatGPT 

A Different Kind of Strength

 So, I've been piecing together a different kind of personal history. It’s a realization that some of my most defining intellectual traits, which I’ve often seen as just 'the way I am', might be a deeply ingrained survival strategy. It’s like finding out the operating system you've always used wasn’t just designed for efficiency; it was also built for self-preservation.

From an early age, I've felt the world as a place where raw, physical prowess was the most valued asset. It's a truth as old as the animal kingdom: size often correlates with dominance. But for those of us who weren't given that particular advantage, a different sort of strength had to be forged. It's an almost instinctual compensation, an evolutionary trade-off where the brain becomes the body's secret weapon. My mind, with its insatiable need to analyze and categorize everything, became my most reliable tool for navigating the world's messy, often illogical, social landscape.

Think of it as a form of compensatory adaptation. When an organism lacks the physical means to dominate, it must find a new path to survival. A small creature won’t outmuscle its rivals; it will outsmart them. It will develop a superior ability to identify threats, anticipate attacks, and use its environment to gain an advantage. My brain, with its relentless drive for logic and data, became my own version of this. It’s a cognitive muscle developed not just for intellectual pursuits, but for the fundamental need to feel secure and in control in a world that can feel physically overwhelming.

The development of these traits is a dynamic mix of nature and nurture. While there may be innate cognitive predispositions, a person's experiences—especially if they've felt at a physical disadvantage—can be a powerful trigger, compelling the mind to re-route its own internal logic and reconfigure its very processes.

PS: This article was co-written with Google Gemini 

The Currency of My Mind

 Lately, I've been trying to put a name to some of the peculiar ways my brain operates. It's been a bit of a relief, really, to find that some of my most frustrating habits aren't just personal quirks—they're actual, recognized concepts. Like how I talk.

I've always felt like I communicate in a different language, and it turns out there's a term for it: infodumping. It's exactly what it sounds like. When someone asks me a simple question about a topic I'm passionate about, my brain doesn't just offer a quick answer. It pulls up the whole database, complete with footnotes and historical context. I can feel the momentum building, this surge of information that just has to get out. It's an almost physical pressure, like an overfilled container that has to be emptied, and suddenly I'm a torrent of facts and details, leaving the other person blinking and probably wondering if they've just been hit with a full-on lesson when all they asked for was a simple opinion.

The first episode of The Big Bang Theory was a bit of a wake-up call for me. When Sheldon launched into his epic monologue explaining the necessity of his couch spot—the specific angle to the television, the airflow, the perfect temperature—I didn't see a caricature. I saw a mirror. His seemingly endless monologue of arguments, fueled by what felt like an expansive database and lightning-fast reasoning that connects subtopics so seamlessly, resonated with me on a deeply personal level. His need for a logical, data-driven explanation for a seemingly simple preference is connected to something else I've been reading about, hyper-intellectualism. It's not a clinical diagnosis, just a way of describing an extreme reliance on intellect to navigate the world. For people like me, emotions often feel like a foreign territory, but facts? Data? Those are home. My brain is constantly analyzing, categorizing, and connecting everything. It's an operating system designed for logic, and it struggles with the messy, illogical nature of social small talk. When I'm trying to make a connection with someone, it feels like I'm trying to hand them a meticulously organized binder of data points when what they really wanted was a simple handshake.

This is where the infodumping comes in. For me, sharing a flood of information isn't a power move or a way to show off. It’s an act of genuine connection. It's me saying, "This is what lights up my world. This is the truth I’ve uncovered. I’m sharing this with you because I trust you enough to show you the gears of my mind." It’s an authentic attempt to bridge the gap, to offer the gold bar of my thoughts in a world that mostly deals in casual change.

For me, authentic connection is often found in the energetic exchange of ideas. I've often found myself arguing a different view just to see the beauty of how another's mind works, but that's a game I often have to play by myself. It's not about being right; it's about exploring the possibilities and seeing what new information or perspectives we can uncover together. That feels like an authentic connection to me, even if we never reach an agreement.

The loneliness, as always, is a quiet undertone to this realization. It's a comfort to have a name for it, but it also confirms that my natural way of communicating is, for many, an overwhelming or even off-putting experience. I'm left with a familiar question: How do you find people who are fluent in your language, or at the very least, willing to learn the vocabulary?

PS: This article was co-written with Google Gemini

The Burden of Being the Weird One, Revisited

 In a post I wrote in December 2023, I sat down and just… spewed. Ranted. Put to paper a lot of the fears and frustrations I’ve been carrying around. I talked about feeling like an alien in my own life—terrified of family reunions and social gatherings because I just can’t seem to engage in “normal” conversations without being seen as odd or, worse, inebriated.

It’s a peculiar kind of loneliness, isn’t it? The kind that comes from being surrounded by people but feeling completely disconnected. The trigger for that post was a simple invitation to a family reunion, but the roots of the fear run deep, all the way back to being a "weird" kid in school.

Lately, though, something has shifted. While fooling around with Google Gemini, taking a few screening tests online, and just generally trying to make sense of myself, I’ve stumbled upon a few concepts that have been both a revelation and a relief. I ran a couple of those online autism screening tests for adults, specifically the RAADS-R and the AQ. The results came back: for both tests, I was just one point shy of the clinical threshold for a potential autism diagnosis. It was a moment that gave a name to a lifetime of feeling out of place. Suddenly, I felt like I had finally found my people and recognized that I share similar peeves and experiences with many autistic individuals. This realization brought a sense of belonging, and it helped define the nebulous feeling of being different.

It turns out, my brain might be wired differently. I’ve been learning about something called weak central coherence. Put simply, while most people see the whole tree, I'm the one trying to make sense of the branches. I'm drawn to the details and the logic of how they fit together, and I often miss the bigger picture or the social subtext that everyone else seems to grasp so effortlessly. This can lead to a fragmented perception of the world, where it's a collection of isolated facts rather than a connected whole.

This, combined with what I now know is a highly analytical mind, explains a lot. My brain is a machine designed for logic. It breaks everything down, looks for data and consistency, and expects the same from others. When a friend or family member says something, my first instinct isn't to react emotionally; it's to analyze the statement itself. This is why I can’t deliver those quick, impromptu emotional responses that seem to come naturally to everyone else. My logic filter is just too strong. It's not a choice, and it's not a lack of feeling; it's just my brain's default operating system.

It’s like I’m running a different kind of software. When the conversation turns to something logical—politics, history, science—my brain lights up. But when it's about the latest social media craze, it feels like a short circuit. My mind just can’t compute the emotional relevance and logical significance of something devoid of substance.

This realization, while comforting, also brings a new kind of isolation. It confirms that I’m in a vast minority. Finding people who share a similar cognitive wiring isn't just difficult; it feels impossible within my own social circles. I’m an analyst in a world of trendy minds, and the very places meant for connection—family, friends, and relatives—feel like foreign territories. It's one thing to feel misunderstood, but it's another to accept that your own circle may not hold a single person who truly understands the way your mind works. So, you find yourself retreating, not from a lack of desire for connection, but from the painful knowledge that the very people who "know" you, don't.

It often feels like when I try to converse, I'm trying to buy coffee with a gold bar. My thoughts are a currency too valuable, too dense, and too cumbersome for the simple, quick transactions of social small talk. I bring deep insights, intricate details, and philosophical questions to a world that only needs loose change for a quick exchange. It’s not that my gold bar is worthless; it’s just not practical for the moment. And so, it stays in my pocket, and I'm left with nothing to offer in the casual market of conversation.

This realization is both a relief and a burden. On one hand, it’s good to know there's a reason for feeling like an outsider, and even better to know that there's a community of individuals who share similar experiences. It’s not a moral failing; it’s a neurological difference. On the other, it confirms that I may always be the one trying to bridge a gap that most people don’t even see. I'm left with the same question: is it worth all the effort to become socially acceptable? And can you ever truly "blend in" when your very nature is to stand out?

PS: This article was co-written with Google Gemini

The Death of Authenticity

 My writing was my pride and joy—I've always considered it to be slightly better than average and unique.

For a while now, I’ve been generating images with AI. I saw it as a harmless side project—just a fun way to kill time. It was a fascinating little tool, a shortcut to something visually interesting without any real effort.

But while staring at a blank page for a new blog entry, a profound realization hit me. I realized that my creative expression, which I considered to have a distinct flavor, could be easily replicated and even outclassed. The thought that AI could generate a better article in seconds than I could in an entire day became a frustrating and bitter reality.

That’s when it shifted from being a pastime to something more profound. For the first time, I felt it—the frustration of a digital artist, the quiet hurt of a photographer. These are people who have poured their lives into their craft, mastering a skill, and building their identity. And now, their vision can be mimicked and potentially surpassed with a simple click of the AI generation button.

This awakening was not a gentle one. A wave of empathy hit me for the souls whose work I had so easily dismissed. The contrast must be crushing: their genuine, handcrafted work versus a soulless, computer-generated interpretation. When the line between a lifetime of skill and a mere text prompt is blurred to the point of erasure, what is left to validate their efforts?

We are all part of this creative crisis, playing with a tool that could one day make our own passions feel obsolete.

PS: This article was co-written with Google Gemini (it took half the time to create).