Melville

February 14, 2026 8:47pm

Hawthorn said of Melville he could “neither believe, nor be comfortable in his unbelief.” So, was the white whale the struggle with doubt?

Transcendence

February 15, 2026 8:17am

Visions in the night: chain-gang of nucleotides, dissimulation, gender confusion, intelligence services, frozen compost and seed potatoes artificial intelligence leading to nothing is real, settling for the common vs. the transcendent, material universe vs. false transcendence of religion, philosophy, science. The road to oblivion with cross streets of belief, sophistry, rationality, and the last – confusion before reaching the final destination – oblivion – the only true release from the maelstrom. Why did I choose this? No, it chose me.

It usually comes in the early morning of half asleep- half awake. This clarity of thought this awareness of the reality that is deeper than the day-to-day, an inchoate understanding. Then, quickly it is vapor, a mist I cannot gather again, and it is gone. Left are the remnants I try to stitch together into a patched fabric, a textile I try to weave into a covering for the naked and raw life we do not want to admit. The life of the arboreal dwellers, murderous, rapacious, scheming survivalists of a brutal wilderness and, in our cells, that prime directive still rules. Moderns with less hair and a civilized veneer that still toil – a chain gang directed by nucleotides in service to some fate we do not see or understand. Building monuments to the gods we invented when consciousness crept in and began its long ascent. Forty-six hundred years of recorded history and where are we now? On the precipice of another new paradigm – same as the old. What have I seen: The first satellite, the threat of nuclear war, six-year-olds hiding under their desks – adults assuring – there, you’ll be safe from the radiation. Yes, safe. Then, the threat of overpopulation and environmental disaster, starvation and Soylent Green.

Future Shock. It’s here. I’m shocked we literally can’t tell men from women. We lust after the beauty queen only to find we’re deceived – he is a queen, just not the one we believed. Whore of Babylon?

Our government of lies all meant to protect us by taking our rights and taking action unauthorized. And artificial intelligence threatening to whip all the dissimulation into a frothy frenzy of nihilism – the last redoubt of the sane. What other conclusion can there be?

Now, what precipitated this descent into questions I put aside many times before? A whaling voyage with Melville and I am Ahab and the white whale the transcendence I sought all my life. I’ve seen others accept what was offered but I did wade through the morass of religion, philosophy and science only to find, at the end, wreckage and the oblivion that is the fate of all.