Tag: Authoritarianism
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Standing in the Ancient Shadow
A Chapter 1 Anthology of Quotes & Reflections At the Trailhead Chapter 1 traces the early contours of the mountains, myths, children, histories, and fractures that shape the trail ahead. These quotes represent the chapter’s most resonant lines under four themes: nature’s deep logic, the wonder and mystery that wake us in the night, the rise of authoritarian…
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The No Shortcuts to Now Audio Guide
A Complete Listening Map for the Trail Planning a holiday drive? Cooking, cleaning, or hiding from relatives? Here’s the full No Shortcuts to Now Audio Guide — all three chapters, in order, with easy links. If you’ve been curious about catching up, this is the perfect place to start. All the links you’ll find below. 🌋 Chapter…
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Waypoint 3.3: Faith, Fury, and the Ditto-Headless Horsemen of the Post-Truth Apocalypse
How the Gospel of Grievance Gave Rise to a Post-Truth Faith “The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.” — Friedrich Nietzsche “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” — Charles Darwin In February 2020, during the State of…
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Field Note 3.2 — All The King’s Candy
Every kingdom starts with a taste for something sweet. “Thus do men swallow the honeyed poison of the mouth.” — Lucretius, On The Nature of Things, Book IV “So long as man remains free, he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship.” — Ivan Karamazov, The Brothers Karamazov Ivan The Parable…
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Field Note 3.1 (a): The Blasted Stage —Kierkegaard’s Clown, Newsom’s Warning, and Trump’s Burning Theatre
We cannot lean on prophecy or conspiracy. We have only history and inference when we measure the depth of Trump’s “vaulting ambition” — and the lengths he’ll go to cheat death, beat the law, rig the system, and make himself immortal. Kierkegaard saw it clearly: “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be…
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Waypoint 3.1: The Iron Key — Pompeii, Volcanic Fire, and The Locks of Time
In May of 1915, Lassen’s Peak exploded and sent a mushroom cloud 30,000 feet into the sky — visible 150 miles to the west from Eureka, on California’s golden coast, and 190 miles to the south from Sacramento. Pacific winds carried ash 280 miles east to Elko, where, in the evening light, it seemed to…
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Field Note 1.3 (b): The Ratatoskr Files
Think of Trump’s makeup as a kind of seismogram — registering a tremor in his earthen heart.
