Escape Resignation.

This is an edited and reworked transcript of my recent episode, adapted to fit an essay format.

The Resignation

This is another character for you to consume.

Some of you will find me a bit insane, full of myself, maybe a bit schizo, blind to my own ignorance...and to those I say, good, you should. Run with that thought. Destroy the small symbol of me by maintaining your idea of me and what that represents for you.

What I'm trying to say is...this is not going to be a place of neatly packaged conclusions or universal truths. If anything, I wish to avoid those conclusions...forever. I'll let other people delve into that more definitive, conclusion-driven style. Personally, I find it limiting—it demands a kind of certainty I don’t naturally gravitate toward. Some people excel at that; their minds are wired to make everything concise and wrapped up, but for me, it feels disingenuous. I need ambiguity for the sake of my own sanity.

"Such would be the successive phases of the image:

it is the reflection of a profound reality; it masks and denatures a profound reality; it masks the absence of a profound reality; it has no relation to any reality whatsoever; it is its own pure simulacrum." -- Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

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Society's Shared Psychosis

So, let's start with society and branch off from that foundation.

Society, at its core, thrives on a delicate balance between conformity and controlled deviation. The deviation is the accepted level of neurosis where society will not call you psychotic. It requires people to give themselves to authority at some level to function—to accept its norms, rules, and boundaries, even as those norms are constantly shifting. Society runs on what could be called the "accepted formulations of psychosis," a shared illusion of order and coherence that allows it to perpetuate itself.

What do the structures of society truly hate? They hate when too many people reach high levels of neurosis—when individuals become unpredictable, chaotic, or ungovernable. These people, through their deviation, challenge the shared psychosis. They become vectors of change, disrupting the carefully curated narratives that keep the majority in line.

Take identity, for example. When society fails to accept our sense of identity, we begin falling into neurotic states, seeking outlets to express these various states of being. Society says, "Be gay if you want, but don’t be too gay." You can express your femininity, but not so far outside the norm that it destabilizes the boundaries of gender expectations. You can embody your manhood as you wish, but still represent what it means to be "a man" within the limits society has constructed. You can follow any religion you choose, but our laws and public life can’t deviate too far from the dominant faith.

This is the negotiation of truth—where individual expression exists only within the confines of what the collective psyche can tolerate. The moment expression or deviation crosses an invisible line, it threatens the system’s stability. It’s not outright rebellion that society fears most, but the slow, creeping realization that its constructs aren’t as immutable as they seem. Too much neurosis disrupts the shared psychosis, the illusion of order, and forces the system to confront its own fragility.

But why is society fragile? Because beyond the illusion is the harsh reality that society will always rely on a shared form of psychosis...and to confront this is to acknowledge that societal structures will always become psychotic, as they rebel against the likely schizophrenic nature of the universe.

This negotiation plays out in every realm of life. It’s why systems simultaneously allow and limit rebellion. Express your individuality, but not to the point where it undermines the very idea of individuality as society has defined it. Follow your desires, but don’t question too deeply where those desires come from or how they’re shaped. Accept the negotiation, or you risk being cast as a threat, an agent of chaos, a vector of the schizophrenic nature of the universe.

This tension is where the possibility of real change resides. Society doesn’t crumble when a few people rebel. It crumbles when too many people step outside the prescribed formulations—when neurosis spreads and individuals begin to see the psychosis for what it is: a construct. That’s when the negotiation breaks down, and new truths, new structures, and new shared illusions emerge.

"The risk of madness is gauged by the very appeal of the identifications on which man stakes both his truth and his being." -- Lacan.

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Internet as Projection

Okay, enough of that...let's bring my reductive formulation of the universe back to a cultural moment: the internet.

The internet is in its age of projection. QAnon has replaced reality for many, as its adherents interpret real-world events as evidence of their hyperreal framework. This reinforces their belief in its existence, often making them more willing to question reality itself rather than their digital construct. Cryptocurrency, though controversial—I know many crypto enthusiasts will dislike my framing—relies on a shared belief system, speculative narratives, and conceptual constructs. Its value is symbolic, much like the American dollar, which now depends on global belief in U.S. economic power rather than being tied to the once-sensationalized gold standard.

I'm saying that the internet now plays a fundamental role in the speculation and negotiation of what is real.

Let me start with a core piece of my thought: the recognition that the internet has pushed us into a hyperreal space, where even baseless conspiracy theories or half-formed ideas are presented with an authoritative veneer. Our online spaces have become a fractured territory that was once more dominantly held by real events and ideas. But what if we step outside that space?

Because conspiracy theories, at some level, can provide interesting thoughts, perspectives, and ways of thinking. But what is often the problem with them? Maybe we can say they are a distraction from real issues, which has some truth. Or maybe it is that people who fully embrace those conspiracies are seeking some authoritative gap to fill, so they dismiss reason and become overly reductionist in their conclusions, making a conspiracy theory the pillar they will die on.

I say this because you should not see me as an authority. I'm someone filled with doubt and trying to escape that doubt (but not really escape...only for moments).

This side of my project will be developing, but at some vague level, it is about those in-between spaces—the exploration of the liminal spaces—where ideas can exist without being flattened into sound bites or algorithms.

And I want to touch on that flattened point. I'm not in the business of building pillars of knowledge; I'm more interested in the map and understanding how one comes into various forms of thought and perspectives based on where they enter the map, if that makes sense?

I suppose my desire is to explore the multiplicity of realities, a labyrinth that only flows into another labyrinth. I think much of our current world, at some foundational level, no longer sees truth as singular or authoritative but instead as a negotiation of excess realities.

I think the negotiation of reality has always occurred....it's just that our current moment is leaning more towards an excess of negotiated realties.

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Maps Without Territory

Okay, but what the fuck does this look like?

At some point, I wish to bring this underground experiment away from the curated confines of the internet, back into external reality. The real world. But that will be a discussion for a later date.

To accomplish what I've mentioned so far, we must turn our attention inward and outward—examining the layers of society and ourselves. These layers are intertwined in a way that cannot be escaped, as the self and society co-create each other in an ongoing feedback loop. But what’s most fascinating, and perhaps most elusive, is the space between these two things: the liminal space where self and society meet, clash, merge, and transform.

Why focus on this space? Because it holds the greatest influence over us—shaping who we are, how we act, and how we perceive reality. Yet it’s a space we cannot inhabit fully or consistently. The moment we try to pin it down, the moment we fully recognize or define it, it changes into something else. It ceases to be the in-between, the undefined, and becomes part of the known, the structured. And so, this elusive space continues to evade us even as it defines us.

"Ah, this is a bunch of mumbo jumbo word vomit."

Yes, yes it is. If you are here, you're probably into theory at some level—philosophical bases like Deleuze or maybe Žižek, or perhaps you enjoy psychoanalysis...like Lacan or you see Freud's insights as getting at something beyond the literal. Now, if this is you, you have probably heard people say about these various thinkers, "Ah, they are confusing, they just produce word vomit, they're vague, they are not saying anything; they just string some pretty words together."

They do have a point. But that doesn’t mean it’s for them—and that’s okay. It doesn’t make those who are interested in these areas wrong either. I’ve come to accept that these subjects and ideas will always remain niche to some extent. Society seems to require a level of universality, a shared foundation of truth to maintain coherence. Yet, it’s often those who venture outside of these boundaries—who challenge and chip away at these universal truths—that begin to reshape and reformulate what we understand as truth.

Engaging with this realm means embracing a certain degree of neurosis. It comes with the risk of cultivating your own unique form of psychosis, one that diverges from the collectively sanctioned, socially constructed psychosis we all operate within.

Take someone like Freud. He fundamentally altered how we view psychopathology and the mind. He obviously was not right about everything, but his ability to move outside of the established universal truth chipped away at a piece of some universal understanding that society held. He did this even though, when people refer to him, they will comment on the Oedipus complex in a literal sense or say that Freud is no longer followed. But the spaces in between his thought, his meaningful writings, his many ideas, were something that fractured a universal truth that society held. He opened a doorway to the psyche. He provided a map that held uncharted territory.