Individualism/ the Hero Narrative Posts

Can we model institutional gaslighting as a process failure of control?I recently handed my Predictive State Machine version of the Narcissistic Systems Model to the AGI Round Table to be stress-tested, analyzed, and mapped against political economy…

Do you every feel like you’re surrounded by people who make you despair at humanity? Or, that somehow, despite an obviously increasing number of shitheads, people treat you strangely when you call them out?That feeling, of having an almost t…

Welcome to part 2 of our series on how to spot a narcissistic system – this time via it’s patterns of tactics. From gaslighting, blame-shifting, triangulation and all the other famous mind games, to their less well-known cousins, like mo…

Welcome dear reader. This is the first post in a 3 part series on how to recognize a narcissistic system—be that a workplace, an institution, a family, or even a social circle.Why talk about narcissistic systems on a blog on loneliness?Bec…

WEAPONIZED POSITIVITYHave you ever had a so-called friend... FIRE you?Have you ever been abandoned because your grief was 'too heavy' for their 'capacity'? Or because your collection of Grindcore CDs was deemed an indication of your “bad r…

Do you ever wonder why it seems so hard to connect? Do you repeatedly make the effort, only to be ignored, brushed off, or treated like the very act of wanting connection makes you strange?Why is this so common? And so painful?Today, w…

What if your therapist is using the same tactics as a narcissistic parent — and calling it treatment? What if therapy is teaching you to keep your hands burning on a hot plate, and alter your reaction to the fact that you are burning?Today, …

It makes sense that people are curious about Stoicism again. It’s one of the few tools that admits life is crap sometimes. Compared to Western spiritualism, it feels like a more sober, more realistic, way to come to terms with that fact. The p…

Picture yourself in the late 1800s. You’ve been outcast by German society. You’ve been laughed at by academics and spurned by potential lovers. You are now miserable, broke, and ill, but still very, very THINKY. You are, in fact, working…

Hello, dear reader. Today, I want to talk about one of the most insidious reasons you might feel lonely, isolated — and like you’re not good enough You might not know this, but those feelings are actually a typical outcome of a certain k…

Today, I want to really drill down into what MIGHT be the solution to loneliness—connection—and make clear how the values we hold as a society make that connection so damn difficult. My hope is that, in understanding that, the real solut…

Let me dive right into the guts of the loneliness pandemic. We are not lonely by accident. There is a whole system of values that culminate in our isolation, at least, in western capitalist culture. These values are not just isolated ideas, either. …