The strange reality of life in a digital foxhole
The strange reality of life in a digital foxhole
Keyboard warriors are living through historic times, and their stories must be told
Many of us are living lives right now that feel like we’ve accidentally dropped some kind of deliriant psychedelic substance into our morning coffee, and it refuses to wear off. Once you begin to see how little is truly as it seems to be, and how easily tricked people are into believing lies, you become detached from what everyone else perceives as “reality”. An expanded awareness of the bigger picture is juxtaposed with an ongoing grieving process for the naive world we once believed in as being the totality of things.
Years of social engineering, weaponised AI, media propaganda, predictive programming, cultural subversion, and corrupted churches have left our society riven with fractures that split apart families, communities, and nationalities. The old “normal” we used to inhabit is unravelling, and a new world is held is prospect but not quite yet here. We see all the tentative signs of a new financial system, a new energy system, a new healing system, a new media system, a new social system — and they remain “fringe” for the most part.
There is no way that I could have anticipated the way things would be right now in 2023 just a few years ago. It is like we have gone beyond “black swan” territory to the bizarre “purple platypus” zone. One of the key roles that “keyboard warriors” take on is to maintain mental health and heal trauma by “witnessing” the collective struggle, so we know we are not alone in our difficulties. I have plucked ten things out of my head that characterise the experience for me.
Virtual foxholes. The last few years have been endless hours chatting on Signal, FaceTime, Zoom, WhatsApp, and Telegram. We have formed close communities of supporters and confidantes, many of whom we have never met in person. Yet our worlds are somewhat skewed as a result: the synthetic sense of presence of the other emanating from an electronic device is not the same as being there in person, and we need that closeness. Virtual foxholes can create intense relationships with fellow freedom fighters, yet at a cost to tension or neglect in that local physical environment.
Scapegoat city. Our loved ones have been sold a lie that adhering to all the “woke” norms is ethical, caring, selfless, respectable, and righteous. For them to accept that it is the exact opposite is a shattering of their self-image and trust in authority. In order to defend their psyche from the death of the ego, they have to split and make the rest of us into a “bad thing”. We are receptacles for their unfinished shadow work, so become the scapegoat. Outcast and ostracised, we are stuck unable to mourn properly for relationships stuck in suspended animation, as those we care about fall under the spell of “fashionable falsehood”.
Money struggles. “Holding the line”, standing for your principles, and refusing to comply with wickedness often costs careers, jobs, clients, promotions, and projects. Meanwhile, we may face upheaval in our lives as we reconfigure around a changed social reality. There are soaring prices in stores, savings are withered away, and we endure “prepper” costs for hard times ahead. Fights with corrupt authorities steal our energy that would otherwise be given over to earning a living. It is common for patriots to require help from each other to keep going against the tide of treachery.
Cultural invisibility. Our enemy has to engineer a false consensus, duping people with good intentions into surrendering their conscience to hidden agendas. Movies, computer games, and soap operas celebrate lifestyles, situations, and morals that are abhorrent to many (if not most) people. The ordinary man or woman fighting the good fight against official overreach and criminal government is smeared and denigrated. The fallen mass culture does everything it can to make the noble keyboard warrior culture into a non-thing, warping its presentation into the opposite of reality. Our real stories will be told… in time.
Entertainment alienation. I used to go to the movies often in the 1990s to early 2000s. I used to read magazines like The Economist as I sat on endless plane rides to consulting clients. I used to attend mainstream theatre and musicals, plus the occasional raucous loud electronic music concert. I used to even read the occasional novel, albeit infrequently. Many of us are finding the things that entertained us in the past losing their shine, and not just because of advancing age. We see the occulted messages, and are on guard against being programmed, so find it hard to sit back and relax immersed in fantasy worlds.
Historic awareness. The “conceptual cosmos” that we inhabit grows as we awaken, and realise that things are not as they seem. The idea of a hidden history grows in credibility, becoming the new default received wisdom. We look at old buildings, ancient monuments, museum exhibits, antique maps and books, elaborate churches, and grand edifices in a completely new light of understanding. Electricity, sound, healing, genocides, floods, orphans, resets… it’s a whole new world of learning, like a return to kindergarten. Being in the city, a circuitboard of energy flow, has a new level of experience, not always easy to relate to.
Creative healing. As we disconnect from the fake culture around us, we seek therapy for our wounded soul. Nature, craft, gardening, cooking, walking, boating, yoga, and pets seem to fill this void that once was occupied by entertainment. Being creative rises up our list of priorities, bringing a bliss that other ways of occupying ourselves cannot rival. Painting, photography, writing… and endless hobbies give us meaning and social interaction as we abandon the forms of distraction that previously entranced us. We heal ourselves through our acts of divine expression, returning us to a more playful state of childlike wonder.
Persecutory problems. The war is, at a strategic level, already won — being over before it was started. The head of the snake may have been cut off, but those of us in ordinary society still have to engage with all of the thrashing limbs of the dying matrix of enslavement. Greedy utility companies, woke local police, evil neighbours, corrupt councils, tax bills from genocidal states… we constantly have to keep these wolves away from our door. Laws seem to only ever apply to us, never to them. You have to pick your battles, trading off principles with consequences. Once you stand up, you cannot back down, so have to accept wounds as part of the calling of the warrior.
Paradoxical anticipation. I look back at my own longing over the last few years for rapid resolution with amusement. The extraction of society from the jaws of evil, and reversal of decades of brainwashing, is a process and not an event. There may be moments of rapid catharsis to come, but the dominant theme is of watching dates come and go, without the specific expected events, but strangely more progress happening that we had imaged possible. For every day that passes, our appreciation grows of the scale of the problem we have faced and the amazing speed we are resolving it. The day “it” happens — and society reconfigures — is the same day we have lost all attachment to timescales.
Inner peace. Maybe it is just me, but I sense that by standing your ground and insisting on being sovereign that you remove yourself from a lot of drama for the soul. The mind and body might still experience turmoil in the material world, but deep down you know who you are, accept your own faults and limits, and won’t tolerate the nonsense that you used to. Co-dependent relationships, emotional abuse, narcissistic envy… those endless cycles of self-harm, feeling trapped, or seeking distraction lose their allure. Being a keyboard warrior gives you a confidence in your ability to discern, and detachment from the bonkers beliefs and behaviours of other people.
Maybe you would find it helpful to take stock of where you are at, and how it differs from what you might have anticipated two, five, ten years ago. What characterises this time for you? What have you discovered about yourself that you didn’t appreciate before? What do you “innerstand” that you wish you had known and could have saved you angst? Which parts of your life are still stuck “in the matrix” and need energy taken away? In what ways are you acting into a better world to come, and that needs building up?
Once the financial system flips and treason trials are on TV, we will be too consumed in overwhelming change to stop to think much.
It is good to take time to reflect now.
Dear Martin,
Thank you for writing this. As usual, you captured the existential moment to perfection. You gave me just what I needed on a Sunday morning. I am grateful to you.
Dearest Martin, the synthesizer of all synthesizers. Every point resonates. I remember back to a comment you made that ricochets through me; it's ok to be sad. I've had to incorporate this mantra into my dailies. Aa for your writings here, I will add my twopence as a sort of confession. I have also loved my 1000 page books as a source of infinite happiness. I respected books and respected authors. Well I have now burned my first book. Yup. Threw it in the fire. An "historical" fiction about a spy in WWII, and it began lauding Churchill. So into the fire it went and subsequently warmed me toes.
Another thing I am struggling with is the standard collective terms for "us". I no longer believe that we are a unified species. The terms humans and people no longer work for me and they grate at my nerves. I now refer to "the collective" as bipedals. I have more synergy with my beloved animal brethren than with most bipedals. A u have mentioned we need to take comfort from our beautiful God given nature and all of it's precious beings that are still tethered to her. If it weren't for my rescues, I'd be long gone in the flesh.