Nilsi

Fuck, you got me. I’m so terrified of being alone and unloved that I let myself be bullied into dressing like a proper adult instead of parading around like a 13-year-old Andrew Tate fanboy or some hairy, self-righteous, fruitarian Waldorf school teacher.

There’s nothing like doing some imaginary lines of coke.

That raises the question: who, really, is one’s audience? The psyche is structured around what Lacan calls the Big Other, an imaginary audience that functions as a projective surface for our desire to be recognized. Writing to an “audience,” then, is never about addressing a concrete entity - it’s about orienting oneself toward a horizon of recognition, a gaze that shapes the psyche and directs one’s intentions. This is precisely what Nietzsche invokes when he declares, “some men are born posthumously.” In doing so, he conjures an à-venir audience - a future, yet-to-come Other who will recognize him as a prophet. This act is not passive; it is an act of will, a kind of Landian hyperstition, where the mere assertion of this deferred audience creates the conditions for its eventual existence. Nietzsche’s psyche, therefore, is structured around becoming, as eternal striving toward a future beyond the limits of the present. Contrast this with Donald Trump, for whom the deferred audience has been entirely supplanted by the hyper-present gaze of the media spectacle. For Trump, recognition is no longer an unfolding or a process; it is a constant demand for immediate feedback, an endless loop of instant gratification. This collapses any sense of duration or becoming into the nihilistic flatland of postmodernity - a world without depth, where the present moment reigns supreme, and the Big Other is reduced to the flicker of a screen. In Trump, the future dies of diabetic shock, succumbing to the infantile bliss of perpetual nourishment. In Nietzsche, we find the ecstasy of becoming and the insatiable thirst for annihilation. Which world would you rather inhabit? (and please don’t tell me it’s „the golden mean,“ or some such bullshit).

You’re absolutely correct - there are indeed women who are drawn to such displays of tackiness; precisely the same women who viewed Donald Trump as their daddy and rewarded him with their votes. It’s truly admirable how you’ve taken up the cause of defending the self-respect of these women, whom are desperate enough to embrace this aesthetic. As for the guy with the Gunna profile picture (a choice I struggle to imagine a more tasteless representation of one’s identity), at least he manages to get some pussy - albeit women of questionable taste and desperation. Meanwhile, those cringe ass climbing shoes you’re rocking guarantee you’ll remain firmly outside of any such dynamic.

No joke, man. Though I’d file her under “guilty pleasure,” I’ve listened to that album more times than I care to admit.

Nice meme. No one puts their thoughts to the test like I do. I literally risk my life for this shit, so don’t fucking @ me.

Yes, but avoid moralizing causality. Look to Trump to grasp the essence of karma - not as some moral law of the universe, nor as a divine judgment doled out by a righteous god. Karma, in this sense, is not about punishment or reward but the mechanics of action and consequence. Trump is the quintessential New Ager, fixated on positive thinking and manifestation. His singular focus is on being rich and famous, and that’s exactly what he achieves. He gets what he wants because he’s the master of causality.

Ok boomer.

The main battleline here, I think, is best drawn between two unlikely adversaries: Gilles Deleuze and Peter Sloterdijk. I suspect that you, like Sloterdijk, nonetheless harbor a Parmenidean Urinstinkt that inclines you to reject postmodernism, by which I mean the dynamic, self-amplifying chaos of positive feedback loops. I’m not trying to evoke Nick Land here, but in some ways, he has been a great interpreter of the runaway intensification central to Deleuze’s vision, where repetition destabilizes rather than stabilizes, propelling difference into ever-greater, ever-more-dangerous becomings. This is precisely what Sloterdijk’s instinct for spheres and immunological enclosures resists - a Heraclitean cosmos of flux and strife that ruthlessly denies the comforting illusion of unity, such as that provided by tradition and mythology.

I just threw up in my mouth. This might earn you a few nods from 13-year-old boys who think you're cool, but no woman with an ounce of self-respect will find this tacky ass shit remotely attractive.

Teleological models of development are the ultimate symptom of a dying modernity. They distill the modern obsession with rational, universal progress narratives into something so abstract and incorporeal that it’s completely severed from any real, embodied culture - little more than intellectual vapor. Every time I hear someone like Kamala Harris speak, I can’t help but wonder: what fantasyland do these people inhabit? How can they still parrot Enlightenment optimism with absolutely zero self-awareness or irony? And really, how does anyone in 2024 use the word universal with a straight face? The defining feature of this moment in history is radical multipolarity, yet some cling to these grand Enlightenment fantasies like a child clinging to its mother’s breast. A universal map of human development? Are you joking? Have you ever met humans? Postmodern late-stage capitalism, supercharged by AI, has made one thing abundantly clear: human nature thrives on runaway self-creation. Call it positive feedback or the death drive - this isn’t natural evolution’s steady march of negative feedback loops and universal equilibria. Darwin and Schopenhauer may be forgiven for such naïve notions, but not a contemporary. The comforting illusion of the mother’s womb that is the Parmenidean cosmos of unity may offer solace, but to truly make sense of the contemporary world, we must return to the Heraclitean vision of cosmic strife and war. And I mean this as much metaphysically as culturally.

Bloomsbury released a top-tier print edition of Stanislavski's original trilogy in its Revelations series - one of the best-curated publishing collections out there. Highly recommend checking it out!

Gotta love a dose of pure 80's nostalgia.