“Life is war,” wrote the Roman emperor Maruc Aurelius. “I am a god of War,” says Liber AL vel Legis, Aleister Crowley’s holy book. In the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna (Godhead) tells Arjuna that he must fight in battle even if he hates it.
But, says Krishna, Arjuna is just the instrument. Krishna will act through him.
We don’t like to think about our ancestors, but what we’ve inherited from them, and from nature and evolution, is what pushes us on.
We think we make personal choices. But we want what we want because of impersonal drives. Drives that we all share. Drives that drive us on.
One of the most serious problems with modernity is its belief in “safety”—most especially, “safety” from hearing opinions that the listener does not agree with or does not want to be true.
As I write this, Paris—the so-called “City of Love”—is burning from riots. They might hardly be featured in the news media, but the city we associate with love, fashion, art, and literature has become something else.
Will you be visiting soon? You won’t.
The riots caused over $1 billion dollars-worth of damage. The historic town hall of Limoges was built in 1883, survived two world wars, and was burned to the ground in 2026.
Things change slowly and almost imperceptibly—until they change quickly.
That’s what happened with AI as well. And who was paying attention to that?
Reputations built over decades or centuries can be ruined or rendered meaningless in an instant.
Here is the simple truth:
You do not have a choice whether to struggle or not. But you do have a choice of which type of struggle you engage in.
The struggle against your life getting worse: To not lose what you have—family, a career, wealth, or status.
Or the struggle to make your life better. Ensure that you’re growing, that you have more options rather than fewer, and that your status is rising rather than declining.
