"We are at an inflection point, a threshold, where weak, brittle, effete personality structures are a threat to human civilization." — JD Haltigan on XYou might have noticed that the massive investment in Halloween yard shrines by families growing broke in America reflects the ghoulish convergence of malevolent events undermining and overtaking what used to be normal life in this land. Nothing is normal anymore. The groaning mummies, howling werewolves, and shrieking skeletons are trying to tell us something.
The message might be: detach from reality long enough and death comes creeping 'round your door. You see where consensual madness has gotten us? Believe enough things that are not true and nemesis comes roaring in, all fangs and claws, to gleefully shred you. So. Maybe it's time to stop believing things that are not true.
Start with the first principle of US life in our time: that anything goes and nothing matters. This proposition has ruled for as long as most of us can remember. Consequence was exiled on Main Street so you can get away with anything now — until you discover that, somehow, everything is broken. Your livelihood is broken. Your community is broken. Your household is broken. Your car is broken. Your children are broken. Your health is broken. Your faith is broken. Your country is broken.
Here's a first principle worth considering: court death and it will oblige you. Granted, there is a certain libido for nonexistence in the human psyche because life is so hard sometimes that you yearn to be relieved of it. But not everyone in America seeks to walk that way. Probably fewer than half of us. So why do we allow that other half to drag us to the bone orchard? Do you see what it means to get your mind right when times get hard and the path is uncertain?