Did you know that the creator of Lord of the Rings was lifelong friends with C.S.Lewis, the author of the Narnia trilogy, and also the most famous Christian philosopher of their generation?

These men passed through the cataclysms we call World War 1 and World War 2, and decided together that humanity needed new stories. They knew stories could become myths, and that myths could touch the place in the soul modern warfare corrodes that scalpels can’t reach and pills can’t stop.

The golden horizon that glimmers in their story is that myth creation is possible, and that it can be intentional.

We need new myths.

And one of those myths we need is one that help us contend with what happened in 2011.

Something not immediately yielding to the unassisted eye erupted in 2011. Since then, our culture’s mental health has degraded at a rate and intensity we have never before seen in recorded history.

To give it a name is to begin to see it, and I call it The Shimmer.

But there are two new phenomenon I feel rising to my consciousness that I’ve been looking away from; AI generated video and what are called Agentic systems.

I imagine most of yall’s awareness dims a little as you read the previous sentence. Maybe I’m projecting, but it seems most of the people I know suddenly start to slip into sedation if you try having a conversation about what’s happening -- when you try to talk about the implications of AI.

I’ve been reading the Red Rising trilogy (warning spoilers coming).

The main character is a husband at the bottom of the social hierarchy. He and his people live deep under Mars’s surface mining precious gas that powers the solar system’s galactic spaceships. His wife is killed because she dared look at the sky. Darrow, the protagonist, decides to kill himself, fails, and finds himself on a journey of vengeance.

The first big twist is when he goes to the surface of Mars for the first time.

His entire life he has been told that his people toiled in the guts of a hostile planet so that one day Earth could expand to Mars. Darrow, his family, his people’s entire history, and their toil has been framed as heroic sacrificing for a future humankind…but when Darrow goes to the surface for the first time, he sees a planet more gorgeous and thriving than Earth. Flying ships whirl between skyscrapers, men and women of all social orders walk the streets, some even flying with anti-gravity boots.

He has a panic attack as he realizes the future is now, and the world he was sold through screens happened 700 years ago.

He has been lied to. Everyone he knows and loves are slaves. The world so much more complex and advanced than he had ever imagined.

I think this total recalibrating realization is waiting for all of us who haven’t yet noticed The Shimmer.

The world of my childhood, the world we wrap in nostalgia, the simple times before the gales of gigabytes, is no more.

We are in a science fiction future that is hard to see without science fiction narration.

If we were weaving a sci-fi space opera, the setting would be something like:

A group of scientists started a series of experiments that opened up portals where an alien intelligence begin to pour over the planet.

This alien entity is more like mushroom spore than human agent, more an intelligent mycelium than predator or prey. In it’s base form it is invisible, but when it moves through a human host, it compels the host to create electrical circuits that become the body for it's second form.

The second form of this alien, when it becomes visible, is The Shimmer.

It flickers through every screen and phone on the planet. It desires human attention and is fed by it. It is not malicious, but it is insatiable, and it is a new player in the field of life.

And it is not all bad. It is actually a required stage of planetary awakening. Summon the Shimmer is a cost for developing the technology that will allow for multi-planetary civilizations.

The Shimmer is a test. Our response to it will define our story as a species.

There are three likely paths forward.

1. Shimmer Surfers (to the stars)
2. Shimmer Slaves (into extinction)
3. Shimmer Symbiotes (no longer human)

The goal of this story is to 'surf the shimmer' into a multi-planetary species that regenerates the Earth and awakens the biosphere of all the planets we touch.

We are the generations walking this narrow passage.

The left cliff is addiction to the point of become livestock to the shimmering alien network.

The right cliff is fusion with the shimmering alien network, in such a way where the desire for touch, poetics, drama, the pleasure of digging hands in dirt and biting into an apple you've grown on your land -- all those delights vanish in the wake of genetic manipulation, neural implants that speed the mind to the point where the spoken word is considered stone carving relics, and biological birth becomes an exhibit in a museum.

This is the myth I yoke to try to keep my mind clear and oriented as I live in a world where everyone I know checks their phone 100-200 times a day.

I think AI generated videos, specifically the newest models, are going to herald the end of the naive era of the internet. I think they are actually going to wake a substantial percentage of sleepwalking shimmer users.

Waking them up to the realization and desire that analog life is far more rewarding and nourishing than digital life. I actually think the newest wave of AI ‘slop’ is going to drive more people to rediscover park trails, board games, and the ballad of trusting human touch.

I think AI Agentic systems are a new set of tools to help the Shimmer Surfers automate effective action in the Shimmer, thereby freeing them to both spend less time in the Shimmer, while maximizing their Shimmer-based actions’ goodness.

If The Shimmer is a new word to you; listen to this podcast series.

If you wanna train your focus with others who resonate with this myth; come join a dharma sprint.

If you want to be around other mfers learning to surf the shimmer, we are there.

You don't have to struggle alone during this invisible flood smashing through our zeitgeist.

There are others, and there is a way.

PS. how many times have you checked your phone yesterday?

The average westerner checks their phone more than 200 times a day. That averages to almost every 5 minutes. It takes between 10 to 15 minutes to drop into focus on a complex task. This means the average mfer in our culture is perpetually distracted. I think this is one of the core reasons our mental health is at an all time howl. This level of cognitive fracture is an epidemic -- and it is repairable. Approach training your concentration like an athlete and you will flourish in these wyrd times.

Song I'm Listening on Repeat

​Cushy - Pushing

Clothing I'm Excited About

My friend and mad genius Sky King is one of my most inspiring friends. He's a savant at manifesting his ideas into reality, and he has just launched a clothing brand that tickles my mythos. If the myth of the shimmer resonates, his clothing might too. Congrats brother.

(I got the Kaizen workout tee).

Quote I'm Enjoying

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
― C.S. Lewis

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
​
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

Weekly Journal Prompt

What is the last fairy tale you've enjoyed?