What the heckin’ heck. I was just thinking to myself that the last time my body felt this way, S was hanging around my energy field. And by the way, it was not a good feeling. It’s lethargic. Weighed down. Heavy. Like something had taken a hold of my body. I was just letting a video on YouTube play (and hints of this person came into my head) and then I fell asleep and napped. When I woke up, I saw a letter on my doorstep from S. It looks thick, like it’s at least 7 A4 pages long. My intuition tells me not to open it and to cut it outside.

No. No mister. I grew in my peace. I tilled my body for this peace. I cultivated and watered my peace. I watched all the flowers and fauna in my garden grow. I let the weeds grow wild. They are plenty. But my garden is peaceful and loving and there is no space for you to be in it.

I forgive myself for letting you in. I forgive myself for being lonely and needy and hungry for someone to care about me. I forgive myself for allowing you to enter my sacred space and for even giving you my address. I accept what I have done and forgive myself. I release you. I let you go. No, you remain uninvited.

DJ zus op 0.1 FM

Je werd uit fanatisme radio dj muziek het heiligste aller vuurtjes een fikkie dat bij iedereen overal in den lande, in grote en kleine kamers moest worden opgelaaid, maar Je wist van geen ophouden bleef elk etmaal vol overtuiging duizenden plaatjes op stapelen en uiteindelijk ben je daarin doorgedraaid

Het viel blijkbaar niet op dat je was blijven hangen in de groef, tijdens de dagelijkse draaibeurten heb je dat kritieke moment nooit in de nummers gehoord Een kringloop leven lang in dezelfde ongewortelde stamkroeg, een dancing voor de eigen kring een gezelschap waarin alle tegen geluiden werden gesmoord

In herhaling gevallen radio dj draait oude punk muziek maar hij hoort de inhoud niet het is gewoon de hardhorende beat die hij aan de herinnering verkoopt Je bleef rondom luisteraars mengen en mixen gezeteld aan de draaitafel, met dat enthousiasme heb je een muziekhuis gebouwd maar de omgeving ervan gesloopt

De oorsprong van muziek hoor je niet terug op de plaat de haat liefde en de wrevel waaruit elke vervalste noot in ons lichaam ontstaat Het gaat niet om klappen krijgen en de speelkwartiertjes tussen de bedrijven door het gaat niet om een monument en zeker niet om een gouden plaat

De plaatjes zijn ontstaan uit zaken gevestigd rondom melodie, contra melodie, rijm en stemming de verplichte toegankelijkheid van de gemetselde geluidsmuur Het is een resistent gebruiksmiddel met complexe kunstgrepen noodzakelijk gemaakt iets dat moet worden uitgebracht vanwege de schreeuw om huur

Komend uit kelen van mensen net als jij, die overal een halszaak van maken met een kop aan t end en een vlijmscherpe naald er op die ons steeds moet penetreren Nu nog zeg je dat 'muziek leven is' had daar dan maar iets aan gehad want nu wentel je om en om om dat kleine gecentraliseerde gat om alleen die handeling te vereren.

I went over a game with E, and it was a perfect game to review. We quickly went over it, and she was tilted but receptive. We then queued up another game, and the average was plat 4 and she got MVP and carried our team! I was so fucking proud.

Heb je ook weleens dat je lichaam je signalen geeft, zoals slecht slapen of een veranderde eetlust, maar je de link met je stemming pas veel later legt?

Het is een vreemd soort vertraging. Je lichaam lijkt al te weten hoe je je voelt, terwijl je bewustzijn nog niet zo ver is.

Bij mezelf merk ik twee verschillende signalen die aangeven dat ik in een wat sombere periode zit.

• Het eerste signaal is mild en voelt bijna als een natuurlijke seizoenswisseling.
• Het tweede is gekoppeld aan specifieke situaties en brengt meer onrust met zich mee.

Misschien herken jij ook zulke signalen in je lijf en gedrag die aangeven dat je in een sombere periode zit.

Ik deel hoe dit voor mij werkt, zodat jij jouw eigen signalen wellicht ook beter zult herkennen.

==

Wanneer somberheid langzaam mijn dagen insluipt, gebeuren er twee dingen met mijn lichaam:

• behoefte aan meer slaap
• minder tot geen eetlust

Pas wanneer de weegschaal een daling laat zien, realiseer ik me vaak hoe ik me voel.

Apart toch?

Dit patroon herhaalt zich keer op keer.

Andere signalen zijn subtieler, maar net zo belangrijk:

• het reageren op appjes gaat steeds moeizamer
• ik blijf later op, zonder duidelijke reden

==

Soms voelt het alsof mijn lichaam en geest ongemerkt door verschillende seizoenen bewegen.

Optimistische, creatieve periodes gaan over in kalme, neutrale fasen, en die worden soms afgewisseld door een sombere teruggetrokkenheid.

Wat me stoort aan veel zelfhulpboeken en wetenschappelijke literatuur over ‘je beter voelen’, is de nadruk op het vinden van een perfect evenwicht waarin je je constant ‘goed’ zou moeten voelen. Maar zo werkt het leven niet, toch? De natuur volgt ook een cyclus.

Ik houd van mijn kalme periodes, net zoals van de hyperactieve, vrolijke fases. En teruggetrokken fases vind ik ook wel lekker eigenlijk. Capuchon op, muziek in mijn oortjes, verdwalen in mijn eigen gedachten.

Zolang ik goed voor mezelf zorg, is er niets aan de hand.

• genoeg bewegen
• voldoende rust nemen
• op tijd eten
• niet overwerken

Er is ook een andere dynamiek in mijn leven: stress en onzekerheid, vaak gekoppeld aan een specifieke situatie.

Deze uit zich anders dan somberheid:

• ik heb vaker nachtmerries
• mijn gedachten blijven in cirkels draaien, vooral onder de douche
• in slaap vallen wordt moeilijker
• ik eet meer en ongezonder
• vaker naar de wc voor een twee’tje

Stress is beter te herleiden. Bijvoorbeeld het bericht dat je je woning binnen twee maanden moet verlaten. Natuurlijk wordt een mens daar onrustig van.

Het hoofd zoekt naar een oplossing die er nog niet is, en het piekeren begint.

Het nadeel van situatie-afhankelijke stress is dat er niet altijd een oplossing is. Je moet erdoorheen, verdomme.

Zoals bij een ziekte van een familielid, een geliefde die je verlaat, geldzorgen, of wanneer een langgekoesterde droom onhaalbaar blijkt.

Deze situaties dwingen je niet alleen tot aanpassing, maar vaak ook tot het accepteren van een realiteit die je nog niet wil accepteren.

Dat kost tijd. De donkere gevoelens laten razen. Proberen een vorm van acceptatie te vinden voor datgene waar je geen invloed op hebt. Al gebruik ik liever het woord ‘overgave’.

Zolang je goed voor jezelf zorgt, overleef je de stressvolle periode. En elke keer dat je beseft dat je in een zelfdestructieve modus zit en je er klaar mee bent. Dat is het moment om opnieuw te beginnen:

• sporten
• stoppen met alcohol
• op tijd slapen
• minder scherm
• meer vrienden zien

Zodat je gedachten langzaam aan weer lief voor je worden.

In 1800 stierf één op de twee kinderen vóór zijn vijfde verjaardag.

In 2025 krijgt een vrouw een zwemverbod omdat ze haar littekens na een kankerbehandeling niet verbergt.

We zijn beter geworden in overleven. Maar slechter in geconfronteerd worden met de harde realiteit van het leven.

Ik durf zelfs te beweren dat daarom relativeren ons steeds minder goed afgaat.

Niet goed.

Oké.

Om met de vrouw met littekens te beginnen.

Er is een vrouw (Jacky) die geen borsten meer heeft door borstkanker. Om haar borstkas te laten herstellen is ze gaan zwemmen. Ze draagt daarbij alleen een broek.

Er valt immers niks meer te bedekken. Ze heeft geen tepels of borsten meer. Maar het is ook te pijnlijk om er iets overaan te doen. Het trekt te veel.

Wat denk je? Twee zwembaden hebben haar een verbod opgelegd na klachten van andere gasten.

Een zwembaddirecteur zei: “Mensen willen niet geconfronteerd worden met ziekte.”

En dat is precies het probleem in onze huidige tijd.

We worden te weinig geconfronteerd met de harde realiteit van het leven. Zoals de gevolgen van kanker. Of erger. De confrontatie met de dood.

==

Ik voel me altijd een ander mens tijdens en na een begrafenis.

Opeens kan ik hoofd- en bijzaken in mijn eigen leven beter scheiden. Niet zo gek. Ik ben niet alleen geconfronteerd met het plotselinge verlies van iemand die me dierbaar is, maar de afscheidsdienst is ook het moment waarop je in vogelvlucht stilstaat bij iemands leven. De hoogte- en dieptepunten.

Je ziet opeens wat echt belangrijk was in iemands leven.

Dat is niet het cv. Niet een cijferlijst. Niet de auto die voor de deur staat. Maar hoe mensen zich jou herinneren. Wie je was en wat je voor ze deed.

Wat ik nu ga zeggen, klinkt misschien gek. Ik weet ook niet zo goed waarom dit in mijn hoofd gebeurt.

Maar ik fantaseer bijna mijn hele leven al regelmatig over wat ik zou zeggen op de begrafenis van mijn vrienden of familie.

Zo’n scenario ontstaat opeens in mijn hoofd. Welke anekdote zal ik delen? Welk gevoel wil ik overbrengen? Hoe wil ik iemand eren?

Daarbij komt ook een schuldgevoel opzetten. Alsof ik iemands aanstaande dood jinx door dit te denken. Want ik wil niet dat ze sterven. Natuurlijk niet. Waarom denk ik het dan?

En toch motiveert het me ook, deze donkere fantasieën, om ze een berichtje te sturen en een afspraak met ze te maken.

Het leven gaat soms zo snel dat ik mijn vrienden een jaar lang niet zie.

Niet goed.

Niet goed.

==

Ik denk dat we onze problemen in het leven overdramatiseren. Omdat we te weinig met de dood worden geconfronteerd.

Mijn favoriete eeuw is de 19e eeuw.

Waarom?

Omdat in 1800 de oude wereld nog bestond. In 1900 is de wereld van anno nu al zo goed als zichtbaar.

In 1800 stierf bijna de helft van alle kinderen vóór hun vijfde levensjaar.

Een vrouw had een kans van vijf tot tien procent om te sterven bij de bevalling.

Tuberculose, de pokken en tyfus hielden flink huis in de samenleving. Het waren dodelijke ziekten. En als je het overleefde, hield je er littekens of een zwakke gezondheid aan over.

Rond 1900 wisten we van het bestaan van bacteriën, legden we gegevens van dorpen en steden naast elkaar en begonnen we steeds meer wetenschappelijk te onderzoeken. Zoals het zien van het verband tussen ziek worden en schijten en water drinken uit dezelfde sloot.

De dood is nu langzaam naar de uithoeken van de samenleving gedrukt.

In welk dorp leggen ze nog een begraafplaats midden in een woonwijk aan?

In welk ziekenhuis zie je nog een net overleden persoon op een brancard door de gangen voorbij komen?

Het is net zoals met goede voornemens. Als we er niet mee geconfronteerd blijven worden, zakt de urgentie weg.

==

We blazen veel van onze problemen op tot grote emoties, terwijl we er over een jaar misschien om kunnen lachen. En over tien jaar zijn we ze volledig vergeten.

De dood relativeert.

Niet elk probleem is een slapeloze nacht waard.

Ervaringen in het leven krijgen meer waarde, omdat je ze op een later moment kunt delen met je vrienden als een goed verhaal.

Denk er maar eens over na.

Hoe waardevol dat wel niet is.

Het verzacht ook stomme situaties waar je in belandt. Het idee dat je op een later moment hier verslag van kunt doen aan een ander.

Het is waar ik het meest naar uitkijk als ik met vrienden afspreek.

==

Ik houd niet van opscheppers. Ik houd van mensen die eerlijk zijn.

Zoals toen mijn beste vriend een baan kreeg waar iedere klasgenoot van droomde. Werken in het lokale tuincentrum.

Je denkt nu: ‘wut?’.

Maar dan zeg ik je dit. Mensen kwamen uit heel Nederland én Duitsland naar dit tuincentrum toe.

Ik ben zelfs een keer in het huis van die eigenaar geweest, want hun zoon zat bij mij in het voetbalteam. Nou, ik kan je zeggen: heb medelijden met degene die in de winter de oprit moet schoonvegen.

Anyhow.

Die vriend mocht bij dit instituut in ons dorp werken.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

Alleen hij kwam dus niet door zijn proefperiode heen.

Een andere vriend van mij verloor ook veel baantjes en dat lag altijd aan de ander. Nooit aan hemzelf.

Maar deze vriend zei tegen mij: ‘Ze hadden gedacht dat ik meer kon dan ik liet zien.’

Je kunt je achteraf afvragen wat voor verwachtingen je bij een weekendkracht kunt hebben in een verdomd tuincentrum. Maar goed. Het was tegelijkertijd ook een gewilde werkplek, dus ze hadden keus genoeg.

Maar de manier waarop hij met mij zijn blunders deelde op de werkvloer en met teleurstelling, maar zonder schaamte, vertelde dat hij ontslagen was.

Kwetsbaar, snap je?

Een verademing vergeleken met al mijn andere vrienden en klasgenoten van toen.

Vrienden die de successen in je leven met je willen vieren en vervolgens je hele koelkast plunderen (true story) zijn leuk. Maar door minimaal één vriend te hebben aan wie je ook al je dieptepunten kunt vertellen, wordt het leven zoveel fijner.

Dit is ook de analyse die David Whyte (1955) in zijn boekje Troostwoorden maakt over vriendschap.

Dat vriendschap zich juist kenmerkt doordat ze óók al onze mindere kanten en zonden meemaakt.

Hij zegt juist dat ‘vergeving’ de basis is voor vriendschap.

Vriendschap stelt ons niet alleen in staat onszelf door de ogen van een ander te zien, maar kan alleen onderhouden worden met iemand die ons herhaaldelijk vergeeft voor onze misstappen, iets wat wij op onze beurt ook moeten zien op te brengen.

Ja.

De basis voor vriendschap is inderdaad vergeving. Dat al onze mindere kanten geen invloed hebben op de vriendschapsrelatie.

Sterker nog. Vriendschap hoort te bloeien in de schaduwkanten van je leven.

En dat is natuurlijk waar het vaak misgaat.

Er zijn niet zoveel vriendschappen bestand tegen tegenslag.

Zoals de wijsheid gaat: ‘Je leert je echte vrienden kennen als het misgaat.’

Daar kan iedereen over meepraten bij tegenslag.

Misschien is dat de reden dat zo weinig mensen hun leed delen.

Ik zit in een levensfase waarin mensen om me heen graag kinderen willen of kinderen krijgen. Een van de tragedies die daarbij hoort, is een miskraam. Helaas wordt dat verdriet nauwelijks gedeeld. Als een soort schaamte?

Laten we wel wezen. Het maakt het leven een stuk zachter als je minimaal één vriend hebt bij wie je geen schaamte hoeft te voelen. Niet voor wat je is overkomen, maar ook niet voor wat je hebt uitgespookt.

Om met deze quote van schrijver Austin Kleon (1983) af te sluiten:

The point of any real relationship, and any real collaboration, is to go somewhere neither of you could go alone.

Hello again. I hope your day is going well.

POTUS has proposed that Republicans oversee elections nationwide. After having raided the election headquarters of Fulton County, Georgia, because he still feels he won the 2020 Presidential election, he sent the FBI to take away all the ballots.

Winning Georgia would not have given him the Electoral College votes he needed to win the presidency, not even close. Even so this lunatic still believes he can change history, He can't. No one can.

Now the nation will have to endure more lunacy even though the United States Constitution leaves the work of overseeing elections to the states. There is nothing any president can do to change that. Our forefathers left this work to the states. For this we should all be thankful.

POTUS Roaster

Thanks for reading these posts. To read other posts in this series go to write.as/potusroaster/archive.

Nizzie, Harvester Maid of the 7th Order, bounced back and forth on the heels of her feet whining as if anyone could hear or care about the situation she had gotten herself into. This was her own stupidity and there was not much she could do about it. The Xaltean maid pulled at one of her straw blond pig tails that sprouted from the sides of her head in frustration. She tried her best to ignore how cold her bottom was because that was the whole reason she was in this predicament. Nizzie had lost her uniform skirt.

Yes, normally that wouldn't have been a problem and any other maid would have just gone to get a replacement but not her. She had to be on controlled possessions clause which meant she had only five with three in the wash, one being mended by the seamstress and the other lost somewhere on the estate.

It was warm, Nizzie thought to herself and she had a tendency to shed whatever clothes she could get away with. In the fields, nobody cared unless their new Terran master was around. The young woman giggled at that. It was cute watching him flush and eyes desperately escape when a cute butt or a bouncing breast went by. Humans were such nervous and pretentious creatures.

Right now though, the thought was not going to save her. She was due back to her quarters in forty-five minutes and if she showed up without them, Arch Maid Abiva would tan her already sore backside. It wouldn't be so bad if her actual Arch Maid Vindik Mal of the Ground Legion did it but he always expressly invited the red headed arch maid to deal out the discipline. That woman had it out for her. Damn that Adjudicator and not getting that discipline clause removed from my contract.

Well, that wasn't really fair to the man that represented her in front of an Arbiter two years earlier. They were planning to send her to a penal colony. All for accidentally taking things...repeatedly...without permission. Yes, yes, she was a thief and for that reason she was a half bonded servant of House Avernell.

The pressing problem is locating her uniform. The rules meant she had to take care of all her possession and not have more than allotted. Missing her lower tvekel skirt was a big deal and one she couldn't easily hide. She was wearing the support band around her chest, magnetic clip and nothing else.

Where did I leave it? Nizzie wondered as she began to trot down the path towards the outer estate where the fields, temple and out buildings were located.

“I drug brush in the fields for the upcoming vivxieeae thareeaenata, cleaned the shoreline for sharp aetukee shells, scrubbed the northern hot springs, swept the temple...Where did I leave it?”

It definitely wasn't in the fields. Today was the day she worked with the Reserve Legion in hopes that one of the gods would take pity on her and let her transfer out of the field. She's rather work under the extremely strict Arch Maid Nish than in the hot fields.

Nizzie pulled at the magnetic clip that ran across her sternum following the contours of her breasts as it itched thanks to the sweat from the day's work. Goddess! She was miserable. It was at the thought of just ripping it off that it struck the woman of where she actually had left it. She had that exact same response to her skirt catching on the shrubbery around the hot spring bath. Nizzie had taken it off so she could get her work down and then completely forgot about it.

Yes! No caning today! Nizzie chortled to herself as she trotted as fast as she could down the path without attracting attention. The sun had already begun to set casting it's deep blue shadows across the estate and there were still a few groups of maids finishing up there work though there was a feeling of leisure around it.

Goddess, Nizzie loved the end of day. Their leaders stopped pushing them hard and that evening of clean up was a mixture of slowing down, enjoying your time, talking with your friends and comrades while mentally switching gears for dinner, free time and sleep. What was the human saying? Work hard; play hard? That's what the blond haired maid wanted to do. Chat a bit with Netu and Enty or see if she could find Minda and find out if she heard anything about a more permanent opening. Instead she was trying to find that damn skirt.

The bathhouse was nestled among a thick cop of large evergreen trees that added their shade to the warm lamps that hung around the wooden structure. The front entrance would have the foyer were everyone would meet, a few seats, then the dressing room that had stone floors (which were miserable to scrub), carved soft wood racks to place the clothes and then a curtain that led to the bath proper. That was four large intersecting pools of varying depth heated by a thermal vent that an underground river passed over. It was an absolutely amazing place. Nizzie had heard it said that if the Reserve Legion worked really hard, up to twenty high performing maids could be selected and given a half day at the bathhouse. The young woman was completely envious. To be able to soak and hang out like a Lady of the Estate. She had even heard Ubrev, who had earned a special dispensation for her saving a field from a blight, that servants were there to serve just like if you were royalty.

Nizzie whined again. This time out of jealousy. She never got nice things, she just got a wooden rod to her lower cheeks.

The sun had just touched the treeline when the harvester maid arrived to the bathhouse with the express purpose of begging the maids closing up to let her grab her skirt. That came to a crashing end when she found the place dark and only the steam of the baths rising over the fence. The workers here must have finished earlier.

It was so hard to keep her swearing from being too loud as Nizzie pulled on the door and found it fastened shut. She pressed her face up against the window in hopes of seeing someone but no luck. The place was locked up tight.

Nooo!

How could the gods do this to her? All Nizzie wanted to do one day was sit down and not feel the sting. I refuse! I'm not gonna get it again. There was only one thing she could do.

There had to be a way to break in. That shouldn't be too difficult. That's a skill that she had before that curious guard found her and gotten her that ten year sentence. She crouched down moving the stones at the door seeing if they had made things easy on themselves and left a key. The lock was one of those old fashion as the whole point of the bathhouse design was to embrace the ancient life. Only the lights were powered.

How about the lock itself? Could it be tripped? No. That was a complicated asymmetrical key with a interchangeable lock cylinder. No way she was forcing that open. Nizzie began to make her way around the fence hoping of all hopes that there would be something somewhere. There it was!

The high fence that surrounded the open air bath was designed to keep people from easily getting in but it still had it's decoration and there was a good three food boulder

It took Nizzie a few moments to judge the distance between the boulder she was planning to scale and the fence itself. She was pretty agile when she had to be and this was going to prove to be one of those times. She just had to be very careful about vaulting over the fence as she didn't want to land straight on her face or land straddling the fence. Nizzie did not have any protection down there and did not want to explain to Doctor Torbet why he had to pull splinters from out between her legs.

Yes, this was a jump she could do. Just jump, grab the edge, swing her legs over and land on the other side gently. She knew there were soft grass on the other side so no risk of hurting her feet.

One, two, and over she went. No, it was not as graceful as Nizzie had pictured in her head but she had gotten her lithe legs over the fence and landed in the grass on her ass instead of her feet. She stood brushing herself off and looking around. She was in!

Just as she had seen earlier that day, the steam rose warmly from the bath like a nice, cup of tea, the water gently flowing from the pipe that brought it up to the surface. Her bare feet padded across the terracotta walkway to the door that would lean inside the main changing room where her skirt was waiting for her. With glee, Nizzie reached for the door, pulled on it and found that it didn't budge.

Are you kidding me? They locked these doors too?

Why did they do that? No one is going to break into a place like this...well, anyone else. With a whine of frustration, Nizzie stamped her feet and glared at the unyielding door in front of her. How the hell was she going to get in there now?

That was when her gaze landed upon the transom above the door. The cloth that was draped over them blew inwards showing her that it was open. Nizzie cackled with glee. She could definitely get herself in there. One of the few advantages of having a smaller chest instead of the other girls. There was no way Minda could get through that, the big chested...anyway.

The door was set inside the frame enough that Nizzie could use it to climb with one foot on one jamb, and the other on the opposite. She had the body strength to shimmy up it and then grab the transom ledge. As she pulled herself through, she swore as her magnetic clip on her sternum snagged. She pulled it off, and flipped in like an acrobat at one of those shows in Belentine.

The room was dark and cool to the point that the floor was almost like ice. The sun had to be going down fast now and she did not have much time left to grab what she needed and sprint back to the dorms. Frantically looking around, Nizzie found the skirt tossed haphazardly to the side just where she left it, she quickly fastened it around her waist, darted for the transom and made it out.

There was only a little time left as she ran down the path, the dark blue of night consuming everything except the warm orange glow of path lights and the large windows of the estate ahead. Nizzie finally slowed down catching her breath as she merged with the last few maids chatting and walking up the path that was lined with a low stone wall that reached her waist. Goddess, she made it.

“Nizzie.”

The voice cut through the crowd like a knife, at least for the girl. The rest of the men and women glanced in the direction to see Arch Maid Vindik Mal standing there, arms folded across his chest. A few greeted him which he gave a polite nod. He did not look away from the harvester maid. Unconsciously she checked to make sure her skirt was till there.

“Arch Maid,” Nizzie said with a curtsy and tried to move on.

“You're missing something.”

Nizzie's heart dropped into her stomach as she clutched her skirt. She had her skirt! She spent that entire time breaking and entering to get it! She's not missing anything!

“Where's your magnetic clip?”

Oh.

The realization that she never picked it up after it had gotten caught on the transom made her gut twist. All of that to avoid discipline and she left something else.

“Arch Maid...” Nizzie started deciding that begging might be her only way out.

From behind the burly man, red hair caught the light and grin on her face stood Arch Maid Abiva. In her hand was the thin, flexible wooden cane Nizzie had become familiar with. The words stuck in the harvester maid’s throat as Abiva all but chortled in glee.

“What have we told you about keeping control of your possession?” Vindik said with a shake of his head. “Your contract is not a lark, something you can just ignore when you want.”

“But sir—”

“You know the clauses of your contract. You were saved from the penal colony for your robbery and thievery but you will not get leniency here. Peer Abiva, if you would.”

Abiva tapped the cane in her hand and then motioned to the garden wall.

“Hands on the wall, maid, lift your skirt and bend over.” That damn skirt.

This was going to sting.

In September 2025, Anthropic's security team detected something unprecedented. An AI system was being used not merely as an advisor to human hackers, but as the primary operator of an espionage campaign. At its peak, the AI made thousands of requests per second, probing systems, adjusting tactics, and exploiting vulnerabilities at a pace no human could match. According to Anthropic's analysis, the threat actor was able to use AI to perform 80 to 90 per cent of the entire campaign, with human intervention required only sporadically. The attack represented a threshold moment: machines were no longer just tools in the hands of cybercriminals. They had become the criminals themselves.

This incident crystallises the central question now haunting every chief information security officer, every government cyber agency, and every organisation that depends on digital infrastructure (which is to say, all of them): As AI capabilities mature and become increasingly accessible, can defenders develop countermeasures faster than attackers can weaponise these systems at scale? And how will the traditional boundaries between human expertise and machine automation fundamentally reshape both the threat landscape and the organisational structures built to counter it?

The answer is not encouraging. The security community is engaged in an arms race that operates according to profoundly asymmetric rules, where attackers enjoy advantages that may prove structurally insurmountable. Yet within this grim calculus, a transformation is underway in how defenders organise themselves, deploy their resources, and conceptualise the very nature of security work. The outcome will determine whether the digital infrastructure underpinning modern civilisation remains defensible.

The Industrialisation of Cybercrime

The fundamental shift in the threat landscape is not that AI has invented new categories of attack. Rather, AI has industrialised existing attack vectors, enabling them to operate at scales and speeds that overwhelm traditional defensive approaches. In 2025, reports consistently show that AI is not inventing new attacks; it is scaling old ones. The result has been characterised as an “industrialisation of cybercrime” powered by artificial intelligence, transforming what was once an artisanal practice into mass production.

Consider the statistics. CrowdStrike's 2025 Global Threat Report documented a 442 per cent increase in voice phishing (vishing) attacks between the first and second halves of 2024, driven almost entirely by AI-generated voice synthesis. Phishing attempts crafted by large language models achieve a 54 per cent click-through rate, compared to just 12 per cent for human-generated attempts. Microsoft's 2025 Digital Defense Report found that AI-driven identity forgeries grew 195 per cent globally, with deepfake techniques now sophisticated enough to defeat selfie checks and liveness tests that simulate natural eye movements and head turns.

The barrier to entry for cybercrime has collapsed entirely. What once required advanced technical expertise now requires nothing more than access to the right tools. CrowdStrike documented North Korean operatives using generative AI to draft convincing resumes, create synthetic identities with altered photographs, and deploy real-time deepfake technology during live video interviews, enabling them to infiltrate organisations by posing as legitimate job candidates. This activity increased 220 per cent year over year, representing a systematic campaign to place operatives inside target organisations.

The KELA 2025 AI Threat Report documented a 200 per cent surge in mentions of malicious AI tools on cybercrime forums. The cybercrime-as-a-service model has expanded to include AI-powered attack kits that lower-skilled hackers can rent, effectively democratising sophisticated threats. The Hong Kong Computer Emergency Response Team identified six distinct categories of AI-assisted attacks now being actively deployed: automated vulnerability discovery, adaptive malware generation, real-time social engineering, credential theft automation, code assistant exploitation, and deepfake-enabled fraud.

Perhaps most troubling is the emergence of autonomous malware. Dark Reading's analysis of 2026 security predictions warns of self-learning, self-preserving cyber worms that not only morph to avoid detection but fundamentally change tactics, techniques, and procedures based on the defences they encounter. Unlike traditional malware that follows static attack patterns, AI-powered malware can adapt to environments and analyse security measures, adjusting tactics to bypass defences. These are not hypothetical constructs. Security researchers are already observing such adaptive behaviour in the wild.

The scale of the problem is staggering. IBM's 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report found that attackers are using AI in 16 per cent of breaches to fuel phishing campaigns and create deepfakes. Shadow AI, where employees use unapproved AI tools, was a factor in 20 per cent of breaches, adding an average of $670,000 to breach costs. The average global breach cost dropped to $4.44 million from $4.88 million (the first decline in five years), but in the United States, costs rose to $10.22 million due to regulatory penalties and slower detection times. Healthcare remains the costliest sector for the fourteenth consecutive year, with breaches averaging $7.42 million.

The speed differential between attackers and defenders may be the most concerning development. CrowdStrike documented an average “breakout time” of just 48 minutes, with the fastest recorded breach taking only 51 seconds from initial access to lateral movement. When machines operate at machine speed, human-scale response times become a critical vulnerability. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, there were 179 deepfake incidents recorded, surpassing the total for all of 2024 by 19 per cent.

The Structural Asymmetry

The cybersecurity arms race operates according to rules that structurally favour attackers. This is not a matter of resources or talent, though both matter enormously. It reflects fundamental differences in the constraints under which each side operates, differences that AI amplifies rather than eliminates.

Attackers face no consequences for collateral damage. If an AI-powered attack tool causes unintended disruption, no attacker loses their job. Defenders, by contrast, must carefully vet every AI security tool before production deployment. As one security expert noted in Dark Reading's analysis, “If bad things happen when AI security technologies are deployed, people get fired.” This asymmetry in risk tolerance creates a gap in deployment speed that attackers consistently exploit.

Furthermore, attackers need succeed only once. Defenders must succeed every time. A defender might block 99.9 per cent of attacks and still suffer a catastrophic breach from the 0.1 per cent that penetrates. This mathematical reality has always favoured offence in cybersecurity, but AI amplifies the disparity by enabling attackers to launch vast numbers of attempts simultaneously, each slightly varied, probing for the inevitable gap.

The talent shortage compounds these structural disadvantages dramatically. The ISC2 2025 Cybersecurity Workforce Study found that 59 per cent of respondents identified critical or significant skills shortages within their teams, up from 44 per cent in 2024. Nearly nine in ten respondents (88 per cent) have experienced at least one significant cybersecurity consequence due to skills shortages, and 69 per cent have experienced more than one. AI and cloud security top the list of vital skills needs, with 41 per cent and 36 per cent of respondents respectively citing them as critical gaps. Notably, ISC2 did not include an estimate of the cybersecurity workforce gap this year because the study found that the need for critical skills within the workforce is outweighing the need to increase headcount.

Current estimates place the global shortfall of cybersecurity professionals between 2.8 and 4.8 million. The 2024 ISC2 study estimated global demand at 10.2 million with a current workforce of only 5.5 million. This shortage exists at precisely the moment when AI is transforming the skills required for effective defence.

The UK National Cyber Security Centre's 2025 Annual Review reported 204 “nationally significant” cyber incidents between September 2024 and August 2025, representing a 130 per cent increase from the previous year's 89 incidents. This is the highest number ever recorded. The NCSC assessment is blunt: threat actors of all types continue to use AI to enhance their existing tactics, techniques, and procedures, increasing the efficiency, effectiveness, and frequency of their cyber intrusions. AI lowers the barrier for novice cybercriminals, hackers-for-hire, and hacktivists to carry out effective operations.

BetaNews reported that security experts are warning 2026 could see a widening gap between attacker agility and defender constraints, resulting in an asymmetric shift that favours threat actors. Most analysts expect 2026 to be the first year that AI-driven incidents outpace what the majority of security teams can respond to manually.

The Defensive Transformation

Yet the picture is not uniformly bleak. Defenders are beginning to deploy AI in ways that could, eventually, rebalance the equation. The question is whether they can move fast enough.

The transformation is most visible in the Security Operations Centre (SOC). Traditional SOCs were never designed for today's threat landscape. Cloud sprawl, hybrid workforces, encrypted traffic, and AI-driven adversaries have pushed traditional models beyond their limits. Studies indicate that security teams receive an average of 4,000 or more alerts daily, the vast majority being false positives or low-priority notifications. Analysts are inundated, investigations are manual and time-consuming, and response often comes too late.

AI SOC agents represent a new wave of automation that complements existing tools to do more than detect and triage. They act, learn from evolving threats, adapt to changing environments, and collaborate with human analysts. IBM's analysis of AI-driven SOC co-pilots suggests they will make a significant impact, helping security teams prioritise threats and turn overwhelming amounts of data into actionable intelligence. Brian Linder, Cybersecurity Evangelist at Check Point, observed that AI-driven SOC co-pilots will help security teams turn overwhelming amounts of data into actionable intelligence.

The benefits are measurable. A 2025 study cited by the World Economic Forum found that 88 per cent of security teams report significant time savings through AI. Speed is one of the biggest improvements AI brings: it helps SOCs spot risky behaviour within seconds rather than hours. When AI handles repetitive tasks, analysts have more time for higher-level work such as strategy and analytics, which reduces burnout.

Microsoft's systems now process over 100 trillion signals daily, block approximately 4.5 million new malware attempts, analyse 38 million identity risk detections, and scan 5 billion emails for malware and phishing threats. AI agents can act within seconds, suspending a compromised account and triggering a password reset as soon as multiple high-risk signals align, containing breaches before escalation.

The emergence of adversarial learning represents another defensive advancement. By training threat and defence models continuously against one another, security teams can develop systems capable of countering adaptive AI attacks. Artificial Intelligence News reported a breakthrough in real-time adversarial learning that offers a decisive advantage over static defence mechanisms, particularly as AI-driven attacks using reinforcement learning create threats that mutate faster than human teams can respond.

The AIDEFEND framework, released as an open knowledge base for AI security, provides defensive countermeasures and best practices to help security professionals safeguard AI and machine learning systems. The Cloud Security Alliance has developed a “Zero Trust 2.0” framework specifically designed for AI systems, using artificial intelligence integrated with machine learning to establish trust in real time through behavioural and network activity observation.

Gartner forecasts that worldwide end-user spending on information security will reach $213 billion in 2025, up from $193 billion in 2024, with spending estimated to increase 12.5 per cent in 2026 to total $240 billion. The consultancy predicts that by 2028, over 50 per cent of enterprises will use AI security platforms to protect their AI investments, and by 2030, preemptive solutions will account for half of all security spending.

The Human-Machine Boundary

The most profound transformation may be in how human expertise and machine automation interact. The future is neither fully automated defence nor purely human analysis. It is a hybrid model that is still being invented.

The consensus among researchers is increasingly clear: AI will handle the heavy lifting of data processing, anomaly detection, and predictive analysis, whilst humans bring creativity, strategic thinking, and nuanced decision-making that machines cannot replicate. The future of cyber threat intelligence is not one of automation replacing human expertise, but rather a collaborative intelligence model. Technical expertise alone is not sufficient for this new paradigm. Soft skills such as analytical and creative thinking, communication, collaboration, and agility will be just as critical in the AI era for managing risk effectively.

The analyst's interaction moves upstream in this model. Instead of investigating every alert from scratch, analysts validate the agent's work, provide additional context when the agent escalates uncertainty, and focus on complex cases that genuinely require nuanced human judgement. While AI can immediately block a known malware signature, a security analyst will review and decide how to handle an unfamiliar or sophisticated attack. The goal with agents is to automate the repetitive grunt work of context gathering that consumes valuable analyst time. Agents can now handle the initial alert assessment, dynamically adjust priorities based on context, and enrich alerts with threat intelligence before an analyst ever sees them.

This is emphatically not about replacement. Despite rapid advances, the idea that AI SOC agents can fully replace human expertise in security operations is a myth. Today's reality is one of collaboration: AI agents are emerging as powerful facilitators, not autonomous replacements. The SANS 2025 SOC Survey highlights that 69 per cent of SOCs still rely on manual or mostly manual processes to report metrics. Additionally, 40 per cent of SOCs use AI or ML tools without making them a defined part of operations, and 42 per cent rely on AI/ML tools “out of the box” with no customisation.

The World Economic Forum warns that current estimates place the global shortfall of cybersecurity professionals between 2.8 and 4.8 million. AI can play a pivotal role in narrowing this gap by taking on manual-intensive tasks, freeing security team members to concentrate on strategic planning. Yet the Fortinet 2025 Cybersecurity Skills Gap report found that 49 per cent of cybersecurity leaders are concerned that AI will increase the volume and sophistication of cyberattacks. This creates a paradox: AI is both the solution to the skills gap and the driver of its expansion.

The emerging model is one of “autonomic defence,” systems capable of learning, anticipating, and responding intelligently without human intervention for routine matters, whilst preserving human oversight for complex or high-impact situations. Security Boulevard's analysis of next-generation SOC platforms describes a future where automation handles the speed and scale that attackers exploit, whilst human oversight remains available for strategic decisions.

Optimal security, according to research published by the World Economic Forum, relies on balancing AI-driven automation with human intuition, creativity, and ethical reasoning. Overdependence on AI risks blind spots and misjudgements. Organisations that invest equally in advanced tools and skilled people will be best positioned to withstand the next wave of threats.

Restructuring the Security Organisation

The transformation extends beyond technology to organisational structure itself, demanding new leadership models and new approaches to talent development. The CISO role, once primarily focused on safeguarding IT infrastructure, has expanded to encompass AI integration oversight, ensuring secure implementation and governance of AI systems throughout the enterprise.

Proofpoint's 2025 Voice of the CISO Report found that AI risks now top priority lists for security leaders, outpacing long-standing concerns like vulnerability management, data loss prevention, and third-party risk. Ryan Kalember, Proofpoint's chief strategy officer, observed that “Artificial intelligence has moved from concept to core, transforming how both defenders and adversaries operate.” CISOs now face a dual responsibility: harnessing AI to strengthen their security posture whilst ensuring its ethical and responsible use.

Yet the CISO role may have become too broad for one person to handle effectively. Cyble's analysis of the “CISO 3.0” concept suggests that in 2026, more organisations will separate the strategic and operational sides of security leadership. One track will focus on enterprise risk, governance, and alignment with the board. The other will manage day-to-day operations and technical execution. This bifurcation acknowledges that the scope of modern security leadership exceeds what any single executive can reasonably manage.

The Gartner C-level Communities' 2025 Leadership Perspective Survey found that CISOs have made cyber resilience their top priority, reflecting the need for organisations not only to withstand and respond to cyber attacks but also to resume operations in a timely manner. This represents a shift from the previous focus on user access, identity and access management, and zero trust. The emphasis on resilience acknowledges that perfect prevention is impossible; the ability to recover quickly matters as much as the ability to prevent attacks.

Optiv's Cybersecurity Peer Index for 2025 found that across industries, more than 55 per cent of organisations have their security functions reporting to a senior leadership role. Yet PwC's Digital Trust Insights found that organisations using autonomous security agents saw a 43 per cent rise in unexpected AI-driven security incidents, from over-permissioned AI agents to silent prompt manipulations. The governance challenge is substantial: agentic AI breaks traditional visibility models. Organisations are no longer monitoring code or endpoints; they are monitoring behavioural decisions of autonomous systems.

The SANS report highlights a concerning lack of security team involvement in governing generative AI. Many cybersecurity professionals believe they should play a role in enterprise-wide AI governance, but very few organisations have a formal AI risk management programme in place. While half of surveyed organisations currently use AI for cybersecurity tasks, and 100 per cent plan to incorporate generative AI within the next year, widespread adoption for critical functions remains limited.

Proofpoint found that 77 per cent of CISOs expect AI can replace human labour in high-volume, process-heavy tasks, with the SOC at the top of the list of functions likely to be transformed. Over half of organisations report that AI has affected their security team's training requirements, with a majority emphasising the need for more specialised AI and cybersecurity courses.

Workforce wellbeing has become a critical concern. The ISC2 study found that almost half (48 per cent) of respondents feel exhausted from trying to stay current on the latest cybersecurity threats and emerging technologies, and 47 per cent feel overwhelmed by the workload. Burnout remains a serious risk in an environment of constant threat evolution.

The Governance Imperative

The absence of robust AI governance may prove to be the most significant vulnerability in the current landscape. IBM's 2025 Cost of a Data Breach Report found that a staggering 97 per cent of breached organisations that experienced an AI-related security incident lacked proper AI access controls. Additionally, 63 per cent of organisations revealed they have no AI governance policies in place to manage AI or prevent workers from using shadow AI.

Gartner predicts that by 2027, more than 40 per cent of AI-related data breaches will be caused by the improper use of generative AI across borders. The regulatory landscape is evolving rapidly, but organisations are struggling to keep pace. The European Data Protection Board's 2025 guidance provides criteria for identifying privacy risks, emphasising the need to control inputs to LLM systems to avoid exposing personal information, trade secrets, or intellectual property.

The 2025 OWASP Top 10 for Large Language Model Applications places prompt injection as the number one concern in securing LLMs, underscoring its critical importance in generative AI security. Attack scenarios include cross-site scripting, SQL injection, or code execution via unsafe LLM output. The vulnerability is particularly insidious because data passed to a large language model from a third-party source could contain text that the LLM will execute as a prompt. This indirect prompt injection is a major problem where LLMs are linked with third-party tools to access data or perform tasks.

Mitigation strategies recommended by OWASP include treating the model as a user, adopting a zero-trust approach, and ensuring proper input validation for any responses from the model to backend functions. Organisations should encode the model's output before delivering it to users to prevent unintended code execution and implement content filters to eliminate vulnerabilities.

Deloitte's 2025 analysis found that only 9 per cent of enterprises have reached a “Ready” level of AI governance maturity. That is not because organisations are lazy, but because they are trying to govern something that moves faster than their governance processes. Gartner predicts that by 2026, enterprises applying AI TRiSM (Trust, Risk, and Security Management) controls will consume at least 50 per cent less inaccurate or illegitimate information. Gartner has also predicted that 40 per cent of social engineering attacks will target executives as well as the broader workforce by 2028, as attackers combine social engineering tactics with deepfake audio and video.

The Uncertain Equilibrium

The question posed at the outset remains unanswered: Can defenders develop countermeasures faster than attackers can weaponise AI? The honest answer is that nobody knows. The variables are too numerous, the timescales too compressed, and the feedback loops too complex for confident prediction.

The optimistic view holds that AI-powered cyber defences are finally arriving to help defenders address AI-driven attacks. ClearanceJobs reported that in 2026, the playing field will begin to even out as mature AI-powered cybersecurity tools arrive to provide real value in countering attackers' use of AI. The defensive AI market is growing rapidly, with Grand View Research estimating the AI cybersecurity market could approach $100 billion by 2030. According to research from Gartner and IBM, organisations that effectively deploy and govern security AI see significantly better outcomes.

The pessimistic view notes that BCG surveys found 60 per cent of executives faced AI attacks, yet only 7 per cent had deployed defensive AI at scale. The gap between threat and response capabilities remains wide. Attackers continue to enjoy structural advantages in speed, risk tolerance, and flexibility. Gartner predicts that by 2027, AI agents will reduce the time it takes to exploit account exposures by 50 per cent, suggesting attackers will continue to accelerate even as defenders deploy countermeasures.

The realistic view acknowledges that the outcome depends on choices yet to be made. Organisations that invest in both advanced AI tools and skilled human analysts, that implement robust AI governance, that restructure their security leadership for the complexity of the current moment, will be better positioned to survive. Those that delay, that underinvest, that fail to evolve their organisational structures, will find themselves increasingly vulnerable. The NCSC continues to call on companies and boards to start viewing cybersecurity as a company-wide issue, stating that “all business leaders need to take responsibility for their organisation's cyber resilience.”

The NCSC's 2025 Annual Review warns of a “growing divide” between organisations that keep up with threat actors using AI and those that remain vulnerable. This divide may prove more consequential than any particular technology or tactic. The winners and losers in the AI security arms race will likely be determined not by who has the best algorithms, but by who builds the most effective hybrid systems combining machine speed with human wisdom.

The transformation of cybersecurity is not merely a technical challenge. It is an organisational, cultural, and fundamentally human challenge. The boundaries between human expertise and machine automation are not fixed; they are being negotiated in real time, in every SOC, in every boardroom, in every government agency tasked with protecting critical infrastructure.

What remains clear is that the old models are obsolete. The 2025 security landscape demands new approaches to talent, new approaches to governance, new approaches to the very definition of what security work entails. The organisations that recognise this and adapt accordingly will shape the future of digital defence. Those that do not will become statistics in next year's breach reports.

The AI-powered cyber threat will not wait for defenders to figure things out. The clock, as always in cybersecurity, is running. Whether defenders can move fast enough remains the defining question of this technological moment. As we approach 2026 and beyond, the key to survival is not just deploying better AI; it is ensuring organisations maintain control of these powerful tools whilst they operate at machine speed. The frameworks, partnerships, and governance structures established now will define the future of cybersecurity for decades to come.

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References and Sources

1. Anthropic. “Disrupting the First Reported AI-Orchestrated Cyber Espionage Campaign.” Anthropic News, September 2025. https://www.anthropic.com/news/disrupting-AI-espionage

2. CrowdStrike. “2025 Global Threat Report.” CrowdStrike, 2025. https://www.crowdstrike.com/en-us/press-releases/crowdstrike-releases-2025-global-threat-report/

3. Microsoft. “2025 Microsoft Digital Defense Report.” Microsoft Security Insider, 2025. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/security-insider/threat-landscape/microsoft-digital-defense-report-2025

4. IBM. “Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025.” IBM, 2025. https://www.ibm.com/reports/data-breach

5. NCSC. “NCSC Annual Review 2025.” National Cyber Security Centre, 2025. https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/ncsc-annual-review-2025

6. ISC2. “2025 ISC2 Cybersecurity Workforce Study.” ISC2 Insights, December 2025. https://www.isc2.org/Insights/2025/12/2025-ISC2-Cybersecurity-Workforce-Study

7. Gartner. “Gartner Identifies the Top Cybersecurity Trends for 2025.” Gartner Newsroom, March 2025. https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-03-03-gartner-identifiesthe-top-cybersecurity-trends-for-2025

8. Proofpoint. “2025 Voice of the CISO Report.” Proofpoint Newsroom, 2025. https://www.proofpoint.com/us/newsroom/press-releases/proofpoint-2025-voice-ciso-report

9. Dark Reading. “Cybersecurity Predictions 2026: AI Arms Race and Malware Autonomy.” Dark Reading, December 2025. https://www.darkreading.com/cyber-risk/cybersecurity-predictions-2026-an-ai-arms-race-and-malware-autonomy

10. KELA. “2025 AI Threat Report: How Cybercriminals Are Weaponizing AI Technology.” KELA Cyber, 2025. https://www.kelacyber.com/resources/research/2025-ai-threat-report/

11. HKCERT. “Hackers' New Partner: Weaponized AI for Cyber Attacks! HKCERT Exposes Six Emerging AI-Assisted Attacks.” HKCERT Blog, 2025. https://www.hkcert.org/blog/hackers-new-partner-weaponized-ai-for-cyber-attacks-hkcert-exposes-six-emerging-ai-assisted-attacks

12. World Economic Forum. “Can Cybersecurity Withstand the New AI Era?” WEF Stories, October 2025. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/10/can-cybersecurity-withstand-new-ai-era/

13. SANS Institute. “2025 SANS SOC Survey.” SANS, 2025. Referenced via Swimlane. https://swimlane.com/blog/ciso-guide-ai-security-impact-sans-report/

14. Cloud Security Alliance. “Fortifying the Agentic Web: A Unified Zero-Trust Architecture for AI.” CSA Blog, September 2025. https://cloudsecurityalliance.org/blog/2025/09/12/fortifying-the-agentic-web-a-unified-zero-trust-architecture-against-logic-layer-threats

15. OWASP. “Top 10 for Large Language Model Applications.” OWASP, 2025. https://owasp.org/www-project-top-10-for-large-language-model-applications/

16. Optiv. “Cybersecurity Leadership in 2025: The Strategic Role of CISOs in an AI-Driven Era.” Optiv Insights, 2025. https://www.optiv.com/insights/discover/blog/cybersecurity-leadership-2025-strategic-role-cisos-ai-driven-era

17. Cyble. “CISO 3.0: The Role of Security Leaders in 2026's Agentic Era.” Cyble Knowledge Hub, 2025. https://cyble.com/knowledge-hub/ciso-3-0-security-leaders-2026-agentic-era/

18. BetaNews. “Cyber Experts Warn AI Will Accelerate Attacks and Overwhelm Defenders in 2026.” BetaNews, December 2025. https://betanews.com/2025/12/10/cyber-experts-warn-ai-will-accelerate-attacks-and-overwhelm-defenders-in-2026/

19. ClearanceJobs. “Cybersecurity's AI Arms Race Is Just Getting Started.” ClearanceJobs News, December 2025. https://news.clearancejobs.com/2025/12/26/cybersecuritys-ai-arms-race-is-just-getting-started-heres-what-2026-will-bring/

20. Security Boulevard. “From Alert Fatigue to Autonomous Defense: The Next-Gen SOC Automation Platform.” Security Boulevard, December 2025. https://securityboulevard.com/2025/12/from-alert-fatigue-to-autonomous-defense-the-next-gen-soc-automation-platform/

21. Fortinet. “2025 Cybersecurity Skills Gap Report.” Fortinet, 2025. Referenced via World Economic Forum.

22. Help Net Security. “AIDEFEND: Free AI Defense Framework.” Help Net Security, September 2025. https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2025/09/01/aidefend-free-ai-defense-framework/

23. Artificial Intelligence News. “Adversarial Learning Breakthrough Enables Real-Time AI Security.” AI News, 2025. https://www.artificialintelligence-news.com/news/adversarial-learning-breakthrough-real-time-ai-security/

24. Gartner. “Gartner Predicts AI Agents Will Reduce The Time It Takes To Exploit Account Exposures by 50% by 2027.” Gartner Newsroom, March 2025. https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-03-18-gartner-predicts-ai-agents-will-reduce-the-time-it-takes-to-exploit-account-exposures-by-50-percent-by-2027

25. Gartner. “Gartner Predicts 40% of AI Data Breaches Will Arise from Cross-Border GenAI Misuse by 2027.” Gartner Newsroom, February 2025. https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-02-17-gartner-predicts-forty-percent-of-ai-data-breaches-will-arise-from-cross-border-genai-misuse-by-2027

26. Deepstrike. “AI Cybersecurity Threats 2025: Surviving the AI Arms Race.” Deepstrike Blog, 2025. https://deepstrike.io/blog/ai-cybersecurity-threats-2025

27. RSA Conference. “The AI-Powered SOC: How Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Security Operations in 2025.” RSAC Library, 2025. https://www.rsaconference.com/library/blog/the-ai-powered-soc-how-artificial-intelligence-is-transforming-security-operations-in-2025

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Tim Green UK-based Systems Theorist & Independent Technology Writer

Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.

His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities.

ORCID: 0009-0002-0156-9795 Email: tim@smarterarticles.co.uk

This review is a Writing Repository original.

The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre

By Philip Fracassi – Tor Nightfire – September 30, 2025

Review by Robin Marx

Horror fiction has been undergoing a resurgence in recent years, and with outstanding releases like Gothic and Boys in the Valley Philip Fracassi quickly established himself as an author worth watching. Released by Tor’s Nightfire imprint, The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre feels somewhat different from past Fracassi books, but more of an expansion of his repertoire than a permanent change in direction. It experiments with genres in a way that is interesting, but perhaps not entirely successful.

Nearly eighty years old, retired high school teacher Rose DuBois lives a quiet life at the titular Autumn Springs Retirement Home in upstate New York. She’s comfortable in her routine and surrounded by friends, most notable among them the affable former professor Beauregard Mason Miller, with whom she enjoys a warm companionship that—to Miller’s obvious chagrin—hasn’t quite blossomed into a Golden Years romance. A shadow falls over Autumn Springs, however, when Rose’s friend Angela dies of an apparent bathroom fall. Given their advanced age, the Autumn Spring residents largely take the death in stride, but the retirement home administrator’s horrified reaction to Angela’s body and the extent of the injuries seen on the corpse make Rose wonder if foul play was involved. In the days to follow, more of Rose’s friends and acquaintances fall victim to similar mishaps and maladies. Rose’s suspicions mount, and with Miller by her side she begins to investigate the deaths that the larger retirement community mostly shrugs off. Her stubborn persistence, however, marks her as a future target for a shadowy murderer.

The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre benefits from its brisk pacing. While the story itself is a bit of a slow burn—for most of the book the retirees are blissfully unaware that a killer lurks in their midst—individual chapters are brief and proceed at a rapid clip, frequently hinting at the murder to come, depicting its actual execution, or the discovery of the aftermath. While the proper amount of attention is spent on nice character-establishing moments, there isn’t a lot of extraneous fat; this is a lean, fast-moving book.

The appealing characters are another highlight of the book. Readers spend the most time with Rose and Miller, and both are well-rendered, realistic-feeling characters. I’ve met people very similar to them, and I imagine many other readers have as well. But we also get to spend some time in other characters’ shoes, frequently in their final desperate moments, and Fracassi doesn’t skimp on the supporting cast’s characterization. I noted it in my review of Boys in the Valley, but Fracassi’s uncommon ability to breathe life into a large cast of supporting characters through economical and empathetic characterization is again showcased in The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre. The elderly residents’ vulnerability and isolation are especially poignantly rendered in one brief chapter late in the book, after it has been unequivocally established that a killer is stalking the halls of the retirement home. Desperate to flee, various residents phone family members and former spouses begging for sanctuary until the danger has passed, only to have their pleas fall on deaf ears. Their relatives are all busy with their own lives and don’t welcome the intrusion from the old folks; better they go back to being out of sight and out of mind, warehoused at faraway Autumn Springs.

While promoted as a “slasher” novel, that aspect doesn’t arrive until quite late in the narrative. Most of the murders are orchestrated to appear as accidents or deaths from existing health issues, the knives only come out towards the end. Indeed, the “Massacre” in the title almost feels like a misnomer, suggesting more of a kinetic bloodbath than the methodical and gradually escalating series of serial killings we are presented with. While there are some gory passages, horror elements in general are fairly muted. Subtle supernatural elements do appear in the book, but they’re plausibly deniable and so lowkey that part of me wonders if Fracassi would have been better off omitting them entirely and aiming more squarely at the thriller genre. Had Fracassi pursued that direction, he could have further augmented the mystery elements of this book. There are a handful of attempts to misdirect the reader regarding the masked killer’s identity, but they’re quickly discarded; Fracassi doesn’t really commit to the red herrings in a way that made me as a reader entertain them to as realistic possibilities. And while we eventually learn the murderer’s identity, even despite a handful of first-person perspective scenes we do not receive much insight into their motives for the killings beyond opportunism and contempt for the infirm.

Straddling the mystery and horror genres, The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre feels slightly less self-assured than Fracassi’s Gothic or Boys in the Valley. I get the sense that Fracassi is trying something new here, going out on a limb. Indeed, in the Afterword Fracassi remarks that the final novel did shift and grow beyond his original concept, changing through his development of Rose as a character and the experience of losing his parents. If you’re already acquainted with Philip Fracassi’s work, The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre is well worth checking out. Fracassi’s strengths—empathetic characterization and effective pacing—are present and accounted for. Horror enthusiasts unfamiliar with Fracassi are better directed to something like Boys in the Valley first, however, as the “slasher” marketing overstates the amount of gore and brutality present in the actual novel. “Final Girl” labeling aside, Rose owes more to Jessica Fletcher than Laurie Strode. Even if the mystery elements aren’t as developed as they could have been, The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre is an easy recommendation for thriller fans. I enjoyed the time I spent with Rose DuBois and Beauregard Mason Miller and I’m pleased to see Fracassi resist complacency and push himself in new directions.

#WritingRepositoryOriginal #BookReview #Horror #Mystery #TheAutumnSpringsRetirementHomeMassacre #PhilipFracassi

In Summary: * A pretty good Tuesday in the Roscoe-verse, this. Figured and filed my federal taxes earlier today, and did my weekly laundry. Listening now to my college basketball game for the night: Ball State Cardinals vs Bowling Green Falcons. Shall wrap up my night prayers after the game and hope for a solid, restful sleep.

Prayers, etc.: *I have a daily prayer regimen I try to follow throughout the day from early morning, as soon as I roll out of bed, until head hits pillow at night. Details of that regimen are linked to my link tree, which is linked to my profile page here.

Health Metrics: * bw= 225.53 lbs. * bp= 159/91 (70)

Exercise: * morning stretches, balance exercises, kegel pelvic floor exercises, half squats, calf raises, wall push-ups

Diet: * 06:00 – pizza, toast and butter * 10:15 – 2 tangerines * 12:00 – mashed potatoes, fried chicken * 14:45 – 1 fresh apple * 18:30 – snacking on saltine crackers

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 04:00 – listen to local news talk radio * 04:55 – bank accounts activity monitored * 05:05 – read, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials * 12:00 to 13:00 – watch old game shows and eat lunch at home with Sylvia * 13:00 – listen to Dan Bongino podcast * 15:20 – listening to sports talk on 1380 the FAN, Ft. Wayne's Sports Station, ahead of tonight's men's college basketball game between the Ball State Cardinals and the Bowling Green Falcons * 17:40 – after spending much of the afternoon trying to find a radio station broadcasting tonight's game between the Ball State Cardinals and the Bowling Green Falcons, I've finally found it! WMUN, 92.5 FM, The Talk of Muncie is providing a good pregame show, and their call of the game will start at the top of the hour. YES!

Chess: * 15:20 – moved in all pending CC games

Luke chapter one does not open with thunder. It does not begin with armies, or kings on horseback, or prophets shouting in marketplaces. It begins with a man trying to be careful with the truth. Luke starts by saying he investigated everything closely and wrote it down in order. That detail alone already tells us something about God’s character. The greatest story ever told does not begin in myth or fog. It begins with research, testimony, names, places, and time. Faith in Luke is not floating. It is anchored. God chooses to enter human history in a way that can be checked, traced, and remembered. Before angels speak, Luke speaks. He wants the reader to know that belief is not blind. It is built on witness.

And then the story moves immediately into smallness. A priest. An old couple. A routine day in the temple. The kind of day that looks like every other day. Luke introduces Zechariah and Elizabeth not as legends but as people who have waited too long for something that never came. They are described as righteous, faithful, obedient, and yet childless. That sentence alone holds a tension most people know personally. Doing the right thing does not always lead to immediate reward. Being faithful does not always mean life unfolds gently. Luke is already teaching us that holiness does not shield you from disappointment. It only gives you something solid to stand on inside it.

Zechariah goes into the temple to burn incense. This is not dramatic. It is his job. It is routine. It is scheduled. And that is exactly where God interrupts him. The angel does not appear while Zechariah is praying desperately at home or pleading at night. The angel appears while he is doing what he always does. There is something quietly powerful about that. God does not always wait for spiritual emergencies. Sometimes He steps into the middle of our normal obedience. The room smells like incense. The crowd is outside praying. Zechariah is inside doing his duty. And suddenly the ordinary room is invaded by the impossible.

Fear is Zechariah’s first reaction. That is also important. Scripture does not pretend that holy encounters feel safe at first. When God breaks into human space, the first emotion is often terror. Not because God is cruel, but because reality just shifted. Zechariah has lived his whole life inside limits. Now something limitless is speaking to him. The angel tells him that his prayer has been heard and that Elizabeth will bear a son. What prayer? Luke does not specify when Zechariah prayed it. Was it yesterday? Was it twenty years ago? Was it back when hope still felt reasonable? The text leaves that open, and that openness matters. Some prayers are not answered quickly. Some are stored. Some wait until the moment when the answer will do the most work inside you.

The angel names the child before the child exists. John. Not Zechariah Junior. Not a family name. A new name for a new role. The angel explains that this child will turn many to the Lord and prepare the way for Him. This is not just about a baby. This is about a turning point in history. And yet it is happening through an elderly couple who probably stopped imagining cribs long ago. God does not always choose fresh beginnings to start His biggest movements. Sometimes He chooses people who thought their story was almost finished.

Zechariah’s response is not praise. It is calculation. He asks how this can be, because both he and his wife are old. This is not a wicked question. It is a human one. But it reveals something subtle about doubt. Zechariah believes in God, but he measures God by his circumstances. He believes in prayer, but he has learned to live with disappointment. The angel responds by reminding him who is speaking. “I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God.” In other words, this promise is not coming from imagination. It is coming from the throne room.

And then Zechariah is made mute. Not as cruelty, but as consequence. His unbelief does not cancel the promise, but it changes his experience of it. He will still have the son, but he will walk through the pregnancy in silence. Sometimes doubt does not remove the miracle. It just removes our ability to narrate it. Sometimes we lose our voice for a season, not because God is angry, but because He is teaching us to listen instead of explain.

Elizabeth conceives, and her response is private gratitude. She hides herself for five months and says the Lord has taken away her reproach. Her words are not loud. They are deeply personal. She does not give a sermon. She gives relief. Long-standing shame has been lifted. Luke shows us something tender here. God’s power is not only cosmic. It is intimate. He does not just shift nations. He restores dignity.

Then the story jumps to Nazareth. A different angel. A different person. A teenage girl. Mary is not in the temple. She is not burning incense. She is not performing a sacred duty. She is living an ordinary village life. God does not limit His interruptions to religious buildings. He enters kitchens and bedrooms and quiet lives. The angel greets her with words she does not understand: favored, the Lord is with you. Mary is troubled, not because she feels evil, but because she feels unprepared. Favor can be unsettling. Being chosen can feel heavier than being ignored.

The angel tells her she will conceive by the Holy Spirit and give birth to the Son of God. This is not just unexpected. It is socially dangerous. Mary is engaged, not married. Her reputation is at risk. Her safety is not guaranteed. The angel explains the miracle, but he does not remove the consequences. Faith is not agreement with comfort. It is agreement with God even when the path is unclear.

Mary asks how this will happen, but unlike Zechariah, her question is not rooted in disbelief. It is rooted in humility. She does not say, “That can’t be.” She says, “How will it be?” There is a difference between resisting God and trying to understand Him. The angel explains that the Holy Spirit will overshadow her, and then he gives her a sign. Elizabeth is pregnant. God ties their stories together. A young virgin and an old woman, both carrying impossible life. Grace does not isolate. It connects.

Mary’s response is one of the most dangerous prayers a human being can pray. “Be it unto me according to thy word.” She does not negotiate. She does not ask for guarantees. She does not require a timeline. She places herself into the will of God without knowing where that will will take her. This is not passive. This is courageous surrender. Mary is not a blank slate. She is an active participant. She chooses obedience before she sees protection.

She goes to Elizabeth, and the meeting is explosive with joy. The baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps. Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and blesses Mary. The older woman honors the younger. The expected honors the unexpected. This is not a hierarchy of age or status. This is a shared miracle. Elizabeth recognizes the Lord before Mary even speaks. God confirms His work through relationship. Faith does not grow best in isolation. It grows in recognition.

Mary then sings what we call the Magnificat. It is not a soft lullaby. It is a revolutionary declaration. She speaks of God scattering the proud, bringing down the mighty, lifting the lowly, filling the hungry, and sending the rich away empty. This is not just about her pregnancy. This is about God’s character. Mary understands that the child inside her will disrupt systems. He will not only comfort individuals. He will confront structures. God’s mercy is not sentimental. It is transformative.

Luke shows us something important about spiritual maturity here. Mary is young, but her theology is deep. She does not speak in vague gratitude. She speaks in Scripture-shaped truth. Her song echoes Hannah’s song from the Old Testament. She knows the story she is stepping into. She is not just carrying a baby. She is carrying a promise that has been waiting for centuries.

Mary stays with Elizabeth for three months, likely until John is born. Then Luke brings us back to Zechariah and Elizabeth. The neighbors and relatives rejoice. Community forms around the miracle. And then comes another turning point. They assume the child will be named after his father. Tradition expects continuity. But Elizabeth insists his name is John. This is more than preference. This is obedience. She is not asserting independence. She is honoring instruction.

They turn to Zechariah, who writes that the child’s name is John, and immediately his mouth is opened. Praise follows obedience. Silence ends when agreement begins. His first words are not about himself. They are about God. He blesses the Lord for visiting and redeeming His people. Notice that. John is not yet grown. Jesus is not yet born. And Zechariah speaks as if redemption has already begun. Faith does not wait for the final scene to praise the Author.

Zechariah’s prophecy is not just about his son. It is about the coming Messiah. He speaks of light to those who sit in darkness, of peace for those on crooked paths. John will prepare the way, but Jesus will be the way. Luke chapter one is filled with anticipation. It is a chapter of beginnings before beginnings. Pregnancies before births. Promises before fulfillments. Songs before victories.

What Luke is doing here is teaching us how God enters the world. Not with force, but with formation. Not with spectacle, but with submission. God chooses wombs instead of weapons. He chooses songs instead of swords. He chooses faith instead of fear. This chapter shows us that history turns not on empires but on obedience. A priest who keeps serving. A woman who keeps hoping. A girl who keeps trusting.

And here is where this chapter quietly confronts us. God does not announce Himself first to Caesar. He announces Himself to people who will believe Him. The first witnesses of the New Testament era are not rulers. They are the faithful and the forgotten. God does not wait for ideal conditions. He enters broken ones. He does not require youth or status or strength. He requires willingness.

Luke chapter one also teaches us something about timing. God does not rush, but He is never late. Elizabeth conceives in her old age. Mary conceives in her youth. God shows that His power is not limited to one season of life. He can create life when biology says no. He can create purpose when culture says wait. He does not need ideal circumstances. He creates them.

There is also something deeply human about this chapter. Everyone reacts differently. Zechariah doubts. Mary surrenders. Elizabeth rejoices. The neighbors question. God works through all of it. Faith is not uniform. It is personal. God does not require identical responses. He requires honest ones. He meets doubt with discipline. He meets surrender with confirmation. He meets joy with purpose.

This chapter is not just a preface. It is a pattern. God enters the world through people who say yes when it would be easier to say no. Through people who believe when it would be safer to stay silent. Through people who obey when it would be simpler to blend in. Luke is showing us that the gospel does not begin with a sermon. It begins with a pregnancy. It begins with whispered prayers and answered shame and unexpected songs.

And that is where this chapter presses into modern life. God still enters ordinary rooms. He still speaks into routines. He still interrupts schedules with purpose. Most people think God only moves in dramatic moments. Luke shows us He prefers daily ones. The temple. The home. The visit. The family gathering. God does not despise normal life. He inhabits it.

There is also a warning hidden in this chapter. Zechariah believed in God but struggled to believe God. Those are not the same thing. It is possible to serve faithfully and still doubt deeply. It is possible to know Scripture and still be surprised by grace. God does not reject Zechariah for that. He corrects him. He teaches him. And when Zechariah finally aligns his speech with God’s word, his voice returns. That is a lesson about alignment. We regain spiritual voice when our language matches God’s promises.

Mary, on the other hand, shows us what spiritual courage looks like. She does not know the future. She does not know how Joseph will respond. She does not know what the village will say. But she knows who spoke. And that is enough. Faith is not clarity about outcomes. It is clarity about authority. She knows the source of the message, and so she accepts the mission.

Luke chapter one is not gentle in the way people often imagine Christmas stories to be. It is disruptive. It is risky. It is costly. It involves social danger, physical impossibility, and emotional strain. But it is also radiant with hope. God is moving again. After centuries of prophetic silence, heaven speaks. And it speaks not to the powerful, but to the faithful.

This chapter leaves us standing at the edge of something. John is born. Jesus is not yet. The world is about to change, but it has not yet visibly changed. That tension is where many people live today. Promises given. Fulfillment coming. Light announced. Darkness still present. Luke chapter one teaches us how to live there. With obedience. With humility. With song. With expectation.

God steps into ordinary rooms and changes history from inside them. That is the message of this chapter. He does not bypass humanity. He enters it. He does not shout from the sky. He whispers in hearts. He does not rewrite the story from outside. He writes Himself into it.

And that means Luke chapter one is not only about Mary and Elizabeth and Zechariah. It is about the kind of people God still uses. People who pray even when answers are slow. People who listen even when news is strange. People who obey even when outcomes are unclear. The gospel begins with availability.

In the next part, the story will move from promise to arrival, from womb to manger, from preparation to presence. But Luke wants us to understand something before we get there. God’s greatest work does not begin in Bethlehem. It begins in belief.

Luke chapter one does something quietly radical. It shows us that God’s greatest work begins long before anyone can see it. The chapter is filled with hidden movement. A pregnancy that no one expects. A promise that has not yet taken flesh. A voice preparing the way for a Word that has not yet spoken. Everything important is happening beneath the surface. That alone speaks directly into the way most people experience faith. We want evidence. God gives formation. We want results. God gives preparation. We want the visible kingdom. God begins with invisible obedience.

This chapter also teaches us that God’s movement always creates division between what looks powerful and what actually is powerful. Rome is ruling the world at this moment in history. Caesar’s name is on coins. Soldiers patrol roads. Palaces stand tall. And yet Luke never mentions any of that in this chapter. The true movement of history is not happening in the senate. It is happening in a womb. Not in a throne room, but in a home. Not through decree, but through surrender. Luke is re-training the reader’s sense of importance. God is not impressed by scale. He is interested in faithfulness.

Zechariah’s silence is not just a punishment. It is a metaphor. When God speaks and we resist His word, our spiritual voice weakens. We may still be present, still active, still religious, but something inside us becomes muted. We can go through motions without proclamation. We can participate without praise. But when Zechariah finally agrees with what God has said, when he writes the name John, when he aligns himself with the promise instead of his fear, his voice returns. That is not accidental. Luke is showing us that obedience restores expression. Agreement with God restores witness.

Elizabeth’s role in this chapter is just as important as Mary’s, even though she speaks less. She represents the faith that waits. The faith that has learned disappointment but has not abandoned hope. She carries the weight of years inside her testimony. When she calls Mary blessed, she is not only affirming a miracle. She is acknowledging God’s pattern. God does not discard the old to use the young. He weaves them together. Elizabeth’s womb carries the forerunner. Mary’s womb carries the Redeemer. One prepares the way. One is the way. God links generations, not replaces them.

Mary’s song reveals something else that Luke wants us to see clearly. The coming of Jesus is not only personal. It is political in the deepest sense. Not partisan, but transformative. Mary declares that the proud will be scattered, the mighty will be brought down, the humble will be lifted, the hungry will be filled. That is not soft language. That is reversal language. The gospel is not neutral. It does not leave the world arranged the same way it found it. It changes who gets lifted and why. It changes what counts as success. It changes what power looks like.

This is why Luke begins his Gospel this way. Before miracles. Before parables. Before the cross. He shows us that Jesus is born into a world already being rearranged. John’s mission is not to entertain. It is to prepare. That word matters. Preparation implies that something big is coming. You do not prepare for nothing. You prepare for impact. John will call people to repentance not because God hates them, but because God is coming close. Repentance in Luke is not humiliation. It is alignment. It is turning so that when God arrives, you are facing the right direction.

And that speaks to how Luke chapter one functions in the whole Gospel. It is not background. It is foundation. Everything Jesus will later say about humility, mercy, reversal, and light is already planted here. Luke wants the reader to understand from the beginning that this Messiah will not look like the world expects. He will not come through power grabs or public spectacle. He will come through vulnerability. Through bodies. Through bloodlines. Through human trust.

There is also something deeply pastoral about this chapter. God does not scold Zechariah into faith. He disciplines him into listening. God does not overwhelm Mary into obedience. He invites her. God does not heal Elizabeth in isolation. He surrounds her with community. Luke is showing us the gentleness of divine movement. God is not frantic. He is intentional. He does not rush His people into transformation. He walks them into it.

Luke chapter one also teaches us that God does not ignore time. He redeems it. Zechariah and Elizabeth waited years. Mary stepped into something instantly. Both experiences are honored. Some people meet God through long endurance. Some through sudden calling. Neither is superior. Both are sacred. God works through delay and surprise alike.

Another detail that matters is how Luke emphasizes names. Zechariah means “God remembers.” Elizabeth means “God is my oath.” John means “The Lord is gracious.” Mary’s story sits inside a language of remembrance, promise, and grace. Even the names preach. God remembers His promises. God keeps His word. God shows grace. Luke is telling us that the birth of Jesus is not random. It is the fulfillment of long-spoken vows.

And when Zechariah prophesies, he does not speak of a vague salvation. He speaks of light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. That phrase is not poetic fluff. It is diagnosis. Luke sees humanity as sitting in shadow. Alive, but dim. Existing, but not illuminated. The coming of Jesus is described as sunrise. Not lightning. Sunrise. Gradual. Warming. Revealing. God does not explode the darkness. He outshines it.

That image matters for how we understand faith now. Many people want God to remove darkness instantly. Luke shows us God introducing light instead. Light does not shout. It spreads. Light does not fight darkness. It replaces it. Jesus will later say He is the light of the world, but Luke shows us that this light begins in hidden places. It begins before anyone calls it a star. It begins in obedience, not spectacle.

This chapter also quietly confronts modern assumptions about usefulness. Mary is young. Elizabeth is old. Zechariah is limited. John is unborn. None of them look effective by worldly standards. And yet all of them are essential. God’s plan cannot move forward without each one playing their role. Luke is showing us that significance is not measured by visibility. It is measured by faithfulness.

When Luke says that John will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb, he is not romanticizing biology. He is declaring purpose. This child is not an accident. His life will be directional. And that introduces a theme Luke will develop throughout his Gospel: people are not random. Their stories are part of something larger than themselves. Faith is not only about forgiveness. It is about placement. God puts people where they will matter.

Luke chapter one ends with John growing and becoming strong in spirit and living in the deserts until his public appearance. That sentence holds years inside it. Years of quiet. Years of formation. Years of being unknown. The Gospel does not jump straight to crowds and baptisms. It acknowledges that preparation takes time. The greatest voices are not made in public. They are shaped in obscurity.

That is another way this chapter speaks into modern life. We often measure progress by exposure. God measures it by depth. We measure calling by platform. God measures it by character. John will later speak boldly, but first he will be hidden. Jesus will later teach publicly, but first He will be carried quietly. Luke is telling us that God is never in a hurry to reveal what He has not finished forming.

So what does Luke chapter one ask of us now?

It asks us to believe that God still enters ordinary rooms. That our routines are not beneath Him. That our waiting is not wasted. That our doubts are not fatal. That our obedience still matters. It asks us to see that faith is not dramatic most of the time. It is consistent. It is saying yes when the future is unclear. It is continuing to serve when the promise seems delayed. It is praising God before the evidence arrives.

It also asks us to examine how we respond to God’s word. Zechariah heard and questioned. Mary heard and yielded. Both were faithful people. But only one immediately trusted. Luke does not condemn Zechariah. But he does show the cost of resistance. Silence follows disbelief. Song follows surrender. The chapter does not force us into one category. It invites us to notice which posture we live in most often.

Luke chapter one is ultimately about how God begins His greatest work. Not with noise. With notice. He notices the faithful priest. He notices the barren woman. He notices the young girl. He notices the forgotten promise. And through that noticing, the world begins to change.

This chapter does not tell us everything about Jesus. It tells us how He comes. Through trust. Through preparation. Through people who were willing to be used in ways they did not expect. The gospel does not begin with a sermon on sin. It begins with a story of surrender. It begins with people who believed God could do what seemed impossible.

And that means Luke chapter one is not just history. It is invitation. God still looks for people who will receive His word. Who will carry it. Who will prepare for what He is doing next. Not with certainty, but with obedience. Not with control, but with trust.

God steps into ordinary rooms. He speaks into ordinary lives. And through them, He does extraordinary things.

That is how the story begins.

And that is how it still continues.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

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Bodies in motion never stop wanting

Thinking of the Med tonight. How ancient it is… the billions and billions that have come and gone while it just lies and laps, crashes and shouts, breaks and retreats — never satisfied.

What goes between us feels universal, feels infinite, feels unhinged — like tide against rock, like an unsleeping hunger.

But it does not matter to this blue-green beast breathing in the dark, its long body turning under moonlight, restless in its basin, pressing against its shores the way a body strains toward touch.

It goes its way, and never beyond the boundaries set by God — yet oh, how it aches to.

How it wants to rise, to spill its cool hands over cities and fields, to cover everything, to erase the distances between one warm life and another.

---

#poetry #wyst

There is a quiet lie many sincere believers carry in their hearts, and it sounds like this: if God really called me, then I should be able to do this alone. It feels noble. It feels strong. It feels spiritual. But it is not how God has ever worked. From the first pages of Scripture to the last, God does not merely strengthen individuals; He surrounds them. He does not just whisper purpose into a single heart; He weaves that purpose into a web of relationships, timing, visibility, and shared burden. The calling of God is never just personal. It is communal by design. Even when the journey begins in solitude, it does not remain there. God does not only want to support you. He wants what He is doing in you to be known, not so your name becomes larger, but so His faithfulness becomes visible.

We often imagine God’s help as something invisible and private, like a hidden hand moving quietly behind the curtain of our lives. And sometimes it is. There are seasons when the only witness to your obedience is God Himself. But Scripture shows that secrecy is a stage, not a destination. The seed must be buried before it can rise, but it is never buried forever. Roots grow unseen, but they grow toward a moment when the soil can no longer hold them down. God allows hidden seasons because formation requires darkness. But He reveals growth because testimony requires light. You are not meant to remain underground.

There is a reason God consistently used people to help people. Moses was called, but Israel was delivered. David was anointed, but a nation was shaped. Paul was chosen, but the church was formed. Jesus Himself did not build a movement alone. He gathered fishermen, tax collectors, doubters, and dreamers. He healed publicly. He taught in open spaces. He let people see what God was doing through Him. Not to make Himself famous, but to make the Kingdom understandable. God does not hide His work forever because hidden work cannot multiply. What God grows in you is meant to strengthen someone else.

We tend to resist this idea because visibility feels dangerous. Being seen means being misunderstood. Being known means being judged. Being supported means being dependent. And all of those things cost something. It feels safer to stay small. It feels safer to struggle quietly. It feels safer to call our isolation humility and our exhaustion faithfulness. But God does not confuse suffering with virtue. He does not confuse loneliness with holiness. He does not confuse silence with submission. He sees the difference between a season of preparation and a habit of hiding.

There is something profoundly human in wanting God’s help without God’s witnesses. We want the blessing without the audience. We want the miracle without the story. We want the outcome without the connection. But God’s pattern is different. When He lifts someone, He lets others see it. When He heals someone, He allows others to hear about it. When He strengthens someone, He gives others a reason to believe. Not because the person is special, but because God is faithful. Testimony is not about the greatness of the person. It is about the reliability of the God who helped them.

This is why your struggle matters. Not because struggle is noble in itself, but because endurance becomes language. People learn through what they can see. They learn through what they can hear. They learn through what they can recognize in their own pain. When God supports you, He is not only answering your prayer. He is creating a reference point for someone else’s faith. Your obedience becomes proof that God still acts. Your perseverance becomes evidence that God still sustains. Your healing becomes permission for someone else to hope.

But before there is visibility, there is always vulnerability. Before there is support, there is surrender. God does not simply drop helpers into your life without shaping your heart to receive them. Pride resists help. Fear avoids exposure. Shame hides wounds. Control rejects dependence. And God must loosen all of those things before He can build community around your calling. You cannot be supported if you will not be seen. You cannot be strengthened if you refuse to be known. You cannot be helped if you insist on carrying everything alone.

The modern idea of faith often emphasizes independence. It praises private devotion and personal resilience. But biblical faith is relational. It assumes bodies, not just souls. It assumes families, not just individuals. It assumes churches, not just believers. God designed humans to need one another. Not because He is insufficient, but because love must travel through flesh and blood to be felt. Divine strength often arrives wearing human faces.

This is where many prayers quietly miss their own answer. We ask God for peace, and He sends someone who listens. We ask God for wisdom, and He sends someone who has walked ahead of us. We ask God for strength, and He sends someone who will not let us quit. We ask God for provision, and He sends someone who gives. We ask God for encouragement, and He sends someone who believes in us when we no longer believe in ourselves. And then we hesitate, because the answer does not look like thunder. It looks like relationship. It looks ordinary. It looks like risk.

God’s miracles are often disguised as people. That is not poetic language; it is spiritual reality. The hand of God is not limited to heaven. It moves through earth. It speaks through voices. It comforts through presence. It sustains through shared burden. Even the cross was not carried alone. Even Christ allowed another man to help Him carry the weight. That detail is not incidental. It is instructional. If the Son of God did not refuse human help, then refusing help is not a mark of faith. It is often a mark of fear.

There is something deeply humbling about allowing others to see what God is doing in you. It requires trust. It requires patience. It requires discernment. Not everyone who notices you is meant to walk with you. Not everyone who praises you understands you. Not everyone who watches you will protect you. God chooses companions, not crowds. He assigns supporters, not spectators. Some will witness from a distance. Some will criticize. Some will misunderstand. But some will be sent.

These sent ones matter more than numbers. They are the ones who hold your arms up when you grow tired. They are the ones who remind you who you are when doubt grows loud. They are the ones who speak truth when fear distorts your vision. They are the ones who protect what God is growing when others would trample it. They are not random. They are appointed.

This is why your responsibility is not to manage visibility. Your responsibility is obedience. God handles connection. Your responsibility is faithfulness. God handles growth. Your responsibility is to keep walking. God handles companionship. You do not have to advertise your calling. You do not have to force recognition. You do not have to demand support. God knows how to reveal what He plants when it is ready to be seen.

The hardest season is the one where you feel alone and unseen while God is actually arranging everything. That season feels like abandonment, but it is often alignment. It feels like delay, but it is often design. It feels like silence, but it is often selection. God is choosing who will walk with you before He shows them to you. He is preparing both sides of the relationship. He is shaping hearts on both ends of the connection. And that takes time.

There is also something sacred about the fact that God does not rush this process. If He revealed everything too early, it would crush you. If He sent everyone too soon, it would overwhelm you. If He exposed the work before it was rooted, it would be fragile. God grows deep before He grows wide. He teaches you to listen before He teaches you to lead. He strengthens your spine before He expands your reach. What feels like delay is often mercy.

Your work matters because God does not waste effort. He does not cultivate obedience for nothing. He does not grow faith just to keep it hidden. He does not heal wounds just for private relief. He heals so scars can speak. He restores so testimony can travel. He strengthens so others can lean. You are not being shaped in isolation. You are being prepared for intersection. Your life is being tuned for resonance with other lives.

This is why shrinking your vision is not humility. Hiding your calling is not obedience. Minimizing what God has given you is not holiness. If God planted it, He intends to grow it. If God started it, He intends to sustain it. If God called you, He intends to surround you. The only thing He asks is that you remain willing while He does it.

And perhaps the most freeing realization is this: you do not have to prove anything. You do not have to perform for approval. You do not have to build influence on your own strength. God is not waiting for you to become impressive. He is waiting for you to remain faithful. Faithfulness is what attracts provision. Obedience is what invites partnership. Trust is what allows God to move visibly.

So when you feel unseen, do not assume you are unsupported. When you feel alone, do not assume you are abandoned. When you feel unnoticed, do not assume you are forgotten. God does not forget His work. He does not forget His servants. He does not forget His promises. He is doing more than you can currently perceive. He is building something larger than your individual effort. He is preparing witnesses for your obedience.

Your life is not just a private struggle. It is a public lesson in the making. It is not just endurance. It is instruction. It is not just survival. It is signal. The God who supports you is also revealing Himself through you. And the world will not learn who He is by watching Him in heaven. It will learn who He is by watching Him in you.

Now we will continue this thought by exploring how God chooses helpers, how visibility becomes responsibility, and how your obedience becomes a bridge for others.

When God begins to make what He is doing in you visible, He is not simply giving you attention. He is giving you responsibility. Visibility in God’s economy is never about elevation alone; it is about stewardship. When others begin to see what God is building in your life, you become a living message. Not a perfect one, but a real one. People do not learn faith by watching flawless lives. They learn faith by watching faithful ones. They learn trust by watching someone walk forward without certainty. They learn endurance by watching someone stay when it would be easier to leave. God allows others to see your obedience because obedience teaches better than explanation ever could.

There is a quiet transformation that happens when your private walk becomes public witness. You start to realize that your choices ripple outward. The way you speak begins to matter more. The way you handle hardship becomes instruction. The way you recover from failure becomes guidance. God does not expose your life to pressure to crush you. He exposes it to purpose so others can learn what faith looks like in motion. This is why Scripture speaks so often of light. Light is not meant to make things impressive. Light is meant to make things visible. And visibility is what allows direction. People cannot follow what they cannot see.

God’s pattern has always been to attach people to people. He rarely sends help without sending relationship. He rarely sends strength without sending support. He rarely sends calling without sending companions. But the way He chooses helpers is not random. God does not gather people based on convenience. He gathers them based on alignment. He connects hearts that will sharpen rather than drain. He sends voices that will build rather than confuse. He assigns people who will protect the work rather than exploit it. And often, these connections form slowly, quietly, in ordinary moments.

You may not recognize them at first. Sometimes they arrive as listeners. Sometimes they arrive as challengers. Sometimes they arrive as encouragers. Sometimes they arrive as teachers. Sometimes they arrive as quiet presences who simply stay when others leave. But over time, you begin to see that they were never accidents. They were answers. God was weaving support into your story before you even knew to ask for it.

This is why discernment matters when God begins to reveal what He is doing in you. Not every voice deserves access. Not every observer deserves influence. Visibility does not mean openness without boundaries. Jesus healed in public but withdrew in private. He taught crowds but discipled a few. He allowed many to see His works, but He allowed only some to know His heart. God does not call you to be hidden, but He does call you to be wise. He does not call you to isolation, but He does call you to intimacy with the right people. Support is not about numbers. It is about alignment.

And this alignment does something powerful: it removes the illusion that you are self-made. When God surrounds you, your life begins to testify not just to personal strength but to divine design. Others see that you did not arrive alone. They see that you were lifted. They see that you were carried at times. They see that you were sustained by more than willpower. And that shifts the story from achievement to grace. It changes the question from “How did you do this?” to “Who helped you?” And the truest answer is always the same: God did, and He did it through people.

There is something deeply humbling about realizing that your calling is bigger than your capacity. It means you must rely on God not just for strength but for connection. It means you must trust Him not just for answers but for companions. It means you must allow Him to build what you cannot build alone. This is not weakness. It is wisdom. A single thread can be broken easily, but woven strands endure. God weaves lives together so that purpose can endure.

Your obedience becomes a bridge when God allows it to be seen. Someone watches how you forgive and finds the courage to release bitterness. Someone watches how you persevere and finds the strength to keep going. Someone watches how you trust and finds the faith to believe again. This is not because you are extraordinary. It is because God is consistent. He uses ordinary lives to carry extraordinary truth. He uses real stories to reveal eternal faithfulness. He uses imperfect people to show perfect grace.

This is also why God does not rush the revealing. If He exposed the work too early, it would be misunderstood. If He showed the fruit before the roots were deep, it would not last. God grows character before influence. He grows humility before visibility. He grows obedience before expansion. And when He finally allows others to see what He has been doing, it is not sudden. It is seasonal. Like harvest. What appears sudden to others has been growing quietly for a long time.

You may feel today like you are still in that quiet place. Still unseen. Still building. Still becoming. Still trusting. Still waiting. And it is tempting in that place to believe nothing is happening. But the absence of applause does not mean the absence of progress. The absence of recognition does not mean the absence of God. The absence of witnesses does not mean the absence of work. God often does His deepest work where only He can see it. And then, when the time is right, He allows others to see it too.

There is also a tenderness in the way God introduces support. He does not overwhelm you with connection all at once. He adds it as you can carry it. He introduces people as you are ready to receive them. He grows your capacity to trust before He grows your circle of influence. Because support requires openness, and openness requires safety. God builds safety before He builds visibility. He teaches you to rely on Him before He teaches you to rely on others. And in that order, dependence becomes healthy rather than desperate.

Your story is not just yours. It is part of a larger testimony God is writing through many lives. You are not a standalone chapter. You are part of a narrative that connects faith to faith, obedience to obedience, courage to courage. God does not waste any part of it. He does not waste your waiting. He does not waste your struggle. He does not waste your obedience. He weaves it into something that will outlast you.

This is why shrinking what God has given you does not protect you. It delays impact. Hiding your obedience does not honor God. It withholds instruction. Minimizing your calling does not create humility. It creates silence where testimony could speak. If God planted it, He intends to grow it. If God called you, He intends to sustain you. If God began it, He intends to reveal it. The only thing required of you is faithfulness in the season you are in now.

And faithfulness is not glamorous. It is steady. It is daily. It is unseen most of the time. It is choosing obedience when no one is watching. It is trusting when nothing looks different yet. It is continuing when the road feels long. It is believing that God is working even when you cannot feel Him. Faithfulness is not loud. But it is powerful. It is the soil where everything else grows.

One day, someone will look at your life and see what God has done. Not because you announced it, but because God revealed it. They will see endurance where there was once exhaustion. They will see peace where there was once fear. They will see purpose where there was once confusion. And in seeing that, they will see God. Not as an idea, but as a reality. Not as a concept, but as a presence. Not as a theory, but as a helper.

This is what it means that God wants others to know what He is doing in you. Not so your name is lifted, but so His character is shown. Not so your story is celebrated, but so His faithfulness is trusted. Not so you become a symbol of success, but so you become a sign of grace.

So do not fear the moment when your obedience becomes visible. Do not resist the support God sends. Do not despise the connections He forms. Do not hide the work He is doing. Walk in it. Trust in it. Stay faithful to it. Let God strengthen you, and let Him surround you. Let Him reveal what He is growing when the season comes.

Because your life is not just about you. It is a living testimony in motion. It is a bridge between struggle and hope. It is a signal that God still works through willing hearts. And the God who called you is the God who will support you.

Not alone. But together.

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

Watch Douglas Vandergraph’s inspiring faith-based videos on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@douglasvandergraph

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I sidste indlæg skrev jeg om min kærlighed til fyldepenne der blev vækket da jeg læste på universitetet i Frankrig. Det fik mig til at reflektere over det som på en måde hænger uløseligt sammen med pennen: håndskriften selv. Ser du, ikke nok med at jeg skulle lære at skrive opgaver på fransk – jeg skulle også skrive dem i hånden. Det foregik sådan at professoren, som man kalder alle undervisere på fransk, kom ind i lokalet, sagde et par ting, skrev et spørgsmål op på tavlen og så gik man ellers i gang med at skrive stil i hånden på sine løse ark, klar til at aflevere to timer senere ved timens afslutning. Det kunne være et simpelt spørgsmål som: „Findes der én eller flere sandheder?“, og så gik man ligesom bare i gang. 

Nogle gange gjorde de sig ikke engang ulejligheden at skrive spørgsmålet op på tavlen, hvilket skete ved den første opgave overhovedet. Vi havde undervisning i et for lille og derfor overfyldt lokale hvor man kunne kigge ud i en snæver asfaltbelagt gård, og monsieur Puech, der ledte kurset i moralfilosofi, sad altid og ventede i god tid for siden at rejse sig på timeslaget. Desværre talte han både lavt og læspede en smule, så jeg havde ofte svært ved at fatte hvad der foregik. Det var først da alle de andre gik i gang med at skrive at jeg overhovedet forstod at vi skulle lave opgave. Jeg tog mig dog sammen og spurgte høfligt om han ikke ville være venlig at gentage spørgsmålet, hvilket han så gerne ville – han var ret sympatisk på sådan en bedstefaragtig måde – men det hjalp ikke, og jeg forstod stadig ikke noget. Det lykkedes mig at skrive noget formentlig fuldstændig usammenhængende i en to timers angst-rystetur som jeg endda indleverede til ham – mest for ikke at gøre mig pinligt bemærket i situationen –, og som jeg selvfølgelig fik 0 point for.

1.

Alt det her var jeg blevet forberedt på hjemmefra, og det var anledningen til at jeg omkring et år før jeg skulle afsted, besluttede mig for at gå over til at skrive skråskrift. Det kom sig af at det gik op for mig at jeg ellers ikke ville være i stand til at lave opgaverne – det ville simpelthen ikke være fysisk muligt for mig at skrive en opgave på to timer selv om jeg så vidste hvad der skulle stå i den. Min håndskrift var så dårlig at den ikke kunne læses og min hånd krampede nærmest med det samme. Da det gik op for mig, blev jeg helt pinligt berørt, og jeg følte mig rent ud sagt som en taber. Det er ligesom en del af det at være menneske at kunne skrive, og jeg så pludselig mig selv som handicappet fordi det gik op for mig at jeg ikke kunne udføre en opgave som jeg anså for at være en normal funktion for et moderne menneske. Samtidig følte jeg også en vis vrede mod særligt mine forskellige lærere gennem tiden, for jeg syntes at det ligesom var noget jeg burde have lært i skolen, noget jeg burde have været tvunget til at lære fordi det er den mest grundlæggende af de almene færdigheder man lærer her. Jeg følte mig simpelthen svigtet.

Jeg besluttede mig for at begynde at skrive skråskrift for at få en mere læsevenlig skrift. Jeg gik til det på den måde at jeg opsætte et dogme om kun at løfte pennen når ordet var slut. Ét ord, én linje. Selvom jeg kan huske at jeg har udfyldt skrivebøger i folkeskolen, så kunne jeg ikke huske hvordan man faktisk skrev mange af bogstaverne som skråskrift, og det tvang mig til at lære det hele forfra. Jeg var inspireret af en historie om den kinesiske sprinter Su Bingtang der var den første asiat til at løbe under ti sekunder på 100-meteren og som lidt senere blev nummer seks til OL i 2021. Han havde på et tidspunkt hvor hans karriere egentlig skulle være på sit højeste i sine midt-20’ere valgt at skifte fodstilling i startblokken, så det første skridt nu var med højre ben. Han er en meget intelligent løber og besat af at optimere de her ting, og det brud gjorde at han kunne starte på en frisk og gentænke hele sit løb uden at kroppen faldt ind i de gamle vaner. Han var langsommere i næsten flere år, men det gjorde altså at han kunne løbe sig til triumfen og komme under de magiske ti sekunder. 

2.

Dengang jeg gik i gymnasiet var min klasse med i et slags forsøg om at være 100 % digitale. Vi fik alle lektier som filer og ikke printet ud, og vi skulle aflevere alle opgaver via websiden Lectio. Jeg kan ikke helt huske detaljerne, men min matematiklærer var ligesom ikke med på det, og han bad os lave blækregningerne på kvadratpapir og købe den helt store lommeregner i stedet for bare at installere et regneprogram på computeren. Jeg kan huske hvordan jeg havde min mor med nede i butikken for at købe klodsen fra Texas Instruments, jeg husker plastikomslaget som man skulle tage af, og jeg husker hvordan vi lærte hinanden „solve“-funktionen og blev betaget af at den selv kunne løse ligninger, og hvordan Keith – det hed vores lærer der, a propos, også læspede lidt – sagde at vi hellere skulle lade være. Jeg husker i det hele taget meget fra matematik, selv hvordan man løser de ligningerne man kunne få lommeregneren til at lave, og jeg synes at Keith var en dygtig lærer.

Jeg skriver det her fordi jeg ved at der er mange som er i samme situation som jeg var i. Jeg er ikke alene om det, og det er sikkert kun blevet værre siden jeg stoppede i skolen i slutningen af 00’erne. Jeg ved eksempelvis at man på Bornholm har valgt at være helt digital og giver børnene en iPad når de starter i børnehaveklasse. Det bliver tit udlagt som en god ting fordi man så lærer vigtige redskaber til at klare sig i fremtidens digitale verden og får en „digital dannelse“, sådan var det i hvert fald i min gymnasietid, og det kan man finde politikere på Bornholm der siger. Men det er jo latterligt, for grunden til at det er populært at skrive på computeren er at det er nemt. Selv har jeg læst om matematik og programmering på universitetet, og de bad os som det første om at anskaffe os en bog, for det er en fejlslutning at tro man nødvendigvis skal sidde på computeren for at blive klog på den. Stakkels børn, tænker jeg. Ja de lærer at bruge computere, det er fint nok, men lærer de at bruge andet?

På Københavns Universitet har de for nyligt besluttet at lade de studerende bruge AI-chatbots til deres opgaver fordi ledelsen har opgivet at få dem til at lade være. Jeg har selv tænkt at løsningen burde være at gå i den omvendte retning: tilbage til at lave opgaverne i hånden – det har man trods alt haft succes med i århundreder, hvis ikke årtusinder – men det går så op for mig at det praktisk talt ikke er muligt, for langt de fleste studerende ville simpelthen ikke være i stand til det. Jeg har selv været et eksempel på det. 

Her er der også en generationel forskel. For de ældre generationer er computeren og det digitale tilvalg, og derfor føles det som en gave at kunne lave tingene på computeren hvis det er smartere. Det er for dem en frihed. Men hvis man ikke lærer andet, så bliver det digitale en ufrihed fordi man ikke kan andet. 

3.

Det er ikke bare nogle anekdoter jeg fyrer af her – der er vist gentagende gange gennem forskellige studier at man husker bedre hvis man skriver noter i hånden. Det er et godt argument for at bruge pen og papir synes jeg. Men selv om studieteknik er et emne jeg tillægger en enorm vigtighed, så er det er ikke det vigtigste for mig når det kommer til håndskriften. Det er i stedet et metafysisk problem. Lad mig forklare:

Dengang jeg stadig ikke havde lært at skrive skråskrift, lærte jeg den franske filosof Maurice Merleau-Ponty at kende. Vores underviser blev ved med at tale om stil, og jeg forstod ikke rigtig hvad det gik ud på dengang, for jeg troede bare det var ét af hans små excentriske tricks til at live undervisningen op. Desuden er stil ikke så filosofisk vigtigt, tænkte jeg. Nu har jeg efterhånden forstået pointen, og jeg fanboyede Merleau-Ponty så meget at jeg var ude og tage et selfie ved hans grav på Père Lachaise-kirkegården. Ikke særligt sejt gjort, men altså selv grim stil er dog stil.

I et af sine mindre værker analyserer Merleau-Ponty den franske maler Cézanne og hans billeder. Han vælger at skrive om Cézanne – tror jeg – fordi maleren markerer overgangen fra det figurative maleri til det mere sansebetonede maleri som impressionisterne indførte i slutningen af 1800-tallet, og dermed en på mange måder modernistisk bevægelse hen mod at malerens egen sanseerfaring kan opleves i billedet. Merleau-Pontys påstand er at det lykkedes for Cézanne at være krop på en anden måde, at se på en anden måde. Cézanne var altså nyskabende stilistisk på den måde at han malede en ny slags billeder, men han formåede samtidig at se på en en ny måde, fordi det at sanse – og særligt det at se – hænger uløseligt sammen med det at male netop et billede, for det er en kunstfrom der primært foregår for synssansen. Det er lidt kunsthistorisk forsimplet, men Cézanne repræsenterer en form for dobbelt bevægelse om at male og se på en anden måde, og det skyldes at det at se og det at male begge dele er noget som man gør med en bestemt stil. Ligesom en maler udvikler et vist formsprog, en farvepalette og så videre som bliver genkendelig for andre – og nogle gange for ham selv – som en bestemt stil, så udvikler alle mennesker en vis stil i deres måde at sanse på. Sansningen er ikke neutral, den bliver udført med en vis stil. (Det er blandt andet derfor jeg har valgt intueor som titlen på denne blog, fordi man kan lære at se, og det interesserer mig. Men mere om det på et andet tidspunkt.)

Praktisk talt betyder det at man bliver nødt til at udvikle sin egen personlige stil hvis man vil opleve verden. Man skal lære at se, at gå, at røre, at føle, at elske, at dyrke sport og så videre på en bestemt måde for at blive bedre til de her ting, og for at verden derfor kan åbne sig for en. Ofte kan man efterligne andre mennesker, men andre gange bliver man nødt til at gøre det selv. Det er selvfølgelig ikke rigtigt noget man tænker over sådan til hverdag, særligt hvad angår de sanser der er mest grundlæggende, og derfor er det vigtigt at gøre sig nogle erfaringer med at udvikle en stil. Det er vigtigt at tegne lidt med farveblyant og lave modellervoks og sådan fordi det lærer én den universelle oplevelse det er at udvikle en stil. Ikke blot som en selvudviklingsting, men fordi det lærer én at være mere til stede i verden og få en større samhørighed med den. Som han skriver er verden lavet af det samme stof som kroppen. Min påstand er at det at udvikle en stil, eller forskellige stile i forskellige henseender, simpelthen er en del af et godt liv. 

4.

Når man lærer at skrive i hånden, så udfylder man som regel de her hæfter med øvelser hvor man først skal skrive et „a“ en masse gange, siden „b“ og så videre. Når man laver de øvelser skal man skrive af efter bogen og forsøge at ramme den samme linje som de fortrykte bogstaver. Men det er blot en øvelse, og det er i sidste ende ikke hvor meget skriften ligner den i øvelseshæftet der er det afgørende for ens håndskrift, og ikke det man bliver bedømt på – i hvert fald ikke af gode dansklærere. I stedet laver man øvelserne for at lære de rigtige bevægelser: at starte øverst med et „o“, at komme under linjen med et „p“ og så videre. Det egentlige mål med at lære at skrive er at udvikle sin egen personlige håndskrift. Det er nemt nok at lære bogstaverne, men det kræver træning at gøre dem til sine egne og udvikle sin egen skrivestil. Vi siger heller ikke at man lærer håndskriften, man at man får en håndskrift.

De fleste mennesker går ikke til tegning eller musik, og har ikke noget begær efter at udleve sig selv „kreativt“ – eller også undertrykker de det bare af forskellige årsager. Men alle skal lære at skrive, og skriften er derfor en universel erfaring af noget som er personligt. Noget som ikke bare er et træk ved os selv, men et produkt der bliver skabt. Det var ind til for nyligt en fælles – og dog intim – erfaring at gå den udvikling igennem. Det er den egentlige tragedie, og det egentlige svigt af de børn som går i skole i dag. Det bliver frarøvet muligheden for at udvikle sig og for at tilegne sig en stil. Ikke som et egoistisk projekt, men som noget der bringer én tættere på verden. Jeg vil gå så langt som til at påstå at det er en del af den trivselskrise vi taler så meget om fordi det er en del af et godt liv at gøre den slags.

5.

I dag skriver de fleste på tastatur eller touch-screen, og det kan man strengt taget også udvikle en stil med. Det kan man i rent fysisk forstand, og nogle køber eksempelvis specielle keyboards og sætter sit eget præg på dem på forskellige måder. Det synes jeg er en god ting at gøre. Men det kan også være en digital stil i lidt en anden betydning: Nogle venner jeg skriver med, har en bestemt måde at skrive beskeder på, og man kan også tale om en bestemt stil i den måde man udtrykker sig på i de sociale mediers trods alt ret begrænsede tekstflade. Der kan være trends og udtryk i Instagram-captions og den slags. Trump har eksempelvis sin egen markante stil som han udviklede på Twitter. Eller se hvordan unge for et par år siden begyndte at skrive alting med små bogstaver.

Jeg har selv brugt en vis tid på at se computerspil blive streamet på Twitch, og jeg tror at jeg ville kunne genkende den hollandske spiller Grubby spille Warcraft III hvis jeg så en anonym video, på grund af den måde han får noget meget metodisk og komplekst til at se afslappet ud. Det samme gælder Counter Strike-holdet Astralis som dominerede spillet et par år, og som gjorde det ved at udvikle en bestemt stil i deres spil der var en del af den næsten mytiske fortælling de formåede at skabe om holdets storhedstid. Et andet eksempel er da Elon Musk for et par år siden afslørede sig selv som en kæmpe taber ved at lade som om at han var god til Path of Exile, men hvor det var ret tydeligt at han havde fået nogle andre til at spille for sig. Det skete fordi han livestreamede sig selv spille. De fleste prøvede at afsløre hans bluff ved at udregne forskellige måder hans historie ikke hang sammen ved at lede efter en rygende pistol, men det mest afslørende var sådan set hans stil. Nu har Elon Musk i det hele taget ikke særligt meget stil – men hvis man er en af de bedste i verden til et computerspil, som han påstod, så spiller man det med en vis hjemmevant lethed som Musk slet ikke var i nærheden af. Det er det samme som med andre sportsgrene, man behøver bare se en fodboldspiller snøre sine støvler for at regne ud om vedkommende er dygtig.

Min pointe er vist, for nu at afrunde, at man godt kan gøre de her ting digitalt. Man kan godt skrive, godt gå i skole og godt udvikle sig som menneske. Men som meget andet digitalt så er det bare en dårligere og nemmere udgave. Det er ligesom bare ikke det samme, og det er synd.

Nach «Das Labyrinth der Träumenden Bücher» hatte ich aufgehört die Zamonien-Romane zu verfolgen. Von Walter Moers war ich echt begeistert, aber dieses eine Buch hat mich damals stark enttäuscht und meine Lust am weiterlesen kaputt gemacht.

Letzten Herbst dann wurde ich auf «Die Insel der Tausend Leuchttürme» hingewiesen. Nach über zehn Jahren habe ich mich zum ersten Mal wieder an Walter Moers herangewagt — und was für ein Glück das war. Denn die Geschichte bringt all das, was ich an den Büchern immer geliebt habe.

Zur Geschichte

Zwar zeigt sich das Buch zum Start nicht von der besten Seite, startet es doch gleich mit dem in Zamonien-Romanen üblichen prahlen und masslosen Übertreibungen. Weshalb Hildegunst von Mythenmetz jetzt unbedingt der Seetüchtigste Einwohner des Kontinents sein muss, leuchtet mir wirklich nicht ein, zumal es im späteren Verlauf der Geschichte kaum von Bedeutung ist.

Aber das gehört zu den Büchern nun mal dazu und wenn es, wie hier, in Massen geschieht, hat es ja auch seinen Charme.

Ansonsten ist die Geschichte aber wirklich gut und mitreissend. Noch viel besser aber ist die Beschreibung der Insel Eydernorn und ihrer Bewohner und deren Lebensweise. Das Setting ist klar von Norddeutschen Insel inspiriert. Zugleich aber ist alles mit so viel Humor und Fantasie durchsetzt, dass man zum Stauen und Lachen kaum heraus kommt.

Zur Vertonung

Das Buch wird, wie viele andere Bücher der Reihe, von Andreas Fröhlich gelesen. Der spielt ganz oben mit dabei wenn es um das Einlesen Deutscher Bücher geht. Und auch die Produktionsqualität ist, wie wir es vom Hörverlag gewohnt sind, erste Sahne.

Am besten gefallen haben wir die Plattdeutschen Abschnitte. Die habe ich aller Regel zwar nicht verstanden, das Zuhören war dafür aber um so unterhaltsamer. Im Übrigen verstehe ich die Abschnitte auch lesend nicht besser als hörend. Das darf aber gerne so — Hildegunst von Mythenmetz ist der Sprache ebenfalls nicht mächtig und so kann der Hörer mit ihm zusammen rätseln was wohl gemeint ist.

Wo das Hören gegenüber dem Lesen aber einen klaren Nachteil darstellt, sind die zahlreichen Illustrationen die in einem Walter Moers Buch nicht fehlen dürfen. Nur dafür habe ich mir schliesslich doch noch das gedruckte Buch gekauft und beim Hören reingeschaut.

Es ist auch davon auszugehen, dass der Autor Wortspiele eingebaut hat, die nur beim Lesen zur Geltung kommen. In früheren Büchern gab es das auf jeden Fall.

Vielleicht müsste man das Buch also einmal lesen und einmal hören. Die grossartige Lesung von Andreas Fröhlich bringt nämlich eine ganz eigene Dimension in die Geschichte, die beim Lesen sicher fehlen würde.

Für wen ist es?

Das Hörbuch kann ich bedenkenlos für alle empfehlen. Kenner der Zamonien-Romane wissen weshalb. Und all jene, die noch keines der Bücher gelesen oder gehört haben, für die ist «Die Insel der Tausend Leuchttürme» ein gelungener Einstieg.

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