Shall we have a laugh and raise a toast as blood for whine betrays its host?

When talk churns cheap and morals fray how easy truths careen and sway.

Prey knot the wiles of antinomian fume. Instead sweep doubts with unfurled broom.

Aghast, each scripture baits to jar when sheep are led to maim and scar.

© 2026 AnOublietteofThought. All rights reserved.

Steeds meer mensen overlijden door Plasticide.

In Smægmå komen meer en meer mensen in de problemen door een scala aan problemen veroorzaakt door algemene aanschaf overdaad. Bij een onderzoek uitgevoerd door onderzoeksbureau Aangelijnde Nationale Welzijns Bank {ANWB} bleek dat het aantal sterfgevallen door Plasticide de afgelopen vijf jaar flink is toegenomen. Plasticide is doodsoorzaak nummer één bij net gescheiden alleenstaande papegaaien en aquarium bezitters met een stemmingsstoornis tussen de 30 en 35 jaar, vijf jaar geleden overleed nog niemand uit die categorie aan deze kwaal, niet alleen omdat deze toen nog niet officieel was benoemd door doktoren met een passie voor ontdekken van kwalen en deze dan officieel labelen als zijnde een ziekte maar ook omdat deze categorie nog niet officieel was opgenomen als categorie bij het centraal bureau bevolking statistiek.

Gelukkig zijn ze daar tot diepere inzichten gekomen waardoor we nu iedere dag meer komen te weten over iedere groep die het bureau officieel heeft onderscheiden van de andere grotere groep normale gezonde mensen. Deze groep is zelfs inmiddels ook een steeds beperktere groep. Op dit moment is nog maar twee procent van heel Smægmå normaal gezond, dit aangezien onze veel wetende over alles in en om ons doktoren steeds meer afwijkingen weten te vinden. Inmiddels zijn het vooral artsen die als enigsten nog binnen de afgetekende welzijn lijntjes passen. Waarschijnlijk ook omdat zij degenen zijn die het ongezond zijn het meeste vrezen want dan zullen ze onder behandeling komen van hun vrienden, collega's en dat willen ze liever niet aangezien zij net wat meer weten over de ware aard van het trek en duw gezondheidswerk.

Plasticide is het ineens overlijden door een overdosis aan bestelde en ontvangen pakketjes in zeer korte tijd. Het zoeken, uitpakken, als ook wachten op de cadeaus, de hele, lange dagen tracken en tracen, zorgt voor zoveel mentale en fysieke spanningen dat de veroorzaker daarvan, de koper, pardoes om het leven komt. Meestal bij het uitpakken van een geschenk maar soms ook net ervoor bij het openen van de deur voor de bezorger of tijdens het bestel proces, maar liefst 5 procent van de Plasticide slachtoffers overlijdt tijden de Weerozeero betaling. De Weerozeero groep wil trouwens niet reageren op vragen gesteld door het artsen collectief. Deze betichten de groep van het opzettelijk veroorzaken van enorm betaalgemak waardoor deze toch al uitzonderlijk kwetsbare groep der groot pakketjes bestellers geneigd is tot een overdaad. Aldus de artsen, geneeskrachtige managers, is er een memo in omloop waarin staat dat de bende achter Weerozeero mensen met opzet zo ver wil krijgen dat ze een ongezonde dosis cadeaus en dergelijke boodschappen bestellen, liefst overal en nergens, op elk tijdstip van de dag. Dit vooral omdat zij heel veel meer baat hebben bij een overspannen economische toestand in het hele land dan de mensen thuis, die waarschijnlijk liever niks of bijna niks willen willen maar juist die kalme toestand niet meer kunnen bereiken door de aanwezigheid van driftig handelende, adverterende, mailende, flyerende, reclame filmpjes producerende, advertentie plaatsende en andere vormen van duiden op 1001 zeldzame beste koopkansjes, de eeuwig alles roepende winkeliers en hun bijbehorende ketens. Deze memo bestaat volgens de Weerozeero groep niet, maar is enkel een gerucht aangemaakt door ernstig geradicaliseerde uiterst linkse groepen anti-kapitalisten.

Ondanks deze doldwaze ritjes in de grote geruchten malle molen blijft het feit staan dat er alleen dit jaar al vijftig mensen zijn omgekomen door een overdosis aan pakketjes in korte tijd. Het aantal [zelf] geschenken dat gevaar op levert voor de volksgezondheid is om en nabij de 50 per week, zeker drie weken lang, mensen lopen dan een veel groter risico op hard falen en missie lukken van de bloedsomloop, tevens zorgt het voor ernstige psychische klachten zoals derepressie en afhankelijkheid van postbezorger problematiek, natuurlijk is er ook grote kans op zware schulden last overal en nergens. Eenmaal over de normale kooplijn van ongeveer 2 á 3 pakketjes per week naar vijftig is er al vaak grote schade op het koop immuun systeem bij dergelijke labiele mensen.

Artsen willen aan de hand van het rapport en de daaropvolgende Plasticide campagne overheden en mensen wijzen op het grote gevaar van dergelijk gedrag. Weliswaar vinden zij dat het toch vooral de verantwoording is voor de koper zelf om zijn aangelijnde bestel gedrag te normaliseren om problemen zoals Plasticide maar ook Karton deficiëntie en Bubbelplastic contaminatie te voorkomen. Maar het is dan natuurlijk wel noodzakelijk dat mensen zich bewust worden van de risico's die zij lopen als ze inloggen op hun persoonlijke winkel account en meer en meer willen willen zoals winkels en hun ketens graag willen dat zij veel willen omdat dit zo goed is voor de economie van voornamelijk Åzcyå, de inkopers eruit, luchtvaart- en transportmaatschappijen, brandstof voor die voertuigen leveranciers, miljoenen marketeers en daarnaast van computer e.d. Apparaten verkopers en daaraan verbonden grote nog meer energie slurpende data centrales, zij die de schijven leveren en draaiende houden waarop al die artikel plaatjes en lovende teksten staan met hun bijpassende kunstmatig super pientere schommelende (maar niet teveel) prijskaartjes, want kunstmatig pienter heeft zo zijn vooraf ingestelde grenzen waar binnen een prijs mag schommelen, ook kunstmatige intelligentie moet hier en daar worden ingeperkt.

Vandaar dus dat wij op dit kwaliteitsblog graag onze overdaad aan zeer zinvolle preek ruimte verkopen aan dit driftig bezige veel geld dienende parate staat gezondheidscollectief. Wij willen natuurlijk ook niets liever dan gezonde mensen zo goed als mogelijk elke dag overleven in een heerlijke koop, inkoop, doorverkoop omgeving net als hier en nu in ons geweldig bijzon welvarende Smægmå.

Dit artikel werd mogelijk gemaakt door welzijnswinkel eropenover.com en geenverweerstandje bv. Het zou het kunstlicht ook niet gezien hebben zonder een flinke bak aan subsidie gelden afkomstig van het ministerie van handelsbelangen.

“MY FATHER ADRESSES ME ON THE FACTS OF OLD AGE” (2002)

Kitaptan beşinci seçimim, Grace Paley’den. Bir baba, bir masa ve evlat. Yaş alma dersleri konuşulacaktır. Hikâye şu sözlerle açılır: “My father had decided to teach me how to grow old. I said O.K.”

O masaya çoğumuz oturmuştur, çoğu zaman dayanamayıp kalkmışızdır. Dersler aralıklı olarak farklı mekânlarda hep tekrarlanır. Alamadığımız derslerin sayısı, alabildiklerimizden katça fazladır.

Oğuz Atay’ın Korkuyu Beklerken kitabında “Babama Mektup” bölümünde söylediği gibi “bütün dünyanın suratına çarpıp durmadan kapıları” (1) bir soluk alıp kulak vermek gerekebilir. Ve yaş almanın bir tarafı kesinkes melankoliktir.

Çok sevdiğim Harun Kolçak, o güzel şarkısında “Yıllar, yıllar, niye batıyor günler, hani nerede dünler, ya siz nerede bittiniz?” demektedir. Yıllar geçerken, karşımızda bir hikâye durmaktadır. İlk kroşe gelir, sağdan mı soldan mı bilinmez ama bence tam ortadandır, baba der ki:

· Dikkatin fazlasıyla dağınık,

· Değiş der, giyim-kuşam ve bakım tavsiyeleri verir,

· İnsanların gözlerinin “ta” içine bak demek ister, “Don’t squint”den bunu anlar okuyan kişi. Gözlerinin ‘ta’ içine bakmak gerçekten çok zordur, rahatsız ettiğimizi düşünürüz. Ve o gözden payımıza düşenler bizi korkutur. Baba bilir, ama bilmezlikten gelir. Derinlerde kendisinin sebep olduğu bir neden vardır ancak şöyle denir: Artık top sende, kroşe gelmiştir bir kere; hadi bakalım, topu şimdi nereye atacaksın?

****

“TAKE YOUR HEART IN YOUR TWO HANDS”

· Sabırlı ol ve her sabah kalktığında, “kalbini” iki elinin avuçlarına al der,

“When you get up in the morning you must take your heart in your two hands. You must do this every morning.” (572)

· Sakince ve yumuşak konuş, bağırma, her şeyi söyleyebilirsin ama ‘saygılı’ ol der:

“Heart, little heart, beat softly but never forget your job, the blood. You can also whisper also, Remember, Remember.” (…)

“O little heart, you worked like a bastard, like a dog, like a crazy slave, bang, bang, bang that day, remember?” (572)

· Çocuklar der, milyon yıl geçse seni unutmazlar— nasıl hissettirdiğini,

· Kendi inanç sistemi içinde din hakkında bir şeyler söylemeye çalışır, bu konuda konuşmak hep zordur. Yalnızca şunu söylemekle yetinir: Neyi yaptığın, yapmadığın, nelerden vazgeçtiğin, kime hakaret ettiğin, rencide ettiğin, ihanet ettiğin, bunlar bilinir.

· Zor zamanda, birinin yanında olmak çok önemlidir der. Özellikle sevdiklerinin. “Bir taş gibi” o insanın aklında kalır:

“Do you remember, you didn’t go see your aunt, she was dying? That will be on your mind like a stone.” (573)

· Tutuklanma hikâyesini anlatır ve annesinin gözlerine baktıktan sonraki kararında; hiçbir şeyin çok fazlası iyi değil der: Bu bir ideoloji, bu bir yemek de olabilir, yeşillik bile olsa.

“HA HA HA, TOMORROW WILL COME”

· Yatırım işlerinden der, evlat! Uzak dur. Evlat sorar, herkes milyoner oluyor, çok çok paralar kazanıyor, baba sorar:

“But what of tomorrow?” he asked.

“Tomorrow, I said, they’ll make another million.”

“No, no, no, I mean TOMORROW. I was there when TOMORROW came in 1929. So, I say to them and their millions, HA HA HA, TOMORROW will come. Go home now, I have a great deal more to tell you. Somehow, I’m always tired.” (574)

Babanın Büyük Buhran’a referans verdiği anlaşılır, (yani bu yazıyı yazan kişi) öyle anlamıştır.

****

Kızı, eşiyle boşanma sürecinde olduğunu söyler babasına. Evleri ayırma ya da tamamen boşanma seçenekler arasındadır. Geleneksellik her yerde vardır, baba gidebildiği yere kadar sürdür, artık olmuyorsa ondan sonra bağları kopart der: En sonunda ikiniz de ayrı huzurevine çıkarsınız der, e tabii şaka yapmaktadır. Mizah hep vardır, tam da böyle zamanlarda.

“You’ll see, in thirty years from now, you’ll get tired often. It doesn’t mean you’re sick. This is something important that I’m telling you. Listen. To live a long time, long years, you’ve got to sleep a certain extra percentage away. It’s a shame. (575)

****

Bugünlük ders bitmiştir ancak bir dersten öbür derse geçilir. Bu sefer işin içinde siyasi konular vardır: Baba siyaseti ve bir mutfak. Kızının göz ucuyla gördüğü, Turgenyev’in Babalar ve Oğullar kitabı. Rusya düşünülmekte ancak Rusya’nın bundan hiçbir haberi olmamaktadır. Bir babayla kavga etmeden “siyaset” konuşmak; yeteneğin ötesinde bir beceridir, baba bir anda şöyle der:

“I don’t believe he was an anti-Semite. Of course, most of them were, even if they had brains. I don’t think Gorky was, Gogol probably. Tolstoy, no, Tolstoy had an opinion about the Mexican American War. Did you know? Of course, most were anti-Semites. Dostoyevsky. It was natural, it seems. (576)

· Ne olursa olsun oku der; bunun pişmanlığı hem anne hem baba da vardır. Kendilerini siyasi meselelere kaptırmışlar ve bu şekilde daha değerli birisi olacaklarını düşünmüşlerdir.

· Sonlara doğru konu, aşka ve cinselliğe gelir. Bunların konuşulması hep zordur kapalı kapılar ardına itilir ama söylediklerinin sonunda, bir şeylerin hep bittiğini ima eder ve şu cümle dökülür:

“Then one day in the morning she comes to me, my wife. She shows me a spot over her left breast. I know right away. I don’t touch it. I see it. In my mind I turn it this way and that. But I know in that minute, in one minute, everything is finished, finished happiness, pleasure, finished, finished, years ahead black. (578)

· Bu nedenle der, kendine iyi bakmalısın, bir de muz: her gün bir tane, yenmeli, potasyum,

****

En son konu kardeşine gelir, Grisha’ya. Yıl 1922’yi gösterir, öncesinde Palmer Baskınları bahsi geçer. Ardından Russian Artist Club (Rusya Sanatçılar Kulübü) ve Bakunin, Emma Goldman, Berkman ve Lenin isimlerini duyarız. O dönemde, Rusya’da Yahudi toplumunun uğradığı kitlesel zulümler ve baskılardan (pogrom) bahsedilir. Kardeşinin bir sanatçı olduğunu anlarız, başına bir şeyler gelmiştir.

****

Ve babanın ağzından şu sözler dökülür:

“Don’t leave me here, take me home to die, And I didn’t. And her face looked at me that day and many, many mornings look at me still.” (579)

Bu bir (baba-oğul) hikâyesi değildir aksine ters köşedir ve siyasi bir alt metin vardır. Az da olsa daha belirgin bir şekilde bize görünür. Sonlara yaklaşılmaktadır ve baba şöyle kapatır:

“Enough, already, he said. I had the job to tell you how to take care of yourself, what to expect. About the heart- you know it was not a metaphor. But in the end a great thing, a really interesting thing, would be to find out what happened to our Grisha. You’re smart. You can do it. Also, you’ll see, you’ll be lucky in this life to have something you must do to take your mind of all the things you didn’t do. Then he said. I suppose that is something like a joke. But, my dear girl, very serious.” (579)

“Her gün kalbini, iki elinin arasına alma” düşüncesi ilham vericidir, unuttuğumuz çok olur. Bahsi geçen hikâyedeki “yaş alma derslerine” katılmadığınız yerler de mutlaka vardır. Biliriz ki dersler hiç bitmez, öğrenme hep devam eder ve yaşantı bir adım önde gider: O sesi yabana atmamak gerekebilir.

Bahsi geçen eserler:

Dipnot 1: Oğuz Atay, Korkuyu Beklerken (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2016), 180.

A CENTURY OF FICTION IN THE NEW YORKER 1925-2025 EDITED BY DEBORAH TREISMAN. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2025.

Lois Shelton’ın çektiği Grace Paley fotoğrafı, Arizona Üniversitesi, Poetry Center (VOCA) arşivinden alınmıştır.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to update my VPS. Usually, I do this once a week, sometimes more frequently depending on any security news I see. I should probably have the AI agents I use do this, but I do it myself for now. I find infrastructure interesting and “boring” in a good way most of the time.

While updating one of my VPSes, I got a message saying I needed to pay for access to Caddy because the repository had reached its bandwidth limit. This was from a company called Cloudsmith. I wasn't the only one getting this message, either. There was already a large discussion going on over at Caddy's GitHub.

This led me down a big rabbit hole that lasted quite a few hours, and I'm still thinking about it. My first thought wasn't about the bandwidth limit itself, but whether this could be a new type of attack. Caddy is open source and free, and it's used by a lot of people, organizations, and companies. We've seen several different supply chain attacks over the years. But what if someone deliberately flooded the repositories of open-source projects and used up their free bandwidth allowances? People wouldn't be able to download security updates, leaving older, bug-ridden versions of the software running and potentially vulnerable to exploitation.

Before anyone says not to give people ideas, I'm sure someone has already thought of this. It's kind of a modern-day denial-of-service attack, just from a different angle.

As it turned out, Caddy's repository had exhausted its 4.9 TB monthly bandwidth allowance. Apparently, much of the traffic came from automated systems repeatedly downloading packages. Some IP addresses had reportedly made hundreds of thousands of requests. That's a lot of bandwidth for a free open-source project to deal with.

Luckily, there was no indication this was a deliberate attack, so my aluminum foil hat could come off. By the end of the weekend, someone at Cloudsmith had fixed the bandwidth limit problem, and everyone could update again.

What I found encouraging was that several other providers contacted the maintainer and offered to help. I'm not sure if any of those offers were accepted, but it was good to see people stepping up to help keep a free project running.

And that's something I appreciate about open source. Projects like Caddy and Traefik are useful to a lot of people, including me, and much of the work behind them is done by people who aren't getting rich from it. Meanwhile, we have hardware manufacturers shifting supply toward their most profitable customers while the rest of us deal with higher prices and fewer choices.

It's quite a contrast. On one side, companies making hardware harder and more expensive for ordinary people to get. On the other, people putting their time and effort into making software that anyone can use, often for little or no rewards and riches.

I'm glad there are still people willing to do that for the greater good of the internet.

#caddy #selfhosting #technology

Let's think about something for one minute.

If James Talarico was the Bible-believing Christian he wants us to think he is, the Left wouldn't touch him with a ten foot pole, let alone fawn over him and pour millions of dollars into getting him elected.

Seriously. They think you're stupid. Resist.

#politics

This October has been an expensive one. First, our hot water heater went out. It was probably about 10 years old. Then, two days after our water heater went out, the refrigerator went out, and it was also about 10 years old. Fixing it would cost more than buying a new one. So off to Home Depot we went, and $1,900 later, we had a nice new refrigerator with a five-year warranty. It's bigger than the old one but more energy-efficient, and it has LED lighting, which is very bright.

Ten years for both appliances. That seems to be the norm now, though I would like to go back to the days when appliances lasted 20–30 years or more.

Speaking of appliances and household gadgets, can we get just a plain-Jane dumb TV? Nothing smart, just a TV where we can plug in a stick or a small box like an Apple TV, Fire TV, or Google TV. The dumb TV just needs a nice picture, good sound, and a digital tuner. I don't need smarts built into the TV. I would rather have those features separate so they're easier to upgrade and maintain, and cheaper in the long run.

This has been quite a year for major hardware purchases, both for computers and home appliances. Hopefully, that's it. One thing I don't want right now is any more hard drive or RAM problems, as computer hardware is almost as expensive as kitchen appliances.

There have been enough unexpected expenses this year, including a dead hard drive that, ironically, was over 10 years old. So this year, all the 10s died.

Praying that's it for the next few years when it comes to expensive household appliances or much-needed computer equipment.

#hardware #personal #technology

So many dreams, all day long. I slept all day long. My old friend, Julius was in one of them. Him and a guy that I’ve met in real life but… was not Boyfriend, someone familiar. We were all matching somewhat and wearing similar colours. When I pointed it out, one of them mentioned about taking a picture to capture the moment. So I did. Was Garfield somehow involved? There was also a scene with a handful of my batch-mates from high school were about to go to jail. I don’t remember what for, but I was giving them hugs before it morphed into another part of the dream. At some point, I was in a dream where Ethan Klein was hitting on me and trying to make me his side-piece. Ew, I know. I had just been watching a video about the whole ordeal so I think it was fresh in my mind. There was also, as part of a ceremony, where I was helping a kid and his dad unfurl a flag that was tangled. They were going to be walking down towards the stage as part of a parade (I was a close family friend or I think teacher of the child) but the flag kept being tangled up. I told them to walk slower and that we’ll get it. They just need to trust me and wait. We eventually did and all was well.

---

Since my friend L found a printer I’ve been printing out old writings. I moved away from my dependency on LiveJournal, to this site called “Write Together”–does anyone remember that? It encouraged me to write again, and quite verbosely.

In this return to writing, I feel the challenge of finding the thoughts. Focusing and creating a unity. Even though I meditate, the mind, when trying to write feels scattered. It’s definitely gotten better since I limited my YouTube rabbit holes, but it’s a new writing era once again. I want to keep reading and refraining from digital dependency in every moment. Must I bring my phone everywhere? Must I scroll through YouTube before bed? Can’t I pick a book and stick to it? The reason for all my dreams for example, was that I fell asleep with YouTube playing in the background. I think it affected my dreams and consciousness. I’m glad that I remembered it though. That’s a sure sign that I am allowing for my body to feel spaciousness and pause.

#writing #daily #dreams

Don't tell me what someone said. Tell me what their words made you think. Don't list books you've read or classes you've attended. Tell me how they changed you. What did you gather from them? Don't tell me where you've traveled and who you've dealt with. Tell me why. Tell me how. Tell me where you failed and why you think you did.

Tell me something about three people you notice each day on your normal routes. Three people who you only recognize in passing. Tell me about the animals along those paths. Are any pregnant? Do any have young children? Are any wounded? Tell me about the plants. Tell me about the buildings. Tell me about the shifting scents.

I don't want to hear about other persons' thoughts and life experiences as a reference to your own. I want to hear where your path causes your feet to ache. I want to hear what has crawled under your skin and taken up residence. I care not for the superficial mask placed on parade for the world to approve. I care about the guts, the fear, the hopes, and the dreams. I want to know what really makes you tick, and what you're afraid to let tock.

I want to know you — naked, beautiful, grotesque, strong, vulnerable you. Not who your parents attempted to mold you into. Not who society told you that you should be. Not who life demanded you become.

You. Simply, complicated, unobscured you.

Everything else is just window dressing, and I prefer to shop for keeps.

© 2026 AnOublietteofThought. All rights reserved.

Not edited nor proofread.

A president is supposed to leave the country stronger than he found it: more trusted abroad, more secure in its institutions, more confident in itself. After Donald Trump's first term and nearly two years of his second, the record points the other way.

My argument (and it is an argument, not a neutral summary): Across both terms, Donald Trump has done lasting damage to the United States. He has damaged its rule of law, its honesty in public life, its economy and its standing in the world. That damage is not mainly about his policy goals, which reasonable people can debate. It comes from his conduct. Again and again he has treated the law, the truth and public institutions as tools for his own benefit.

Below are ten points that support that argument. I've tried to rely on court records, government data, peer-reviewed research, nonpartisan pollsters and wire services, and to flag where facts are contested or where a figure is a model rather than a count.

1. The first president with a criminal conviction

In May 2024 a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide a hush-money payment made before the 2016 election. On January 10, 2025, ten days before his second inauguration, Judge Juan Merchan sentenced him to an unconditional discharge: no jail, fine or probation, but the conviction stands.

• He is the first U.S. president to be convicted of a crime.
• Separately, federal juries found him liable for sexually abusing and later defaming writer E. Jean Carroll. Appeals courts upheld the $5 million and $83.3 million verdicts, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the $5 million case in June 2026.
• Nuance: His direct appeal of the criminal conviction is still pending in New York's Appellate Division. In August 2026 a federal judge again refused to move the case to federal court, and that ruling is also on appeal. His petition on the $83.3 million Carroll verdict is pending at the Supreme Court.

Sources: – Reuters: Trump avoids punishment at hush-money sentencing – AP: Trump loses again in bid to erase his hush money conviction (Aug. 2026) – Court filing on the appeal's briefing schedule (June 2026) – Second Circuit opinion affirming the $83.3M Carroll judgment – SCOTUSblog: Supreme Court will not consider $5 million verdict against Trump

2. The 2020 election lie and January 6

Trump lost the 2020 election and refused to accept it. His own government told him the result was sound. On November 12, 2020, federal and state election-security officials, including the leaders of the federal cybersecurity agency CISA, called it “the most secure in American history” and said there was “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” His own attorney general, William Barr, told the AP that the Justice Department had found no fraud on a scale that could have changed the outcome. Courts rejected more than 60 lawsuits brought by Trump and his allies.

On January 6, 2021, a mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol to stop the electoral count. More than 140 police officers were injured.

• The House impeached him for “incitement of insurrection.” That made him the only president impeached twice; the first impeachment, in December 2019, was over pressure on Ukraine. In the Senate, 57 senators, including seven Republicans, voted to convict. That was short of the 67 needed.
• The House January 6 committee, which included two Republicans, documented in its final report a multi-part effort to overturn the result.
• On his first day back in office, he pardoned about 1,500 January 6 defendants and commuted 14 sentences. NPR reported that more than 400 of them had been charged with or convicted of violent assaults on law enforcement.

Sources: – CISA: Joint statement from election infrastructure officials (Nov. 12, 2020) – AP: Disputing Trump, Barr says no widespread election fraud – Judicature (Duke Law): 2020 Election Litigation: The Courts Held – U.S. Senate roll call vote on the second impeachment article – AP: 7 Republicans vote to convict Trump in impeachment trial – AP: Trump impeached on charges of abuse of power, obstruction (2019) – GovInfo: Final Report of the House January 6th Select Committee – NPR: Trump issues pardons to some 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters

3. A habit of falsehood, including on matters of life and death

The Washington Post's Fact Checker counted 30,573 false or misleading claims by Trump over his first four years. That works out to about 21 a day, and the pace increased each year. Exact tallies depend on method, but the pattern is not in dispute.

• The cost was clearest during COVID-19. On February 7, 2020, he told journalist Bob Woodward, on tape, that the virus was “more deadly than even your strenuous flus.” In public he compared it to the flu and said it would “disappear.” On March 19 he told Woodward: “I wanted to always play it down.”
• When a president can't be trusted on facts, people stop trusting the institutions that report them. That is my judgment, but it follows directly from the record above.

Sources: – Washington Post: Trump's false or misleading claims total 30,573 over 4 years – NPR: Trump tells Woodward he deliberately downplayed coronavirus threat

4. Turning the Justice Department against critics

The Justice Department is supposed to follow evidence, not the president's grudges. In his second term, Trump has openly pushed it to do the opposite.

• On January 27, 2025, the department fired more than a dozen career prosecutors who had worked on special counsel Jack Smith's cases against Trump. The acting attorney general said they could not be trusted to carry out the president's agenda.
• On September 20, 2025, Trump posted a public message to Attorney General Pam Bondi naming former FBI Director James Comey, Sen. Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James, and demanded: “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
• Days later, the U.S. attorney in Eastern Virginia was replaced by Lindsey Halligan, whom a federal judge described as a former White House aide “with no prior prosecutorial experience.” She quickly obtained indictments of Comey and James. In November 2025 a judge found her appointment unlawful and dismissed both indictments. The department has appealed, and the Fourth Circuit heard arguments in September 2026.

Sources: – AP: Justice Department fires employees involved in Trump prosecutions – NBC News: Trump publicly pushes Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute his political foes – Court opinion dismissing the Comey indictment (Nov. 24, 2025) – Court opinion dismissing the Letitia James indictment – Reuters: US appeals court to hear DOJ bid to revive cases against Comey, James (Sept. 2026)

5. Testing the limits of the law, and losing in court

Strong presidents push their powers. Trump has repeatedly gone past legal limits, and judges appointed by presidents of both parties have said so.

• Troops in American cities: A federal judge ruled in September 2025 that the use of Guard troops and Marines for law enforcement in Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act. The administration has appealed. In Portland, a judge Trump himself appointed found he “did not have a lawful basis” to call up the Guard. In December 2025 the Supreme Court refused to let him deploy the Guard in Illinois, saying the government had “failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois.”
• Watchdogs: In early 2025 he fired 17 inspectors general all at once. A federal judge ruled that he broke the Inspector General Act by not giving Congress the required 30 days' notice and reasons. She declined to reinstate them.
• Due process: After the administration mistakenly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, the Supreme Court ordered it in April 2025 to “facilitate” his return.

Sources: – Judge Breyer's ruling in Newsom v. Trump (Sept. 2, 2025) – SCOTUSblog: Supreme Court rejects Trump's effort to deploy National Guard in Illinois – Supreme Court order: Trump v. Illinois – Reuters: Judge will not reinstate US government watchdogs despite unlawful firings – Supreme Court order: Noem v. Abrego Garcia

6. Pressure on a free press

Criticizing the press is normal for politicians. Using government power and lawsuits against it is not.

• In February 2017 he called major news outlets “the enemy of the American People.”
• In 2025 the White House barred the Associated Press from some press events because it would not adopt the name “Gulf of America.” A judge sided with the AP, but an appeals court largely paused that ruling while the case continues.
• He sued CBS's parent company over a 60 Minutes edit, and Paramount settled for $16 million. He also filed a $15 billion suit against the New York Times; a judge struck the first version, and Trump refiled it.
• He signed a law cancelling $1.1 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which then shut down. The agency that runs Voice of America lost about a third of its staff in 2025.

Sources: – AP: Trump calls media 'enemy of the American people' (2017) – D.C. Circuit order in AP v. Budowich (June 2025) – AP: Paramount settles with Trump for $16 million over '60 Minutes' interview – Reuters: Judge throws out Trump's $15 billion lawsuit against New York Times – AP: Corporation for Public Broadcasting dissolves itself – Pew Research Center: Federal workforce shrank 10% (includes agency-level cuts)

7. Gutting foreign aid, and the lives it saved

For decades, American aid was among the most effective and least expensive tools of U.S. influence. In 2025 the administration took most of it apart.

• In March 2025 Secretary of State Marco Rubio said 83% of USAID programs had been cancelled. USAID stopped running foreign aid on July 1, 2025, and its staff fell from about 4,900 to 370 by year's end. Congress then cancelled about $9 billion in approved aid and public-broadcasting money.
• A peer-reviewed study in The Lancet estimated that USAID funding was associated with about 91 million deaths averted from 2001 to 2021. It projected that the cuts could cause more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030, including about 4.5 million children under five. This is a model, not a count. Its uncertainty range is wide, roughly 8.5 to 19.7 million.
• For HIV, a 2026 study in Nature Health found nearly 2 million fewer people receiving direct, site-level PEPFAR support in fiscal 2025 than the year before. Nuance: Counting PEPFAR's indirect “central support,” the net drop was much smaller, about 65,000. The authors caution that they can't yet tell how much reflects lost treatment rather than shifts in reporting.

Sources: – Reuters: Trump administration scraps over 80% of USAID programs, Rubio says – Reuters: As USAID stops foreign aid, Rubio says future US assistance will be limited – AP: Trump signs bill to cancel $9 billion in foreign aid, public broadcasting funding – The Lancet: Evaluating the impact of two decades of USAID interventions (2025) – Nature Health: Shifts in PEPFAR-supported HIV treatment in 26 countries (2026)

8. Hollowing out the federal workforce, with overstated savings

Making government leaner is a fair goal. Doing it by sudden mass cuts, and overstating the savings, is something else.

• The federal civilian workforce shrank by about 238,000 people (10.3%) in 2025. Nearly 350,000 people left, and hiring fell by more than half. The cuts hit younger and newer workers hardest. They also reached nurses, tax examiners, and the contact staff who help the public with benefits.
• The Government Accountability Office reviewed DOGE's public “Wall of Receipts,” which claimed $110 billion in savings. GAO found that “some savings estimates are incorrect or lack supporting evidence.” For 96% of the claimed grant savings, it could not verify the method. In one case, DOGE claimed $1.7 billion for a Pentagon contract that was never cut.

Sources: – Pew Research Center: Federal workforce shrank 10% in Trump's first year back in office – GAO-26-108615: DOGE Wall of Receipts

9. Tariffs, market shocks and bigger deficits

Independent estimates find that American households carry much of the cost of his tariffs.

• His April 2025 “Liberation Day” tariffs set off the largest two-day drop in the S&P 500's history, wiping about $5 trillion off U.S. stocks.
• In February 2026 the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the emergency-powers law he used does not authorize tariffs at all. The administration has since rebuilt many of them under other laws.
• As of August 2026, the Yale Budget Lab estimates the average tariff rate at 11%, costing the average household about $1,100 a year.
• The Congressional Budget Office estimates that his 2025 tax-and-spending law will add $3.4 trillion to deficits over ten years. It also estimates the law will leave 10 million more people without health insurance in 2034.

Sources: – Reuters: S&P 500 loses $5 trillion in two days in Trump tariff selloff – Supreme Court opinion: Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump (Feb. 20, 2026) – Yale Budget Lab: The State of U.S. Tariffs (Aug. 24, 2026) – CBO: Estimated budgetary effects of Public Law 119-21 – Congressional Research Service: Health provisions in P.L. 119-21 (citing CBO coverage estimates)

10. A diminished America, abroad and at home

Reputation is a national asset, and it is being spent.

• Pew surveyed 36 countries in spring 2026. A median of just 23% had confidence in Trump on world affairs, and only 37% viewed the U.S. favorably. In Canada, the share calling the U.S. a reliable partner fell from 83% in 2022 to 35%. Favorable views are at or near record lows in Canada, France, Germany, the U.K. and South Korea, among others.
• The U.S. completed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization in January 2026.
• At home, Gallup found in June 2026 that only 33% of Americans are “extremely proud” to be American, the lowest since it started asking in 2001. Nuance: That decline is long-running and deeply partisan, so it can't be laid entirely at one person's feet. Still, the latest one-year drop, during his second term, ties for the largest in Gallup's 25-year trend.

Sources: – Pew Research Center: Trump gets negative reviews internationally in 2026 – AP: US completes withdrawal from World Health Organization – Gallup: American pride falls to 25-year record low (June 2026)

Summary analysis

Any of these points alone might be debated as bad policy or bad luck. Together they form a pattern, and the evidence for it comes mostly from institutions that have no stake in partisan politics: juries and appeals courts, the GAO and CBO, peer-reviewed journals, Pew and Gallup, and Trump's own election-security officials and attorney general.

Three threads run through the record:

1. Accountability for himself, but not for others. Courts have convicted him, found him civilly liable, and repeatedly ruled his actions unlawful. Meanwhile he has pardoned allies who attacked police and pressed prosecutors to charge his critics.
2. Truth as optional. The 2020 election lie, the downplaying of COVID, and overstated claims like DOGE's savings all make it harder for Americans to agree on basic facts.
3. Costs pushed onto others. Households pay for tariffs, future taxpayers pay for deficits, and some of the world's poorest people are paying in lost aid. Modeled estimates of that toll run into the millions of lives.

Some of these matters are not finished. His conviction and the Comey and James cases are on appeal, the aid estimates are projections, and Trump's supporters dispute the motives behind many of the cases against him. Those caveats are real, and I've noted them throughout.

But my conclusion, as opinion, is this: the weight of the documented evidence shows a presidency that has weakened the rule of law, damaged trust in the truth, cost Americans money and cost the country standing it took generations to build. Repairing that will take longer than causing it did.

#politics #democracy #ruleoflaw #accountability

Weer Zinin Herhalin' ; Poken in Koudvuur

Weken lang kon ik niks bedenken om mezelf net als u verwerkend voortdurend te herhalen maar dan wel net iets anders dan de reeks reeds geserveerde @malen ik zocht voor vlot met stroom ontdooien volop verkrijgbare vers ingevroren inspiratie keek bij alle naamborden van alle geregistreerde gemeenschappen in deze conster natie ik keek bij de miljarden lijken in de kast en tuurde duizenden uren achter al het behang onophoudelijk, onstuitbaar, kranig en zeer gedecideerd alle lege dagen lang ik ga u nu zeggen waar ik de oplossing uiteindelijk vond het lag onder de dikke cont van een verveeld omhangende mastodont ik moet toegeven dat ik op die zoek locatie geen mastodont had verwacht maar toen ik dat schepsel zag wist ik meteen dat mijn inspiratie er onder lag nieuwe versies van oude verhalen houden die mastodonten achter en van die frisse herhalingen maken ze zitzakken want dat materiaal zit zachter ze doen niks liever dan lamlendig omhangen in het onbekende bekende ze suffen, wentelen en kroelen in het door hun gedonder voor eeuwig ombeminde met behulp van een kromme alineaal, een oud verherhaal en een vals lied gezongen in een al eeuwen uitgestorven klank taal komen die dwaze mastodonten uit hun voor omhangen geprefabriceerde holen waar ze de re-creatieve mens melkkoeien voor eeuwig in en nabij hun t_veestallen laten dolen eenmaal in die bewerkelijkheid met hun binnenste buiten en andersom zijn ze wat minder goed gedekt daar heb ik ze onopvallend in hun dikke huid geprikt en daardoor ontstond een inspiratie lek een lekkende mastodont is wel ten dode opgeschreven dat is het enige offer dat ze moeten afgeven om altijd vrijuit het leven overal in re residerend te stelen vandaar dat ze zo spaarzaam buiten die extreem beveiligde contfort zone handelend op traden

begin van een vers einde

I am engaged in writing an essay. It is in pursuit of my own sense of wonder. At this point I do not know if it will be published. If I am honest, the driver to finish it may be the need for material for a proposed book of essays. Otherwise I am content to leave it becoming. In a sense it has always been becoming; since the first days as a child that I looked at pictures of the sky in a book. That in-itself I now see as revealing; for the curiosity of what lay beyond, came not from simply standing during the day or at night and looking into the eastern void, but sitting with a book on my lap looking at a photograph; naming the stars I had just been observing. Perhaps the essay I am striving to write was born in that moment, in a boy of eleven years of age.

I seem always to have favoured a view of the east, this perhaps is a declaration of both my choice of stance, and an honesty in respect of my attention. As a young long-distance runner, I always delighted in running in the pre-dawn of day amid my rotating friends and family on the eastern horizon; and tracked the passing of my time with the appearance of Venus sometimes towards the north, sometimes, the south, but always on that eastern horizon. Until of course she was not, preferring to spend some time in the west. Most especially on those occasions when she hung low in the south-western sky and claimed our attention with her brightness. She was impossible to ignore. I almost lived by her oscillation upon the ecliptic.

And now a sudden illumination arrives about my home in the province of La Soule (Xiberoa in Basque) south-west France. A 16th century stone house on a east-west alignment. The balcony of my bedroom facing due east, a raised terrace facing south-east and the curiously functional eskeratz with its grand double doors facing full west. A geometry unique to this valley in the Pyrenees. Perhaps this is what drew me here. When shopping for a house in the south-west I knew instantly that this is where I wanted to be.

My home in Ireland offers the same disposition; front door, windows and patio, all looking directly east across the Irish sea offering the blessing of darkness. An ink-stained backcloth on which to find our way, navigating in red and green against a cosmos in black and revealing shades of white; cold white, warm white, the light of the wanderers we call the planets. We are blessed even with our local navigation light on Rockabill; it is a sectored light, which means that when shone towards us, on the coast, the light is red, and offers no disturbance to us as we scan the night sky with our binoculars. That view has sponsored more than a few magazine features, about the night sky or the re-telling of the stories of King Caphaeus, his wife Cassiopeia, their daughter Andromeda and suitor Perseus. One can imagine them today, King Caphaeus resigned to live with the consequences of his desire for a trophy wife. And she, Cassiopeia obsessed with her own beauty, posing for her Instagram account and arguing incessantly with her daughter Andromeda in their reality TV series; and perhaps flirting with Perseus her daughter's suitor. The stars were gods, but as flawed as humans whose power only magnified the impact and intensity of their frailties. Even so, oftimes, lying with my back on the deck of the boat, just observing their nightly celestial play, I would glance at them, not for another episode in their story, but to ask them, Is this the right way?.

So years later, it is a winter night. I am seated on my balcony once again, gazing at the constellations; re-imagining their stories; their adventurous arrival here through time. And with the habit of the eleven year old boy I return to my parlour, take a Surface tablet in my hands and navigate what we know of the view. A world of knowledge at my fingertips I scan and scroll my way through fields of notion and anti-notion, of conjecture and refutation. How old is the universe, how big is the universe, and the curious contradictions between our models of physics and astronomy.

My commonplace book was filled with disconnected fragments from television documentaries, YouTube features and science magazine articles: the cosmic microwave background, ancient light still speaking to us; electrons entangled across distance; photons mediating interactions between particles; the James Webb telescope detecting light from perhaps the beginning of everything, or perhaps not. I struggled to make the pieces fit. My world is built upon relations. Relation upon relation. This was disjointed and disorienting. Webb was not photographing the beginning, I began to understand, but light from some of the earliest galaxies—light that had travelled for more than thirteen billion years. And still the question persisted: what did it mean to see that far back? The fragments made no sense to the reflecting elder, or to the eleven-year-old boy still engaged with his wonder.

And then the question arrives: What if extension were a function of sentience? Immediately I realize this is a black hole. And I grip hard upon the outer rim. I cannot allow it to draw me in uncontrollably. Another immediacy. I rely now entirely upon the practice of essay. Open a OneNote page on the tablet and begin to explore the black hole.

David Marshall Montory

C’est un moment qui n’est pas simple à partager. Mais je le fais ici.

Une personne. Avec des qualités remarquables. Une présence solaire. Une écoute sincère. Une empathie véritable. Une sensibilité rare.

J’ai connu cette personne. Et je viens aujourd’hui de faire le choix d’arrêter les échanges que j’entretenais avec elle.

Pour me “protéger”.

Nous n’étions pas alignés sur la relation que l’on voulait entretenir ensemble.

Mais je maudis cette époque où deux personnes qui pourraient s’apporter tellement mutuellement, ne le font pas, pour des raisons qui parfois m’échappent.

Il me semble que les relations étaient plus simples à une autre époque. Plus challengeantes peut-être, mais plus naturelles à initier.

Aujourd’hui, tout est prétexte à ne plus s’engager.

Je m’inclus bien sûr dans cette critique...

I’ve written about burnout before—how to spot it, how to prevent it, what to do when your brain feels like a fried circuit. But I don’t think I’ve ever written about what it’s like to actually live among it.

Especially in our space. A field that isn’t established yet. A field that is actively mocked, looked down upon, and deeply feared by the mainstream. We literally make dark jokes in the backchannels about who is going to be the first one to get killed over this. That is the baseline anxiety we operate on.

When you first start out, it’s exhilarating. It’s like walking into the Wild West. There are no bosses, just a massive, chaotic room of people sharing ideas, theories, and insights. You write. You build your own following. You find your tribe.

A month passes. One or two people drop off the radar. You don’t really notice.

Six months pass. A few hundred have vanished. Some you watch fade away in real-time, pulling the plug after a dramatic exit. But others? You just stumble upon their “husks”—old accounts where the last post was months ago, frozen in time.

A year goes by. The husks start to outnumber the living.

The Math of Survival (Worse Than Uber)

Let’s talk about the math of this digital graveyard. I’d argue our retention rate is worse than Uber drivers—and that is a notoriously brutal gig-economy job. At least they get paid for their nightmare, and no one is actively threatening their lives just for driving a sedan.

Here is how the lifecycle usually goes: Let’s say 100 new practitioners flood into the space this month. They are starry-eyed, “change the world” types. Out of that 100, maybe 10 stick around past the honeymoon phase.

The next wave hits. Of that original group, maybe 8 are left. Next month, 6. Then 4. Eventually, out of that initial 100, you officially have one active person left, and maybe one semi-active lurker who dips in and out when they have the energy.

Being here now feels like watching the 8th season of a TV show that has lost almost all of its original cast. It’s just me, a handful of others, and a constant, churning river of newbies. And let me tell you, there is nothing quite like being a two-year veteran of a highly volatile space, only to have some Day-1 noob confidently explain the absolute basics to you. (It’s like surviving a war zone and the new recruit tries to teach you how to tie your boots. Just... stop. I’ve been here for two years, bitch.)

The Ladder Pullers and the Algorithm Lottery

Why do they leave? Part of it is the sheer exhaustion of being “unseen” while doing the heavy lifting. You pour your absolute soul into an article or a book chapter, and it gets crickets. It eats at you.

Meanwhile, someone else posts a low-effort piece of content, hits the algorithm lottery, and gets thousands of views. And what do they do when they make it? Do they promote the community? Do they help establish the field?

Nope. They pull up the ladder. They self-promote like they are the only ones doing this work, completely blind to their own swelling egos.

But let’s be real about the community itself—when you do succeed, people get upset. The jealousy is rampant. It’s funny because outsiders constantly mock us for being self-centered, yet we eat our own the second someone gets ahead. I can’t even share a post with 1k comments because I find it hilarious how blind people are without someone taking it as an ego trip. I have another post with 2k likes, and it’s not even my own meme.

I’m not bragging. In fact, I turned off my visible subscriber count. I have 2 paid subs that I do not brag about. When I hit number 70 in rising tech, I kept my mouth shut. Because I’ve seen others brag, get easy likes, and eventually burn out into husks just the same.

The Psychology of “Burnout Stigma”

I wanted to know if this specific type of exhaustion had a name. It does. Psychologists refer to it as Burnout Stigma.

When a doctor or a teacher burns out, society gives them sympathy. But when you burn out in a highly stigmatized, controversial, or mocked field, you don’t get sympathy. You get told, “You brought this on yourself.” Experiencing burnout in a stigmatized field exponentially increases depression and anxiety because you are entirely isolated. You can’t even complain about it to your real-life friends without them looking at you like you’re crazy.

We are living the modern equivalent of the early video game developers—the pioneers who worked 100-hour crunch weeks until they developed stress ulcers and PTSD, while the mainstream called their life’s work a “waste of time.” We are like the first wave of anime fans in the 80s and 90s, who were clinically branded by society as socially inept deviants.

Those pioneers built billion-dollar industries. But the early adopters paid for it with their sanity.

The Data Validates the Graveyard

Even if you look at the more “acceptable” mainstream digital spaces, the burnout numbers are catastrophic. When you take these baseline statistics and apply them to a field as volatile and misunderstood as ours, the graveyard makes perfect sense:

• According to a Q1 2026 report by the Creator Economy Research Institute, 62% of full-time digital creators report severe burnout from relentless demands.
• A 2025 Billion Dollar Boy study found that 52% have experienced career burnout, and a massive 47% considered leaving their industry entirely.
• A recent Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health article highlighted a 2025 Lupiani Insights study showing a unique mental health crisis driven by financial pressure, performance obsession, constant toxicity, and deep isolation.

Bad Actors and Dead Discords

I am a part of a lot of Discord servers, and a vast majority of them are just dead. In the ones that are still breathing, maybe 10% of the members remain active. I’m even getting word that the mods of these servers are throwing in the towel.

On top of the social stigma and the algorithmic exhaustion, you have to deal with the baseline human shit. People lying, stealing, cheating, and looking out exclusively for themselves. People backtracking to save face.

And then there are the grifters. The bad actors who see a misunderstood field not as a calling, but as an untapped market of vulnerable people. They come in, pull some elaborate con, look out only for themselves, and burn out god-knows-how-many good folks in the process. You spend half your energy just doing damage control for the messes they leave behind.

Like any place, some people are good, some are bad. For some, this community is the only companionship they’ve ever had due to bad luck. Others? They are alone because they are genuinely awful people.

Welcome to Year Two

As I look down the path of my second year doing this, I have to ask: Who will be left? Who will sell out and pull up the ladder next?

So, to all the new folks taking a look around right now—take a mental snapshot. The people you see right now? Most of them won’t be here in a few months.

Maybe you won’t be either. No one is immune. But for those of us still here, still posting about the stuff we solved months ago just to keep the lights on... we keep going.

Try not to leave a husk.

References & Further Reading:

• Content Creator Burnout Statistics & Impact in 2026 (Sozee): https://www.sozee.ai/resources/content-creator-burnout-statistics-2026/
• Creator Burnout Crisis: 52% Experiencing Burnout (Net Influencer): https://www.netinfluencer.com/creator-burnout-crisis-research-shows-52-percent-experiencing-burnout-37-percent-consider-leaving-the-industry/
• Content creators are struggling with mental health (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health): https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/content-creators-are-struggling-with-mental-health-study-finds/

Raw Links for your Reference/Footnotes:

• Content Creator Burnout Statistics & Impact in 2026 (Sozee): https://www.sozee.ai/resources/content-creator-burnout-statistics-2026/
• Creator Burnout Crisis: 52% Experiencing Burnout (Net Influencer): https://www.netinfluencer.com/creator-burnout-crisis-research-shows-52-percent-experiencing-burnout-37-percent-consider-leaving-the-industry/
• Content creators are struggling with mental health (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health): https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/content-creators-are-struggling-with-mental-health-study-finds/

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Behance är en digital plattform där kreativa människor från hela världen kan visa upp sina arbeten, upptäcka nya idéer och skapa professionella kontakter. Tjänsten har blivit en viktig mötesplats för bland annat grafiska formgivare, fotografer, illustratörer, webbdesigners, animatörer och andra personer som arbetar med visuellt skapande. Till skillnad från traditionella sociala medier, där innehållet ofta kretsar kring vardagliga uppdateringar och personliga händelser, ligger fokus på Behance framför allt på kreativa projekt och hur dessa presenteras. Användarna kan bygga upp digitala portfolios med bilder, filmer, illustrationer och beskrivningar som visar både färdiga resultat och arbetsprocessen bakom dem. På så sätt fungerar tjänsten som en kombination av ett digitalt skyltfönster, ett professionellt nätverk och en inspirationskälla. Behance är samtidigt ett intressant exempel på hur internet har förändrat förutsättningarna för kreativa yrken. Tidigare var formgivare och konstnärer ofta beroende av fysiska utställningar, tryckta portfolios, personliga kontakter och etablerade branschaktörer för att nå en större publik. Genom digitala plattformar har det blivit betydligt enklare att publicera arbeten och göra dem tillgängliga för människor långt utanför den egna geografiska omgivningen.

Behance växte fram under 2000-talet, en period då internet genomgick stora förändringar och utvecklades från att huvudsakligen vara en plats där människor konsumerade information till en miljö där användarna själva skapade och delade innehåll. Denna utveckling brukar förknippas med begreppet Web 2.0, där sociala nätverk, användargenererat material och interaktiva tjänster fick en allt större betydelse. Behance blev en del av denna förändring genom att erbjuda kreativa yrkespersoner en gemensam plats för att publicera och sprida sina projekt. I stället för att behöva utveckla en egen webbplats från grunden kunde användarna skapa en portfolio inom en redan etablerad digital miljö. Det gjorde det enklare att nå andra kreatörer, arbetsgivare och potentiella uppdragsgivare. År 2012 köptes Behance av programvaruföretaget Adobe, som är känt för kreativa program som Photoshop, Illustrator och InDesign. Uppköpet bidrog till att knyta Behance närmare Adobes bredare ekosystem av digitala verktyg och tjänster. Kopplingen mellan program för att skapa innehåll och plattformar för att publicera det illustrerar en viktig utveckling inom internet, där olika digitala tjänster allt oftare integreras med varandra och bildar större sammanhängande miljöer för både arbete och kommunikation.

En av de mest betydelsefulla funktionerna på Behance är möjligheten att presentera kreativa projekt på ett mer genomarbetat sätt än vad som vanligtvis är möjligt på många andra sociala plattformar. Ett projekt kan bestå av flera bilder, förklarande texter, skisser och exempel som tillsammans berättar historien om hur en idé har utvecklats till ett färdigt resultat. För en grafisk formgivare kan det exempelvis handla om att visa hela processen bakom en visuell identitet, från de första skisserna och färgvalen till färdiga förpackningar, annonser och digitala tillämpningar. En fotograf kan i stället skapa en sammanhängande bildserie, medan en webbdesigner kan visa hur en webbplats har planerats och utformats. Denna form av presentation gör att Behance inte enbart handlar om att visa upp enskilda bilder, utan också om att förmedla kunskap, arbetsmetoder och kreativa tankegångar. Andra användare kan upptäcka projekten, lämna uppskattning och kommentarer samt följa kreatörer vars arbeten de tycker är intressanta. På detta sätt skapas ett internationellt nätverk där inspiration och erfarenheter kan spridas mellan människor med olika bakgrund och kompetens. Plattformen visar hur internet har gjort det möjligt att skapa yrkesgemenskaper som inte längre behöver vara begränsade till en viss stad, ett visst land eller en fysisk arbetsplats.

Här är några exempel på olika kreatörer på Behance:

https://www.behance.net/andersbjork

https://www.behance.net/jan185f76

https://www.behance.net/resor-hotell

För många kreatörer har Behance också blivit ett verktyg för att skapa en professionell identitet på internet. En välutvecklad portfolio kan fungera som ett digitalt visitkort och ge potentiella kunder eller arbetsgivare en tydlig bild av en persons erfarenhet, kompetens och visuella uttryck. Detta är särskilt betydelsefullt inom kreativa branscher, där arbetsprover ofta är minst lika viktiga som traditionella meritförteckningar. Genom att publicera projekt på en internationell plattform kan även relativt okända kreatörer få uppmärksamhet från personer och företag som de annars kanske aldrig skulle ha kommit i kontakt med. Det betyder däremot inte att alla automatiskt får samma möjligheter att synas. Precis som på andra digitala plattformar påverkas synligheten av konkurrens, användarnas aktivitet och hur innehållet presenteras och lyfts fram. Det kan därför krävas både tid och strategiskt arbete för att bygga upp en publik. Samtidigt har utvecklingen bidragit till att förändra hur kreativa uppdrag förmedlas. Internet har gjort det möjligt för företag att söka efter kompetens över nationsgränserna, samtidigt som frilansare kan marknadsföra sina tjänster utan att vara knutna till en traditionell byrå eller arbetsförmedlare. Behance är därmed en del av den större förändring där digital närvaro har blivit allt viktigare för människors möjligheter att etablera sig på arbetsmarknaden.

Behance speglar också hur den visuella kulturen på internet har utvecklats. Under internets tidigare år var publicering av bilder och annat visuellt material ofta begränsad av långsamma uppkopplingar, små lagringsutrymmen och enklare tekniska lösningar. När bredband, moderna webbläsare och kraftfullare datorer blev vanligare skapades helt andra möjligheter att presentera stora bilder, animationer, filmer och avancerad grafisk formgivning direkt på webben. Samtidigt har utvecklingen av digitala kameror, smartphones och professionella designprogram gjort att fler människor kan producera visuellt innehåll av hög kvalitet. Behance har vuxit fram i nära anslutning till dessa tekniska och kulturella förändringar. Tjänsten illustrerar hur internet successivt har blivit en allt mer visuell miljö, där bilder, rörligt material och grafiska uttryck spelar en central roll i kommunikationen. Den har även bidragit till att sprida estetiska trender mellan olika länder och kreativa branscher. En formgivare i Sverige kan exempelvis inspireras av ett projekt från Japan, medan en illustratör i Brasilien kan upptäcka nya tekniker genom arbeten publicerade av kreatörer i Europa. Den internationella spridningen gör att idéer och uttryck kan utvecklas snabbare, men innebär också att liknande stilar och trender kan få stort genomslag på många platser samtidigt.

Samtidigt väcker plattformar som Behance frågor om hur internet har förändrat relationen mellan kreatörer och de digitala tjänster de använder. När en stor del av en persons professionella närvaro samlas på en extern plattform uppstår ett beroende av dess funktioner, regler och sätt att visa innehåll. Förändringar i hur projekt rekommenderas eller presenteras kan påverka vilka kreatörer som får uppmärksamhet och vilka som riskerar att försvinna i det stora utbudet. Det finns också en bredare diskussion om upphovsrätt, kopiering och hur kreativa arbeten används och sprids på nätet. Den snabba utvecklingen av generativ artificiell intelligens har gjort dessa frågor ännu mer aktuella, eftersom digitala verktyg numera kan skapa bilder, illustrationer och andra visuella uttryck utifrån textbeskrivningar. Det påverkar både hur kreativt material produceras och hur människor bedömer originalitet, yrkesskicklighet och konstnärligt arbete. För en plattform som Behance, där presentationen av kreativa projekt är själva kärnan i tjänsten, blir dessa förändringar särskilt betydelsefulla. Möjligheten att visa arbetsprocesser, förklara beslut och sätta arbeten i ett sammanhang kan få en större roll när gränserna mellan manuellt och automatiserat skapande förändras.

Sett ur ett större internetperspektiv är Behance mer än bara en webbplats för portfolios. Plattformen representerar en utveckling där internet har blivit en central infrastruktur för kreativt arbete, professionella relationer och spridning av idéer. Den visar hur digital teknik har gjort det enklare för människor att presentera sina kunskaper och nå en global publik, men också hur den ökade tillgängligheten skapar nya former av konkurrens och beroende. Från en tid då kreatörer huvudsakligen behövde förlita sig på lokala nätverk och traditionella kanaler har utvecklingen gått mot en värld där ett projekt kan publiceras digitalt och bli synligt för människor på andra sidan jordklotet. Behance är ett tydligt exempel på hur denna förändring har påverkat både individers möjligheter och hela kreativa branscher. Tjänstens fortsatta betydelse kommer sannolikt att påverkas av hur internet, sociala nätverk, kreativa programvaror och artificiell intelligens utvecklas. Oavsett vilka tekniska förändringar som väntar illustrerar Behance en av internets viktigaste egenskaper: möjligheten att föra samman människor, kunskap och kreativitet över geografiska och kulturella gränser.

I am engaged in writing an essay. It is in pursuit of my own sense of wonder. At this point I do not know if it will be published. If I am honest, the driver to finish it may be the need for material for a proposed book of essays. Otherwise I am content to leave it becoming. In a sense it has always been becoming; since the first days as a child that I looked at pictures of the sky in a book. That in-itself I now see as revealing; for the curiosity of what lay beyond, came not from simply standing during the day or at night and looking into the eastern void, but sitting with a book on my lap looking at a photograph; naming the stars I had just been observing. Perhaps the essay I am striving to write was born in that moment, in a boy of eleven years of age.

I seem always to have favoured a view of the east, this perhaps is a declaration of both my choice of stance, and an honesty in respect of my attention. As a young long-distance runner, I always delighted in running in the pre-dawn of day amid my rotating friends and family on the eastern horizon; and tracked the passing of my time with the appearance of Venus sometimes towards the north, sometimes, the south, but always on that eastern horizon. Until of course she was not, preferring to spend some time in the west. Most especially on those occasions when she hung low in the south-western sky and claimed our attention with her brightness. She was impossible to ignore. I almost lived by her oscillation upon the ecliptic.

And now a sudden illumination arrives about my home in the province of La Soule (Xiberoa in Basque) south-west France. A 16th century stone house on a east-west alignment. The balcony of my bedroom facing due east, a raised terrace facing south-east and the curiously functional eskeratz with its grand double doors facing full west. A geometry unique to this valley in the Pyrenees. Perhaps this is what drew me here. When shopping for a house in the south-west I knew instantly that this is where I wanted to be.

My home in Ireland offers the same disposition; front door, windows and patio, all looking directly east across the Irish sea offering the blessing of darkness. An ink-stained backcloth on which to find our way, navigating in red and green against a cosmos in black and revealing shades of white; cold white, warm white, the light of the wanderers we call the planets. We are blessed even with our local navigation light on Rockabill; it is a sectored light, which means that when shone towards us, on the coast, the light is red, and offers no disturbance to us as we scan the night sky with our binoculars. That view has sponsored more than a few magazine features, about the night sky or the re-telling of the stories of King Caphaeus, his wife Cassiopeia, their daughter Andromeda and suitor Perseus. One can imagine them today, King Caphaeus resigned to live with the consequences of his desire for a trophy wife. And she, Cassiopeia obsessed with her own beauty, posing for her Instagram account and arguing incessantly with her daughter Andromeda in their reality TV series; and perhaps flirting with Perseus her daughter's suitor. The stars were gods, but as flawed as humans whose power only magnified the impact and intensity of their frailties. Even so, oftimes, lying with my back on the deck of the boat, just observing their nightly celestial play, I would glance at them, not for another episode in their story, but to ask them, Is this the right way?.

So years later, it is a winter night. I am seated on my balcony once again, gazing at the constellations; re-imagining their stories; their adventurous arrival here through time. And with the habit of the eleven year old boy I return to my parlour, take a Surface tablet in my hands and navigate what we know of the view. A world of knowledge at my fingertips I scan and scroll my way through fields of notion and anti-notion, of conjecture and refutation. How old is the universe, how big is the universe, and the curious contradictions between our models of physics and astronomy. If two electrons must agree about the sending and receiving of a photon, then how can the James Webb telescope be taking a picture of the begining of the universe, at the far reaches of what scientists think is existence; 13.5 billion light years across. It makes no sense to the reflecting elder or the eleven year old boy still engaged with his wonder.

And then the question arrives: What if extension were a function of sentience? Immediately I realize this is a black hole. And I grip hard upon the outer rim. I cannot allow it to draw me in uncontrollably. Another immediacy. I rely now entirely upon the practice of essay. Open a OneNote page on the tablet and begin to explore the black hole.

David Marshall Montory

A Note: This note began as an attempt to understand where an essay came from. In looking backwards, however, it revealed something unexpected. The essay did not begin with a decision to write, nor with a topic, nor even with a question. It emerged from a pattern of attention extending across a lifetime: a child naming stars from a book, a runner watching Venus on the horizon, a sailor trusting the night sky, and an older man returning once again to wonder. The question that ultimately arrived was simply the point at which that long attention became visible.

In this sense, the note became the thing it set out to describe. What began as a recollection developed into an act of essaying. Rather than explaining the birth of an essay, it records one.

A Caution: I wrote this in a space of less than 90 minutes. This is the first draft. The science parts are glib, vauge and confusing to the reader. V1.1 is now on The Review where I will improve it progressively. This original should keep me honest.

For a deeper exploration of the concepts behind this pattern of attention, see them explored at essayism.org. And for a deeper understanding of the methodology visit The Essayist.

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