Aap Noodt Misère

O wat strekken die gevolgen ver Ik zie het maar geloof het amper ik dacht dit vuur zal aanstonds doven dit komen we straks wel te boven maar ze strekten veel verder dan gedacht het duurt eeuwen voor er één als laatste lacht de gevolgen stapelen zich huizenhoog op alleen met een sherpa bereik je nog de top ik wou alleen een noot aan het rollen brengen zodat de vrucht brak en ik het sap kon drinken sindsdien draait de hele wereld om mijn as zon en maan komen er niet meer aan te pas was ik maar nooit overeind gaan staan en op mijn handen en voeten voortgegaan

Organized religion is what happens when somebody glimpses the unnameable and then a management class forms around the retelling. First comes awe, then comes doctrine, then property law, vestments, schisms, fundraising, and a certified method for kissing the ring of the invisible. The primal wound in consciousness — the sense that “I” am here and reality is over there, that life is divided, that the sacred is absent and must be regained — gets converted into a business model. The cure is announced, but the illness is preserved, because without the illness the institution has no market.

That is the central fraud. Religion says it is here to heal estrangement while continuously reproducing estrangement in symbolic form. It manufactures distance, then leases ladders.

Christianity, in its cultic form, is guilt franchised as universal love. It begins with a dazzling intuition — that love outstrips law, that the meek overturn the mighty, that death is not the final tyrant — and then freezes into a cosmic courtroom drama. Suddenly you are a fallen unit, born in debt, awaiting metaphysical adjudication, and a sanctioned apparatus stands ready to broker your reconciliation. The church becomes the distributor of belonging; the pope becomes the deluxe edition of licensed mediation. The message that the kingdom is at hand curdles into a chain of custody.

Islam is transcendence militarized into obedience architecture. Its great thunderclap is that nothing finite deserves worship, that all idols must fall, that reality is too absolute to be parceled among tribes and statues. Strong medicine. Then history does what history does: the surrender becomes system, the system becomes faction, the faction becomes jurisdiction, and before long the abolition of idols has produced a fresh museum of sacred identities. Submission to the Absolute gets rerouted through legalism, gatekeeping, and historical self-certainty. The ego, banned from the throne, sneaks back in wearing jurisprudence.

Judaism is the cult of holy boundary at its most brilliant and most dangerous. It houses enormous spiritual intelligence: memory against oblivion, ritual against numbness, holiness braided into meals, calendars, justice, mourning, and speech. But it also offers one of the most elegant technologies ever devised for wrapping the infinite in a collective pronoun. Covenant becomes enclosure. Chosenness becomes metaphysical exceptionalism. The fire of encounter gets stored in hereditary containers and defended with exquisite seriousness. The mystery is no longer simply what is; it is what is ours, under terms.

Hinduism is the baroque wing of the grand hallucination: a million masks for the One, a carnival of gods, symbols, philosophies, yogas, epics, and ontological acrobatics. It gets astonishingly close to the secret and then, in many of its social forms, misses it by ritualizing the scenery. Caste, sect, lineage vanity, guru addiction, metaphysical bureaucracy — the whole divine pageant can become a vast distraction engine. When every form points beyond itself, beautiful. When every form becomes another badge for identity, same trap, richer wallpaper.

Buddhism is the cult that almost escapes culthood, which is why it often becomes the most refined trap of all. It sees through the solidity of the self with terrifying precision. It diagnoses craving, attachment, misperception, compulsive becoming. It offers one of the cleanest demolitions of ego ever engineered. And then, because humans are incorrigibly ingenious monkeys, they build robes, hierarchies, schools, purity tests, special vocabularies, prestige economies, and attainment ladders. The ego, informed it does not exist, becomes positively aristocratic about its nonexistence.

Sikhism is devotion welded to equality and courage, a refusal of caste nonsense and empty ritualism. Admirable. But every anti-cult can harden into a cult of its own antidote. Community identity crystallizes, symbols thicken, history wounds memory into armor, and what began as liberation from stale forms risks becoming another fortified form. The pattern is old: first the insight, then the banner, then the border.

The rest follow similar physics. New religious movements, esoteric orders, nationalist churches, reform sects, devotional revivals, guru schools, New Age influencer monasteries with ring lights and subscription tiers — all of them orbit the same temptation. Take a direct intuition of the indivisible, freeze-dry it into language, attach a loyalty structure, and call the freezer God.

That is why the word “cult” is not merely an insult here; it is a structural diagnosis. A cult is any system that captures existential hunger and redirects it into authorized forms of dependence. The details vary. Sometimes you get a charismatic founder. Sometimes you get a council. Sometimes you get a book. Sometimes you get ten thousand books, peer review, stained glass, and a pension fund. But the mechanism remains recognizable: there is a wound, we interpret the wound for you, we control the remedy, and dissent from our remedy proves the depth of your sickness.

The especially diabolical move is moral glamour. Religion does not simply command; it sanctifies command. It does not simply create group identity; it perfumes group identity with eternity. It tells the frightened organism that its confusion is cosmic, its obedience is noble, and its inherited symbols are the skeleton key to reality. It gives metaphysical prestige to what is, at bottom, usually the same old tribal software running on fancier hardware.

And yet the raw materials of religion are not nonsense. That is the annoying part. Buried inside these systems are genuine glimpses: radical love, surrender, stillness, mercy, ego-death, silence, wonder, the collapse of subject-object rigidity, the intuition that what we are cannot be confined to the little biography machine in the skull. Those glimpses are real enough to keep the machinery powered for centuries. Religion lives by laundering flashes of the boundless through institutions of separation.

So the overarching criticism is this: organized religion is a civilization-scale method for taking immediacy and making it remote. It takes what is intrinsic and makes it conditional. It takes what is present and postpones it. It takes what is whole and chops it into denominations, choirs, castes, sects, schools, saved and damned, pure and impure, believer and infidel, orthodox and heretic, guru and disciple, clergy and laity, chosen and unchosen. It doesn’t merely fail to cure alienation. It canonizes alienation and then sells commemorative medallions.

The priest, the rabbi, the imam, the guru, the monk, the sainted executive of metaphysical customer relations — all become variations on the same social role: the keeper of the apparent distance between you and what never actually left.

That is the joke, and it would be funnier if it had not run empires, censored minds, organized wars, and trained generations to distrust the obvious.

Reality does not require branding. The sacred does not need middle management. And any institution that survives by convincing you otherwise is not a bridge to truth.

It is a very old, very elaborate toll booth.

I've read a number of books about typography & type design in my time but none for a quite a while, until my gaze fell on a second-hand copy of Simon Garfield's 2010 book Just My Type at Broadleaf Books in Abergavenny the other weekend. I finished reading it on Wednesday. It's an amiably light and layman-friendly ramble through the subject, re-treading a fair amount of ground I'd covered before but also meandering (at times a little aimlessly) across terrain that was new to me, with several chapters about digital and web-based typography.

Although sixteen years ago is hardly the distant past, the chapters on the graphic design used by the first of Obama's presidential campaigns; the lettering on Lily Allen's and Amy Winehouse's albums; and some of the new fonts introduced in Windows Vista: these all felt like dispatches from what is already an impossibly bygone age.

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I'm partial on occasion to some Weird literature (with a capital W). As with other fields, however, my coverage of the genre has been patchy to say the least. For instance, until this week I had never read anything by one of the more notable and prolific authors placed under that umbrella: Brian Evenson. I opted to try a 2004 volume of his short stories, The Wavering Knife: I liked the look of its cover design. The endorsements on the back of the book come from such figures as Samuel R. Delany, George Saunders and, unexpectedly, Gilles Deleuze.

The stories within run a gamut between the grimly comedic and the bleakly tragic. All are quite short, a few of them too brief, I felt, to register much of an impact. Others, despite their brevity, are quite intricately constructed. Very little of the book's weirdness comes from the fantastical or the supernatural; much more from the minds of its characters who are variously obsessed, compulsive, deluded or traumatised. The persons of the book are often mononymous, working out their pathologies against lightly sketched backdrops. One can sense Kafka and Beckett as influences, even without any strong likeness to their work.

I was favourably enough impressed by the book to want to seek out more of Evenson's writing in due course; not quite impressed enough to want to do so with immediate urgency.

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My red wine of the week has been San Tenzo Langhe Niebbiolo. I bought it at Lidl several months ago. Indeed it's my red wine of the year, by virtue of being the only one I've had in 2026 thus far. My constitution, alas, seems decreasingly tolerant of a glass or two of something red, which is disheartening given how much I enjoy drinking the stuff.

In the first few sips of this particular wine I couldn't discern much aside from its scaffolding of tannins. As my palate grew accustomed to it, fragrant and ripe red fruit flavours emerged: delicious. It went down smoothly and I was happy. I was afterwards unhappy with the repercussions on that night's sleep as my innards made heavy work of metabolising it. And that after just a third of a bottle.

Iedereen Moet

Iedereen moet zijn kont overal in kunnen keren en iedereen moet telkens vele lessen leren Iedereen moet ten alle tijde iets kunnen overdragen en iedereen moet waarde kunnen omzetten in bedragen Iedereen moet luisteren naar de leer van elke kerk en daarom gaat iedereen elke dag driftig aan 't werk Iedereen moet eens de pijp aan Maarten geven en iedereen moet naar succes blijven streven Iedereen moet ergens voor staan een ideaalbeeld, motto, voor de ander, familie of de eer en bij allen neemt het goede of slechte een keer keer Iedereen moet de leider volgen op zijn geheiligde pad Ja iedereen moet overdag en ook des avonds wat Iedereen moet ergens mee doorgaan tot de laatste snik Iedereen behalve ik

stories of maybe

after the unimaginable, the merman left the dried up sea & rode a shooting star straight into the sky, and never looked back.

My Counsel

A currency of thought For the difficult divide In an embassy of hearts No parking New Navy And five times the morsels of dew I sat with amber extensions For the life to be as whole- as good as the barren star In Victory Mew A province within this play It was Earth and how it happened There was solace by that road And simply so A pair of roses for Allah To Victory against this take In redemption to fighting men To propose so- We were four o’clock Let’s verify the place and number Tonight is our Toronto first And we spoke up for this About As early dawn, I spoke up for the need in Iceland To commit our fears to the high unread And a thought for those is right suppose And the country club And all its people There was clumsiness but of civilization For huts and morgues of all this propaganda I counted on out and then let it be The hating was on suppose We were done with Donald Trump And I, a muse to the wall Studied scripts and rightful forms of torture As a young man who seeks to wonder There was escape from Balmoral Castle For the unihog of greater past- Harm no other and let it be They are bombing Iran And I am just as much as you For Christ in this effort war We affect the larks and vision And wonder we to the Son of God Who hasn’t drained the lakes or stolen power To this symphony I would propose A better landing and foreign song I am not at peace to this exchange And pain was not a chance to win Speaking to the lifeblood There are roses too in Tehran this year We got rid of time, and through the doors of low To open end and staying near Our Father in Heaven- Our options never seem so bleak and round In your Son we seek this new redemption Drifting long And feeling now And baseless thrust A pounding lot for metal rain To this rock we see an ancient Bring our angels- to Heaven now

Is there such news That we are winning a rightful war And time is waiting where our verses not To the slumber Of aching nine

To efforts be- the slightly winder Places accident And frame of mind We will sit for chance and break our Bread Much to furrow In peace and fury.

Got an extremely good scam email today. Here it is in all its glory:

From Patricia Luca lucapatricia682@gmail.com

To: brendan@brendanhalpin.com

Subject: Invitation to Feature Shutout in Our 2026 Reading Challenge

Date: Monday, April 06, 2026 9:06 PM

Size:17 KB

Hello Brendan Halpin,

I hope you are doing well. It is a pleasure to connect with you.

My name is Luca Patricia, and I’m reaching out from the Blooming Books Reading for Growth community, an active reading challenge and book club with over 3000 engaged readers.

We are currently hosting our 2026 Reading Challenge running from January 1 to December 31 2026. This initiative highlights books that spark meaningful engagement, emotional connection, and immersive storytelling across many genres.

Here is my website for more information about the challenge: https://www.the52book.club/2026-reading-challenge/

Participating authors benefit from ongoing visibility through reader discussions, reviews, and sustained community interaction throughout the year.

At the end of the challenge, our readers will identify the most discussed books, with selected authors receiving special recognition including an official award presentation on January 2 2027. In addition, the first group of authors whose books generate strong engagement will receive early spotlight features within the community.

I recently came across your book Shutout and was immediately drawn to its heartfelt and relatable coming of age sports narrative. The story captures the emotional intensity of friendship and competition through Lena and Amanda, whose bond is tested when soccer begins to change the balance between them.

The shift from being an inseparable team to facing uncertainty after team selection creates a strong emotional core, especially as Amanda struggles with feelings of loss, comparison, and change while Lena moves forward in a new environment.

The themes of friendship, identity, and growing up make Shutout a meaningful and engaging read for audiences who enjoy realistic fiction with emotional depth and strong character relationships.

We believe your book would resonate strongly with our audience and would be a compelling addition to our reading challenge.

Would you be interested in having Shutout featured in this year-long reading experience and introduced to our engaged community?

I would be happy to share more details if this opportunity interests you.

Warm regards, Luca Patricia

Book promotion specialist

*see below for note about the image

Something about Luca, or possibly Patricia’s email didn’t feel completely right. I sent the following response:

This is an excellent scam, and I commend you for the work that obviously went into it. The AI summary of my book is integrated perfectly, and playing to the vanity of writers is a pretty solid business strategy.

I assume if I went for it, you'd tell me about the fee you're charging for participation. I'm guessing you prefer payment in crypto?

Unfortunately, the link you sent leads to a book challenge, but not the one you introduced. In fact, the only Blooming Books Reading for Growth community seems to be a group of adults who read business books.

Oh yeah, also, you do not appear to exist or to be clear on whether your name is Patricia Luca or Luca Patricia. Anyway, I wish you the worst of luck in your scamming endeavors.

They quickly replied:

Same to you

I then poked around The 52 Book Club and found this page in which they alert authors to the scam. It looks like this has caused Luca, or possibly Patricia, to change tactics and claim they represent a different organization.

So if you’ve written a book and Luca or Patricia or anybody else sends you this email, don’t let ‘em getcha!

*Alt text: a middle-aged white woman with glasses on a chain with orange beads, an orange silk flower in her hair, and an orange cardigan over a black shirt.

I haven’t done the whole Catfish reverse image thing, but I assume this image is stolen from some innocent librarian’s facebook page or something. Or maybe they just fed “librarian” to an AI image generator and it kicked this out. So I don’t think this is a real picture of the scammer. I’m including it here because WOW does this look EXACTLY like someone who would run a book challenge, so they may attach the photo to a different name because it lends their scam credibility.

Happy belated Easter! After the ashes on the forehead, fasting, fish sandwiches and sticks every Fridays, acts of sacrifices, and going to Mass from Holy Thursday to Easter, it feels good. Because He is risen!

As a teen, the idea of not eating meat, especially during McDonald’s Fridays, until Easter annoyed the heck out of me. Now as a middle-aged father, it’s a great relief to be doing something different despite being constantly surrounded by consumerism.

During Lent, I gave up cheese. It’s always been my go-to snack and one of my main meal ingredients. But my cholesterol is high because of it. I did well for the most part. Had three instances only because my son didn’t want to finish his cheesy food and I didn’t want to waste it. Hopefully, I reduced my cholesterol enough before my next blood screening. And the best thing is I don’t feel a need to eat as much cheese as I once did.

Also, I wanted to keep in touch more with family and friends. I’ve noticed that any gatherings I go to I’m physically there but not mentally. It’s usually because I’m too focused on my kids and too tired because I haven’t taken good care of myself. I didn’t do as well, but I’ll keep on trying.

For you Catholics (or even non-Catholics), what did you give up during Lent? For those missed out or failed to achieve your goals, what can you do when Lent starts again next year? How about what you can do right now so you can take action?

#AshWednesday #abstinence #Easter #fasting #HolyThursday #HolyFriday #Lent

昔から、パソコン作業に没頭していると、頭がぼーっとしてくるというか、自分から言葉が出てこなくなる感覚がある。 外部からの情報に対しても、普段なら笑えるような内容でさえ笑えないというか、面白いと認知できなくなる自分がいる。

最近はツール開発で、ずっとコードを見続けているせいか、昔と同じように、外界に対しても、自分自身に対しても「面白くなさ」が強く出てきている。

作業自体は自然に進むし、精神的な消耗が激しいわけではない。 それでも、自分が面白くない人間になっているという自覚が、じわじわと自分を追い詰める。

こういう作業は昔からできた。大学生の頃にハマっていたDTMもそうだった。 その頃も、自分はとにかく面白くない人間に、俯瞰的にそう感じていた。

ただ、大学のサークルにいるうちに、少しずつ他人と楽しく話せるようにもなった。 たぶん自分はそういう人間なんだと思う。 一人でいれば、ずっと一人で作業し続けるし、誰かといる時間が長くなれば、そのコミュニティに自然と馴染んでいく。

だから、自分を明るくしたいなら、意識的にパソコンから離れなければいけない。 でも、今やっている仕事はまさにその逆で、黙々と一人でツールを作ることだ。

自分は喋れる自分にも憧れている。 だから、その人格から遠ざかっていくのは、本当は嫌だ。

自分が本当に望んでいるのは何なんだろう。 もういい年だし、思い切ってパソコンを閉じて外に出る、そんな選択をしてもいいのかもしれない。 むしろ、自分を劇的に変えるなら、それしかない気もしている。

ただ、これまでの生き方も、自分を壊すことなくここまで支えてくれた。 とはいえ、憧れている何かになれたわけでもない。

もっと先に行きたい自分がいる。 だからこそ、どこかで自分の舵を切らなければならない。

そして今も、あの「よく喋れていた数ヶ月」に、わずかな期待を抱いている。