I remember a bush — some hardy shrub all finger-twigs and muted green. In its ornate pot it must have stood as tall as me — all of 2 and a bit feet. It teemed with ladybirds — hundreds. Each with seven black spots on shiny crimson.

It was a mild, clear- day. The bush stood in grandma’s front yard. Or was it the back? A small secluded patio enclosed by hedges — somewhere I didn’t spend much time. Inside was such a loving place.

In this part-memory or fabricated dream, I’m alone. But those ladybirds still seem real to me — bright busy buttons catching the sun.

There was no traffic. No breeze. Just the patio, the hedges, the bush, and those ladybirds: a tiny fleeting perfect universe with edges fading to beigey nothing. A boat in an empty sea without an anchor to place or time.

I look at my daughter, so fascinated by everything. What will be her ladybird bushes? How will those memories fracture in time?

#notes #september2015

aunque la luz está más allá de toda descripción en su aparente enigma la oscuridad me hechiza y plena de incertidumbres a ratos creo que la puedo domar porque sé que es la otra cara de la luz

I dropped off E at the airport, and I cried a hefty amount before she left. I know that she is not gone or anything like that, it’s just a temporary long distance. We game all the time so I know it’s not going to be a huge problem, but I do miss her.

🍒🍑 DĚDEK JEDNOŤÁK A PRDOVÁ KOMUNA ROVNOSTI

Byl jednou jeden dědek, který celý život věřil only jednomu: „Všeci prdíme stejně.“

Tomu dědkovi se říkalo Dědek Jednoťák, protože si myslel, že ideální společnost je taková, kde má každý:

stejný talíř tlačenky,

stejnou délku kníru,

a hlavně stejnou frekvenci prdů.

To poslední byl kámen úrazu. A taky dynamit celé komuny.

---

🏚️ PRDOVÁ KOMUNA – ROVNOST PRDŮ

Jednoťák zmanipuloval pár starších, unavených, lehce poprdlých dědků, že když budou žít spolu v jedné chatrči a dodržovat „prdovou rovnost“, dojde k dokonalému společenskému modelu.

Komunální pravidlo č. 1

👉 Každý prd musí znít stejně. Tón, délka, vůně, intenzita.

Není-li rovnost v prdu, není rovnost vůbec.

Komunální pravidlo č. 2

👉 Každý musí prdět stejně často.

A to byl problém.

---

😬 TRAGÉDIE NEDOPRDNÉHO DĚDKA

V komuně žil dědek jménem Nedoprdný.

Už od narození mu příroda nadělila prdový motor o výkonnosti skomírající kozy. Dokázal prdnout maximálně třikrát denně a ještě u toho vypadalo, že omdlí.

V komuně však byla norma 14 prdů na směnu. Nedoprdný se snažil. Jedl čočku. Jedl zelí. Jedl fazole namočené v přepálené slivovici.

Výsledek?

Nic.

Maximálně jedno „pffrt“, které ostatní dědci ani neuznali jako prd.

Jednoťák mu dával ideologické školení: „Soudruhu, prdění je práce. Dělej!“

Nedoprdný ale jen zmodral a jednou málem explodoval z opačného konce.

---

💥 MAŠINERIE A PŘEPLYNĚNÍ

Opačný problém měli dva dědci:

Dědek Mašinerie

Dědek Parní Lokomotiva

Ti prděli kontinuálně, jako by uvnitř měli reaktor z jaderné elektrárny. Když dostali za úkol prdět jen čtrnáctkrát denně, jejich těla se začala bránit.

Plyn se hromadil. Tváře rudly. Uši se jim třepotaly. Kolem komuny se vznášel tlak jako před bouřkou.

A jedno ráno oba vybuchli synchronizovaným megaprdem, který:

rozbil střechu komuny,

zaryl do země kráter o průměru 3 metry,

a Jednoťáka odfoukl až do jezevčí nory.

Jezevec ho okamžitě vyhodil ven. Smrděl totiž ideologií.

---

🏳️‍🌈 KONEC PRDOVÉ ROVNOSTI

Po tomto incidentu se komunita rozpadla.

Nedoprdný odjel do lázní pro slabé prdele. Mašinerie a Lokomotiva se vrátili k volnému tryskovému režimu. A Jednoťák stále někde v lese vykřikuje:

„Všeci prdíme stejně!“ a jezevci na něj házejí šišky.

#NSFW

This post is NSFW 19+ Adult content. Viewer discretion is advised.

---

https://soundcloud.com/hustin_art/sets/yuzu-ogura/s-BBrsQVcAkS3?si=fa1bd5a65d874b8db061a8001828860c&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing In Connection With This Post: Yuzu Ogura https://hustin.art/yuzu-ogura

Yuzu Ogura presents a highly unrealistic figure in terms of bodily proportions. Her limbs are slender, giving her an overall girlish silhouette, but her breasts are exceptionally large, creating a somewhat deformed shape that evokes a cartoon character, making her attractive. …

---

---

This day, I focused on the language switcher and added persistence to it. Now the chosen language (for now only programmable) can be persisted between app restarts. I've used the @react-native-async-storage/async-storage for it.

That's it for Day 10. Small incremental changes.

Sorry for being late with this one. :D

---

68 of #100DaysToOffload
#log #AdventOfProgress
Thoughts?

By Logan Miller, Columnist of the Apocalypse

Let me tell you something that’ll curl the hair on your Bible’s ribbon marker: We keep looking for smoke-filled rooms and cloaked conspirators whispering in Latin behind oak-paneled doors… but the truth is louder, brighter, and wearing a smile wider than a Procter & Gamble ad campaign.

You don’t need a shadow government when you’ve got George Soros turning $30 billion into a global mood ring. You don’t need a secret cabal when the Rothschilds and Rockefellers still move capital like sorcerers commanding tides.

Why hide in the shadows when you can shape nations in broad daylight?

Listen… while everyone’s chasing boogeymen in the vents, the real puppeteers are sipping espresso in conference rooms with panoramic views of Manhattan — and they’re writing the scripts your elected officials memorize word for word.

Forget cloaks. Forget daggers. Forget whatever’s in the basement of the Pentagon.

The real operators wear designer suits and own half the news cycle.

They don’t plot in the dark. They buy advertising time. They buy influence. They buy political futures the way you buy dish soap at Walmart.

Money is their vote. Money is their veto. Money is their voice. And buddy, it never whispers. It roars.

Look around.

Black Lives Matter didn’t become a cathedral of cultural power by magic. It became a monument because billionaires shoveled coal into its furnace while corporate media gave it the prime-time spotlight. Same faces. Same donors. Same boardrooms. Same “accidentally synchronized” narratives.

The left, the right, the Zionists, the Moral Majority — everybody’s throwing money like grenades. Lobbyists aren’t lobbyists anymore — they’re elected officials’ personal trainers, shaping ideology one legislative rep at a time.

And AIPAC? Not a foreign agent, they say. So their emails get the invisible ink treatment while they spoon-feed policy positions like a mother bird with a vested interest in the chicks’ future military contracts.

Corporate giants do the same thing. Procter & Gamble. Caterpillar. Betty Crocker. Monsanto. The grocery aisle is basically Congress printed in color-coded packaging.

Every one of them polishing their halos with PR cloths soaked in selective truth. Every one of them presenting their best face, best smile, best curated social-media sainthood while the machinery hums underneath — the real machinery — the kind that churns public opinion like butter.

You want psyops? Forget Langley. Check TikTok. Check Instagram. Check the fifteen-second distortion chamber known as “social media influence,” where billion-dollar corporations cram five-minute lies into quarter-minute sugar packets and sell them as inspiration.

This isn’t a shadow government. This is a spotlight government — a Broadway production where the actors shake hands backstage while pretending to be mortal enemies onstage.

America’s not being run by ghosts. It’s being run by storytellers with checkbooks. By advertisers with agendas. By billionaires who know that truth has a subscription fee and influence runs on autopay.

And the public? We’re just the audience, clapping for whichever performer bought the most ad space.

You want conspiracy? Here it is: It’s not hidden. It’s televised. It’s sponsored. It’s algorithm-approved.

And the punchline, the tragedy, the whole cosmic joke? We scroll right past it — because the next commercial is starting.

Absolutely no sarcasm in that last line, my friend.

Hearing the Signal: Finding God in a World Full of Noise

The world is louder than it has ever been.

Noise pours in from every direction — the TV shows we keep on for company, the movies that fill the silence, the endless scroll of social media, the curated lives of strangers, the opinions of people we’ve never met, the stress we carry from work, the pressure we absorb from family, the expectations we place on ourselves.

But the noise is not only external.

There is emotional noise, spiritual noise, internal noise — the kind that fills the mind, fractures the heart, and blurs the soul.

And somewhere in the chaos of it all, we have lost the most precious thing:

the signal beneath the noise — the voice of God.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” — Psalm 46:10

Stillness is not the absence of sound.

It is the space where the signal becomes audible.

---

The Age of Noise

Every generation has faced pressure, but ours faces something more dangerous: constant stimulation.

Everywhere we turn, something demands attention — content, alerts, messages, updates, reactions, opinions.

Noise doesn’t just speak to us.

It shapes us.

We grow so accustomed to being overstimulated that silence feels uncomfortable, and distraction becomes a lifestyle.

We mistake constant activity for purpose and perpetual noise for life.

And slowly, quietly, invisibly — the signal fades.

---

The Numbing Effect: When Constant Stimulation Becomes Silence

Noise has a strange paradox: the more it fills your life, the less you actually feel.

We think noise keeps us connected, but what it really does is numb us.

It creates:

emotional dullness

fragmented attention

shallow relationships

inner exhaustion

People scroll through their phones to feel less lonely, but the scrolling deepens the loneliness.

People fill their schedules so they don’t feel broken, but the busyness fractures them even more.

We hear so much that we eventually hear nothing.

“They have ears, but they do not hear.” — Psalm 115:6

If everything is speaking at once,

how do we hear what matters?

---

Chasing the Illusion: What the World Tells Us to Value

Noise isn’t neutral — it has an agenda.

It trains us to chase:

money

image

performance

possessions

comparison

approval

productivity

curated “best moments”

People post their happiest photos while drowning in private grief.

People show their strongest moments while quietly breaking inside.

People project confidence while living in fear.

The world teaches us to appear whole while feeling fragmented.

“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” — Mark 8:36

What we present to the world is often the opposite of what we live.

---

The Lost Connection: How Noise Drowns Out the Voice of God

The greatest danger of noise is not distraction.

It is disconnection — disconnection from ourselves and from God.

When the noise gets loud enough:

discernment weakens

peace evaporates

wisdom grows distant

emotions become confusing

prayer becomes cloudy

truth becomes hard to detect

We begin confusing God’s silence with His absence — when in reality, we simply can’t hear Him above the static.

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” — John 10:27

The voice of God never stopped speaking.

We stopped noticing.

---

The Turning Point: Choosing to Stop Emulating “Success”

Eventually, life reveals the truth:

Noise cannot heal you.

At some point, every person faces the collapsing moment — the moment when:

performance isn’t enough

success tastes hollow

self-sufficiency runs out

distraction can’t numb the pain

pretending becomes too heavy

This is where humility begins.

This is where God begins to whisper.

“Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” — Matthew 11:28

Stillness is not passive.

It is the act of turning toward God.

---

Hearing the Signal: What Becomes Possible in Stillness

The signal — the voice of God — is not loud.

It is steady, clear, precise, and gentle.

It becomes audible when:

we slow our frantic pace

we stop trying to earn our worth

we face the pain we’ve been avoiding

we release the need to perform

we create space for God to speak

God does not shout over the noise.

He waits for us to turn down the volume.

The signal is like a scalpel —

not a blunt force, but a precise, healing cut.

“After the fire came a gentle whisper.” — 1 Kings 19:12

God’s voice has always been quiet — because truth doesn’t need to be loud to move mountains inside you.

---

The Healing Work: What God Does When We Listen

When the signal returns, everything changes — not externally at first, but internally.

God begins to restore what noise has scattered:

clarity

identity

emotional balance

spiritual sensitivity

discernment

peace

Grief becomes integrated instead of buried.

Pain becomes a teacher instead of a tormentor.

Your sense of self becomes anchored instead of fragile.

“He restores my soul.” — Psalm 23:3

Nothing outside you has changed.

But everything within you has.

---

A New Way of Living: Moving Through the World Quietly Changed

When you begin hearing God again, the world doesn’t grow quieter — you grow clearer.

You move differently:

slower

steadier

less reactive

more grounded

more intentional

Silence becomes spiritual oxygen.

Stillness becomes strength.

Discernment becomes instinct.

The goal is not to escape the world,

but to move through it without losing yourself to the noise.

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” — Isaiah 30:15

Quietness sharpens you.

Stillness strengthens you.

Listening restores you.

---

Conclusion — The Call to Return to the Signal

Noise is inevitable.

Disconnection is not.

In a world that thrives on distraction, choosing stillness is an act of rebellion.

Choosing discernment is an act of courage.

Choosing God is an act of clarity.

The signal never stopped speaking.

We simply forgot how to listen.

But when we return to Him —

in silence, in humility, in honesty —

healing begins.

Because the voice of God doesn’t compete with noise.

It cuts through it.

This is where our healing comes from — because the voice of God cuts through the noise like a scalpel.

© SilentSentinel, 2025. All rights reserved. Excerpts may be shared with attribution.

---

Escuchar la Señal: Encontrar a Dios en un Mundo Lleno de Ruido

El mundo está más ruidoso que nunca.

El ruido llega desde todas las direcciones: los programas de televisión que dejamos encendidos para sentir compañía, las películas que llenan el silencio, el desplazamiento interminable en las redes sociales, las vidas cuidadosamente editadas de desconocidos, las opiniones de personas que nunca hemos conocido, el estrés que cargamos del trabajo, la presión que absorbemos de la familia, las expectativas que colocamos sobre nosotros mismos.

Pero el ruido no es solo externo.

Hay ruido emocional, ruido espiritual, ruido interno—el tipo de ruido que llena la mente, fractura el corazón y nubla el alma.

Y en medio de todo ese caos hemos perdido lo más precioso:

la señal debajo del ruido—la voz de Dios.

“Estad quietos, y conoced que yo soy Dios.” — Salmo 46:10

La quietud no es ausencia de sonido.

Es el espacio donde la señal se vuelve audible.

---

La Era del Ruido

Cada generación ha enfrentado presión, pero la nuestra enfrenta algo más peligroso: estimulación constante.

A donde voltees, algo exige tu atención—contenido, alertas, mensajes, actualizaciones, reacciones, opiniones.

El ruido no solo nos habla.

Nos moldea.

Nos acostumbramos tanto a la sobreestimulación que el silencio se vuelve incómodo, y la distracción se convierte en un estilo de vida.

Confundimos actividad constante con propósito, y ruido perpetuo con vida.

Y poco a poco, silenciosamente, de manera invisible—la señal se desvanece.

---

El Efecto Anestésico: Cuando la Estimulación Constante se Vuelve Silencio

El ruido tiene una paradoja extraña: mientras más llena tu vida, menos sientes realmente.

Creemos que el ruido nos mantiene conectados, pero en realidad nos adormece.

Produce:

entumecimiento emocional

atención fragmentada

relaciones superficiales

agotamiento interno

La gente se desplaza por el teléfono para sentirse menos sola, pero el desplazamiento profundiza la soledad.

La gente llena su agenda para no sentir dolor, pero la actividad los fractura aún más.

Escuchamos tanto… que al final no escuchamos nada.

“Tienen oídos, mas no oyen.” — Salmo 115:6

Si todo habla al mismo tiempo,

¿cómo escuchamos lo que importa?

---

Persiguiendo la Ilusión: Lo que el Mundo Nos Dice que Valoremos

El ruido no es neutral—tiene una agenda.

Nos entrena a perseguir:

dinero

imagen

rendimiento

posesiones

comparación

aprobación

productividad

momentos “perfectos” y editados

La gente publica sus fotos más felices mientras se ahoga en su duelo privado.

Muestran sus momentos más fuertes mientras se quiebran en silencio.

Proyectan confianza mientras viven con miedo.

El mundo nos enseña a parecer enteros mientras nos sentimos fragmentados.

“Porque ¿qué aprovechará al hombre si ganare todo el mundo, y perdiere su alma?” — Marcos 8:36

Lo que presentamos al mundo suele ser lo opuesto de lo que vivimos.

---

La Conexión Perdida: Cómo el Ruido Apaga la Voz de Dios

El mayor peligro del ruido no es la distracción.

Es la desconexión—de nosotros mismos y de Dios.

Cuando el ruido se vuelve demasiado fuerte:

el discernimiento se debilita

la paz se evapora

la sabiduría se distancia

las emociones se confunden

la oración se nubla

la verdad se vuelve difícil de percibir

Empezamos a confundir el silencio de Dios con Su ausencia—cuando en realidad simplemente no podemos oírlo entre el estático.

“Mis ovejas oyen mi voz, y yo las conozco, y me siguen.” — Juan 10:27

La voz de Dios nunca dejó de hablar.

Nosotros dejamos de notar.

---

El Punto de Quiebre: Elegir Dejar de Imita el “Éxito”

Eventualmente, la vida revela la verdad:

El ruido no puede sanarte.

En algún momento, todos enfrentamos el momento de colapso—ese instante en el que:

el rendimiento no basta

el éxito sabe vacío

la autosuficiencia se agota

la distracción ya no anestesia

fingir se vuelve demasiado pesado

Aquí comienza la humildad.

Aquí es donde Dios empieza a susurrar.

“Venid a mí todos los que estáis trabajados y cargados, y yo os haré descansar.” — Mateo 11:28

La quietud no es pasividad.

Es un regreso deliberado a Dios.

---

Escuchar la Señal: Lo que se Vuelve Posible en la Quietud

La señal—la voz de Dios—no es fuerte.

Es constante, clara, precisa y suave.

Se vuelve audible cuando:

bajamos el ritmo frenético

dejamos de intentar ganarnos nuestro valor

enfrentamos el dolor que habíamos evitado

soltamos la necesidad de desempeñarnos

creamos espacio para que Dios hable

Dios no grita por encima del ruido.

Espera a que bajemos el volumen.

La señal es como un bisturí—

no un golpe violento, sino un corte preciso que sana.

“Tras el fuego, un silbo apacible y delicado.” — 1 Reyes 19:12

La voz de Dios siempre ha sido suave—porque la verdad no necesita ser ruidosa para mover montañas dentro de ti.

---

La Obra de Sanidad: Lo que Dios Hace Cuando Escuchamos

Cuando la señal regresa, todo cambia—no externamente al principio, sino internamente.

Dios comienza a restaurar lo que el ruido había dispersado:

claridad

identidad

equilibrio emocional

sensibilidad espiritual

discernimiento

paz

El duelo se integra en vez de enterrarse.

El dolor se convierte en maestro en vez de tirano.

Tu sentido de identidad se vuelve firme en vez de frágil.

“Confortará mi alma.” — Salmo 23:3

Nada fuera de ti ha cambiado.

Pero todo dentro de ti sí.

---

Una Nueva Forma de Vivir: Caminar por el Mundo Cambiado en Silencio

Cuando vuelves a escuchar a Dios, el mundo no se vuelve más silencioso—tú te vuelves más claro.

Te mueves de manera diferente:

más despacio

más firme

menos reactivo

más enraizado

más intencional

El silencio se vuelve oxígeno espiritual.

La quietud se vuelve fortaleza.

El discernimiento se vuelve instinto.

El objetivo no es escapar del mundo,

sino caminar por él sin perderte en su ruido.

“En descanso y en reposo seréis salvos; en quietud y en confianza estará vuestra fortaleza.” — Isaías 30:15

La quietud te afila.

El silencio te fortalece.

Escuchar te restaura.

---

Conclusión — El Llamado a Regresar a la Señal

El ruido es inevitable.

La desconexión no lo es.

En un mundo que prospera con la distracción, elegir la quietud es un acto de rebelión.

Elegir el discernimiento es un acto de valentía.

Elegir a Dios es un acto de claridad.

La señal nunca dejó de hablar.

Simplemente olvidamos cómo escuchar.

Pero cuando regresamos a Él—

en silencio, con humildad, con honestidad—

la sanidad comienza.

Porque la voz de Dios no compite con el ruido.

Lo atraviesa.

Aquí es donde nace nuestra verdadera sanidad—

porque la voz de Dios corta el ruido como un bisturí.

© SilentSentinel, 2025. Todos los derechos reservados. Se pueden compartir extractos con atribución.

November 23 – December 6, 2025

For my second round of weeknotes I managed to skip a week, the pace of life I suppose and building up the writing habit. My notes this past two weeks felt more sparse, it is a work in progress.

• Continued during TV watching time preparing my✱Forever Notes✱ style index card dividers as part of my archiving. It’s not fancy or flashy writing the date on 366 cards, but only needs to be done once!

• Office 365 InTune continued to haunt me these past two weeks, I hit a wall with two systems in a row where Windows 11 won’t reset, cloud download has no impact, the usual DISM and SFC commands had no impact, and the systems even say on console that systemreset command does not exist...back to the drawing board as our staff are work from home, so USB based re-installs are out! (And adding InTune to the machines as-is with our MSP built image has been temperamental...but is likely the only route)

• I shifted my work notes and workflow back to eMacs (on Windows), because after wandering elsewhere, it is still what works best for me, mainly with Org-Mode, plus Org-Journal for daily notes, and Org-Agenda to pull it all together. I keep my Org directory on my work OneDrive, and on this return, added a pair of 365 Power Automate jobs to:

Twelve hours before a meeting starts, add well formatting meeting details to my Inbox.org file, including proper date and time stamp to keep Org-Agenda happy.

Watch my mailbox for e-mails of support tickets assigned to me, and write those details to my Inbox.org file.

• For the previously mentioned FiiO Echo Mini, I didn’t make much progress on my playlists, but it’s moving up my priority list, as I really want to use this little player daily with the better IEMs purchased with it.

• Oh, and Winter arrived in full, still only a few inches deep (yes, inches in Canada...our weird mix of metric and imperial is a whole post on its own!), but enough to break out the snowshoes to start packing some trails.

Reading

Not a huge volume of reading this past week, but I managed at least better consistency than in the past:

• Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations – Continued through most of the June pages, with just a few to go. From this weeks reading notes, the one that stood out:

Calm is contagious. (Navy SEALs) Instill calm — not by force, but by example. – A good example for what has served me well in my IT career, be the calm in the storm.

• Your Head Is A Houseboat – This arrived near the end of these two weeks of notes, so I have just started to read it, but I am enjoying what I’ve seen so far. I have followed Struthless videos on YouTube for a few years, so this was on my list since it was released.

• Mastering eMacs – There was a decent brief discount on this, so I finally picked it up, which is partially was pushed me back to my eMacs workflow for career work. The difference compared to previous times I used it, is this time I’m trying to learn eMacs keys, instead of going straight to evil mode and VIM keybindings!

Gaming

Gaming this past two weeks was focused fully on the Switch, play several full length rounds of a few Mario Party games with my wife, none of which I won...

Mario Party: Jamboree

We had a great couple games in Jamboree, all 30 turn long games with two AI players. Enjoyed time in the Mall course, then Race Track course, and finally later in the week, the Old West (Train) course. None of them disappoint.

Mario Party Superstars

We had all but forgot about the second Mario Party game that came to the switch. We were aiming to play Super Mario Party (with all the crazy allies), but the ‘Virtual Game Card’ was giving us issues, so we ended up having a blast on Superstars with Woodsy Woods.

Movie & TV

I don’t know to what consistency I’ll keep this section, but currently I sometimes capture what I’ve watched, in which case it has a place.

Grand Tour

I continued some fun re-watching of Grand Tour, closing in on the final episode that I have yet to see. But worked through Scandi Flick, Euro Crash, and most of Sand Job (not quite done). Among that set, given how much snow I live in through the winter (at how much I grew up in), I have a strong preference for the antics of Scandi Flick.

Ice Pilots: NWT

Initially as background while working via one of the Roku live channels, I ended up being drawn into a set of episodes I had not seen before, all from mid-Season 6 (last season) when in 2015 they helped do a re-enancment/remembrance D-Day Jump from one of Buffalo Airs planes that was actually in D-Day dropping paratroopers. It was great fun to watch!

Band of Brothers

Inspired of course from the Ice Pilots episodes above, in my evenings and note taking time, I rapidly worked through a re-watch of Band of Brothers, making through episodes one through seven. That series never fails to be good to watch.

Around the Web

Articles & Blogs

I clearly watched a little too much television the last week or two, so while I read a few short articles captured in my Instapaper (pushed to my Kindle), I don’t have anything noteable... time to work on that.

Videos

• proof you were here: The Ash Files – This was a neat video essay, really covering the modern difference of digitally capturing a million things, with no organization and likely no one else to ever see them if not made physical. The line that caught my attention the most: > “Capturing a moment takes you out of living that very moment.”

• Six Habits That Make Life Feel Lighter: Seve – Sunny Kind Journey – For the past year I have really been drawn to minimalism (not the extreme own nothing type), as portrayed by creators like Seve. As I’ve found with all of his content, this one had several solid reminders, these are a few to close this week:

“Don’t make every problem your responsibility.” (To solve)

“Priorities that live only in our words aren’t really priorities.” (They are wishes)

“Clarity comes from action, not before it.” (Small steps, just start!)

---

That about wraps it up for this second set of weeknotes, granted it spans over two weeks and I’m still posting a bit later than planned as life became busy. I am going to keep working on my notes and consistency, as I enjoy this process.

The software engineer had prepared for weeks. They'd studied algorithms, practised coding problems, reviewed the company's tech stack. What they couldn't prepare for was the fluorescent lighting that felt like needles in their skull, the unexpected background chatter from an open office that fragmented their thoughts, and the overwhelming cognitive demand of writing code whilst simultaneously explaining their reasoning to three strangers who were judging their every word. Twenty minutes into the pair programming interview, they froze. Not because they didn't know the answer. Because their autistic brain, overwhelmed by sensory chaos and social performance demands, simply shut down.

They didn't get the job. The feedback cited “communication issues” and “inability to think under pressure.” What the feedback didn't mention: their GitHub profile showed five years of elegant, well-documented code. Their portfolio included contributions to major open-source projects. In their actual work environment, with noise-cancelling headphones and asynchronous communication, they excelled. But the interview measured none of that.

When Amazon scrapped its AI recruiting tool in 2018 after discovering it systematically discriminated against women, the tech industry collectively shuddered. The algorithm, trained on a decade of predominantly male hiring decisions, had learned to penalise CVs containing the word “women's” and downgrade graduates from all-women's colleges. Engineers attempted repairs, but couldn't guarantee neutrality. The project died, and with it, a cautionary tale was born.

Since then, companies have fled AI-assisted hiring in droves. Following New York City's 2021 requirement that employers audit automated hiring tools for bias, every single audit revealed discrimination against women, people of colour, LGBTQ+ candidates, neurodivergent individuals, and non-native English speakers. The message seemed clear: algorithms cannot be trusted with something as consequential as hiring.

Yet in their rush to abandon biased machines, tech companies have doubled down on interview methods carrying their own insidious prejudices. Pair programming sessions, whiteboard challenges, and multi-round panel interviews have become the gold standard, positioned as objective measures of technical skill. For neurodivergent candidates (those with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, anxiety disorders, and other neurological differences), these “human-centred” alternatives often prove more discriminatory than any algorithm.

The irony is stark. An industry built on innovation, celebrated for disrupting ossified systems, has responded to AI bias by retreating into traditional interview practices that systematically exclude some of its most talented potential contributors. In fleeing one form of discrimination, tech has embraced another, older prejudice hiding in plain sight.

The Numbers Tell an Uncomfortable Story

Researchers estimate there are 67 million neurodivergent Americans, representing 15% to 20% of the global population. Yet unemployment rates for this group reach 30% to 40%, three times higher than for people with physical disabilities and eight times higher than for non-disabled individuals. For college-educated autistic adults, the figure climbs to a staggering 85%, despite many possessing precisely the skills tech companies desperately seek.

A 2024 survey revealed that 76% of neurodivergent job seekers feel traditional recruitment methods (timed assessments, panel interviews, on-the-spot coding challenges) put them at a disadvantage. Half of neurodivergent adults report experiencing discrimination from hiring managers or recruiters once they disclosed their neurodiversity, with 31% seeing their applications abandoned entirely post-disclosure. A Zurich Insurance UK report found even more troubling statistics: one in five neurodivergent adults reported being openly laughed at during job searches, and one in six had job offers rescinded after disclosing their neurodivergence.

Within the tech sector specifically, nearly one in four neurodivergent workers recalled instances of discrimination. A 2024 BIMA study surveying 3,333 technology workers uncovered significant discrimination related to neurodivergence, alongside gender, ethnicity, and age. More than a third of respondents in a Prospect union survey reported discrimination related to their neurodivergent condition, whilst four in five faced direct workplace challenges because of it. A third said their workplace experience negatively impacted their mental wellbeing; a fifth said it harmed their ability to perform well.

These aren't abstract statistics. They represent brilliant minds lost to an industry that claims to value talent above all else, yet cannot recognise it when packaged differently.

The Evolution of Tech Interviews

To understand how we arrived here, consider the evolution of tech hiring. In the 1990s and early 2000s, companies like Microsoft and Google became infamous for brain teasers and logic puzzles. “Why are manhole covers round?” and “How would you move Mount Fuji?” were considered legitimate interview questions, supposedly revealing problem-solving abilities and creativity.

Research eventually exposed these questions as poor predictors of actual job performance, often measuring little beyond a candidate's familiarity with such puzzles. The industry moved on, embracing what seemed like better alternatives: technical assessments that directly tested coding ability.

Whiteboard interviews became ubiquitous. Candidates stood before panels of engineers, solving complex algorithms on whiteboards whilst explaining their thought processes. Pair programming sessions followed, where candidates collaborated with current employees on real problems, demonstrating both technical skills and cultural fit.

These methods appeared superior to arbitrary brain teasers. They tested actual job-relevant skills in realistic scenarios. Many companies proclaimed them more objective, more fair, more predictive of success.

For neurotypical candidates, perhaps they are. For neurodivergent individuals, they can be nightmarish gauntlets that have little relation to actual job performance and everything to do with performing competence under specific, high-pressure conditions.

What Happens When Your Brain Works Differently

Consider the standard pair programming interview from a neurodivergent perspective. You're placed in an unfamiliar environment, under observation by strangers whose judgement will determine your livelihood. You're expected to think aloud, explaining your reasoning in real-time whilst writing code, fielding questions, reading social cues, and managing the interpersonal dynamics of collaboration, all simultaneously.

For someone with ADHD, this scenario can severely impair short-term memory, memory recall, and problem-solving speed. The brain simply doesn't have the bandwidth to handle spontaneous problem-solving whilst maintaining the social performance expected. As one industry observer noted, coding interviews with whiteboarding or code pairing become “excruciating” when your brain lacks the speed for instant detailed memory recall.

Research confirms that adults with specific learning disabilities who have low sensory thresholds tend to notice too many stimuli, including irrelevant ones. This sensory overload interferes with their ability to select relevant information for executive functions to process. When cognitively overloaded, sensory overload intensifies, creating a vicious cycle.

For autistic candidates, the challenges multiply. Studies show neurodivergent employees experience disproportionate stress in team interactions compared to neurotypical colleagues. Whilst pair programming may be less stressful than large meetings, it still demands interpersonal communication skills that can be emotionally draining and cognitively expensive for autistic individuals. Research found that autistic people felt they had to hide their traits to gain employment, and many worried about discrimination if they disclosed during hiring.

During whiteboard challenges, candidates often stand before groups ranging from two to sixteen interviewers, facing a wall whilst solving complex algorithms. For autistic candidates, this setup makes concentration nearly impossible, even on simple questions. It's an experience they'll never encounter in the actual job, yet it determines whether they're hired.

The physical environment itself can be overwhelming. Bright fluorescent lights, background noise from open offices, unexpected sounds, strong smells from nearby kitchens or perfumes, all create sensory assaults that neurotypical interviewers barely notice. For sensory-sensitive candidates, these distractions aren't minor annoyances; they're cognitive impediments that dramatically impair performance.

Timed assessments compound these difficulties. Pressure intensifies anxiety, which for neurodivergent candidates often reaches paralysing levels. Research shows autistic job applicants experience significantly more interview anxiety than neurotypical candidates and worry intensely about how potential employers perceive them. This anxiety can cause candidates to freeze, unable to think on the spot regardless of their knowledge or experience.

The phenomenon called “masking” adds another layer of exhaustion. Eighty-five percent of neurodivergent tech workers in the Prospect survey reported masking their condition at work, consciously suppressing natural behaviours to appear neurotypical. This requires enormous cognitive effort, leading to mental and physical fatigue, increased anxiety and depression, and reduced job satisfaction. During interviews, when cognitive resources are already stretched thin by technical challenges and performance pressure, the additional burden of masking can be devastating.

Štěpán Hladík, a technical sourcer at Pure Storage who has disclosed his neurodivergence, feels “truly privileged to have been around colleagues who are willing to understand or actively try to learn about biases.” But he notes previous experiences at other companies left him feeling misunderstood and frustrated. Many neurodivergent workers don't disclose their conditions, citing “fear of discrimination as well as ignorance of colleagues” and concerns about career progression. In one study, 53% said potential outcomes of disclosure weren't worth the risk, 27% cited stigma concerns, and 24% feared career impact.

When candidates attempt to request accommodations, the consequences can be severe. Industry reports suggest that when candidates gently ask about available disability accommodations during interviews, they're dropped “about 60% to 70% of the time” as companies “freak out and wash their hands of it to keep things simple.” One tech worker shared observations about Meta: “I've seen a lot of neurodivergent people really struggle” there, having heard “you can be immediately rejected by asking for accommodations.” They noted that “the tech industry has always been rife with discrimination.”

The Research on Interview Bias

Whilst tech companies abandoned AI tools due to proven bias, research reveals traditional interview methods carry substantial biases of their own. A 2024 study published by IntechOpen found that interviewing processes are “inherently susceptible to human bias, which can adversely affect the fairness and validity of outcomes, leading to discrimination and a lack of diversity.”

Interviewers make decisions based on extraneous elements like age, gender, ethnicity, physical attributes, and other personal traits instead of professional qualifications. They succumb to confirmation bias and the halo effect, distorting assessments and creating less diverse workforces. These biases stem from subconscious prejudices, stereotypes, and personal preferences, including entrenched notions about gender, race, and age.

Unstructured interviews, despite receiving the highest ratings for perceived effectiveness from hiring managers, are among the worst predictors of actual job performance. They're far less reliable than general mental ability tests, aptitude tests, or personality tests. Yet they remain popular because they feel right to interviewers, confirming their belief that they can intuitively identify talent.

Traditional interviews test whether candidates can perform interviews, not whether they can perform jobs. For neurodivergent candidates, this distinction is critical. The skills required to excel in pair programming interviews (simultaneous multitasking, real-time verbal processing, social calibration, tolerance for sensory chaos, performance under observation) often differ dramatically from skills required for actual software development.

What Neurodivergent Talent Brings to Tech

The tragedy of this systematic exclusion becomes even sharper when considering what neurodivergent individuals bring to technical roles. Many possess precisely the capabilities that make exceptional programmers, data scientists, and engineers.

Pattern recognition stands out as a particular neurodivergent strength. Many autistic and dyslexic individuals demonstrate extraordinary abilities in identifying patterns and making connections between seemingly unrelated information. In scientific research, they excel at spotting patterns and correlations in complex datasets. In business contexts, they identify connections others miss, leading to innovative solutions and improved decision-making. In fields like design, architecture, and technology, they perceive structures and patterns that might be invisible to neurotypical colleagues.

Attention to detail is another common neurodivergent trait that translates directly to technical excellence. JPMorgan Chase found that employees hired through their neurodiversity programme into tech roles were 90% to 140% more productive than others, with consistent, error-free work. Within six months of their pilot programme, autistic employees proved 48% faster and nearly 92% more productive than neurotypical colleagues.

Hyperfocus, particularly common in ADHD individuals, enables sustained concentration on complex problems, often resulting in innovative solutions and exceptional outcomes. When provided with environments that support their working styles, neurodivergent employees can achieve levels of productivity and insight that justify building entire programmes around recruiting them.

Technical aptitude comes naturally to many neurodivergent individuals, who often excel in programming, coding, and computer science. Their analytical thinking and affinity for technology make them valuable in fields requiring technical expertise and innovation. Some possess exceptional memory skills, absorbing and recalling vast amounts of information, facilitating faster learning and enhanced problem-solving.

Deloitte research suggests workplaces with neurodivergent professionals in some roles can be 30% more productive, noting that “abilities such as visual thinking, attention to detail, pattern recognition, visual memory, and creative thinking can help illuminate ideas or opportunities teams might otherwise have missed.”

Companies Getting It Right

A growing number of organisations have recognised this untapped potential and restructured their hiring processes accordingly. Their success demonstrates that inclusive hiring isn't charity; it's competitive advantage.

SAP launched its Autism at Work initiative in 2013, creating an alternative pathway into the company that maintains rigorous standards whilst accommodating different neurological profiles. The programme operates in 12 countries and has successfully integrated over 200 autistic individuals into various positions. SAP enjoys a remarkable 90% retention rate for employees on the autism spectrum.

Microsoft's Neurodiversity Hiring Programme, established in 2015, reimagined the entire interview process. Instead of traditional phone screens and panel interviews, candidates attend a multi-day “academy” that's part interview, part workshop. This extended format allows candidates to demonstrate skills over time rather than in high-pressure snapshots. The company runs these sessions four to six times yearly and has hired 200 full-time employees spanning customer service, finance, business operations, and marketing.

JPMorgan Chase's Neurodiversity Hiring Programme began as a four-person pilot in 2015 and has since expanded to over 300 employees across 40 job categories in multiple countries. According to Bryan Gill from JPMorgan Chase, “None of this costs a lot and the accommodations are minimal. Moving a seat, perhaps changing a fluorescent bulb, and offering noise-cancelling headphones are the kinds of things we're talking about.”

The business case extends beyond retention and productivity. EY's Neurodiverse Centres of Excellence have generated one billion dollars in revenue and saved over 3.5 million hours through solutions created by neurodivergent employees. A 2024 study found that 63% of companies with neuro-inclusive hiring practices saw improvements in overall employee wellbeing, 55% observed stronger company culture, and 53% reported better people management.

These programmes share common elements. They provide detailed information in advance, including comprehensive agendas and explicit expectations. They offer accommodations like notes, questions provided beforehand, and clear, unambiguous instructions. They focus on work samples and portfolio reviews that demonstrate practical skills rather than hypothetical scenarios. They allow trial projects and job shadowing that let candidates prove capabilities in realistic settings.

Environmental considerations matter too. Quiet locations free from loud noises, bright lights, and distracting smells help candidates feel at ease. Ubisoft found success redesigning workspaces based on employee needs: quiet, controlled spaces for autistic employees who need focus; dynamic environments for individuals with ADHD. This adaptability maximises each employee's strengths.

Practical Steps Towards Inclusive Hiring

For companies without resources to launch comprehensive neurodiversity programmes, smaller changes can still dramatically improve inclusivity. Here's what accommodations look like in practice:

Before: A candidate with auditory processing challenges faces a rapid-fire verbal interview in a noisy conference room, struggling to process questions whilst managing background distractions.

After: The same candidate receives interview questions in writing (either in advance or displayed during the interview), allowing them to process information through their strength channel. The interview occurs in a quiet room, and the interviewer types questions in the chat during video calls.

Before: A candidate with ADHD faces a three-hour marathon interview with no breaks, their cognitive resources depleting as interviewers rotate through, ultimately appearing “unfocused” and “scattered” by the final round.

After: The interview schedule explicitly includes 15-minute breaks between sessions. The candidate can step outside, regulate their nervous system, and approach each conversation with renewed energy. Performance consistency across all rounds improves dramatically.

Before: An autistic candidate receives a vague email: “We'll have a technical discussion about your experience. Dress business casual. See you Tuesday!” They spend days anxious about what “technical discussion” means, who will attend, and what specific topics might arise.

After: The candidate receives a detailed agenda: “You'll meet with three engineers for 45 minutes each. Session one covers your recent database optimisation work. Session two involves a code walkthrough of your GitHub project. Session three discusses system design approaches. Here are the interviewers' names and roles. Interview questions are attached.” Anxiety transforms into productive preparation.

Replace timed, high-pressure technical interviews with take-home projects allowing candidates to work in comfortable environments at their own pace. Research shows work sample tests are among the strongest predictors of on-the-job performance and tend to be more equitable across demographic groups.

Provide interview questions in advance. This practice, now standard at some major tech brands, allows all candidates to prepare thoughtfully rather than privileging those who happen to excel at impromptu performance. As AskEARN guidance notes, candidates can request questions in writing without disclosing a diagnosis: “I have a condition that affects how I process verbal information, so I would like interview questions provided in writing.”

Offer explicit accommodation options upfront, before candidates must disclose disabilities. Simple statements like “We're happy to accommodate different working styles; please let us know if you'd benefit from receiving questions in advance, having extra time, taking breaks, or other adjustments” signal that accommodations are normal, not problematic. Under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Rehabilitation Act, employers are legally required to provide reasonable accommodations during hiring.

Implement structured interviews with standardised questions. Whilst unstructured interviews are biased and unreliable, structured interviews predict job performance with validity of 0.55 to 0.70, outperforming traditional approaches requiring up to four rounds for comparable accuracy.

Consider alternative formats to live coding. Code walkthroughs of recent projects on-screen, where candidates explain existing work, can reveal far more about actual capabilities than watching someone write algorithms under pressure. Portfolio reviews, GitHub contributions, and technical writing samples provide evidence of skills without performative elements.

Ask direct, specific questions rather than open-ended ones. Instead of “What can you bring to the table?” (which neurodivergent brains may interpret literally or find overwhelming), ask “Can you talk about a key project you recently worked on and how you contributed?” Open-ended questions cause neurodivergent minds to flood with information, whilst direct questions work better.

Reduce panel sizes. One-to-one interviews reduce anxiety compared to facing multiple interviewers simultaneously. If panels are necessary, provide clear information about who will attend, their roles, and what each will assess.

Train interviewers on neurodiversity and inclusive practices. Research found that bias dropped 13% when participants began with implicit association tests intended to detect subconscious bias. Forty-three percent of senior leaders received some neurodiversity training in 2025, up from 28% in 2023.

Create employee resource groups for neurodivergent employees. Ubisoft's ERG has grown to over 500 members globally, helping employees connect and thrive. Dell's True Ability ERG pairs new hires with experienced mentors for ongoing support.

The Deeper Question

These practical steps matter, but they address symptoms rather than the underlying condition. The deeper question is why tech companies, confronted with algorithmic bias, responded by retreating to traditional methods rather than designing genuinely better alternatives.

Part of the answer lies in what researchers call the “objectivity illusion.” Humans tend to trust their own judgements more than algorithmic outputs, even when evidence shows human decisions are more biased. When Amazon's algorithm discriminated against women, the bias was visible, quantifiable, and damning. When human interviewers make similar judgements, the bias hides behind subjective assessments of “cultural fit” and “communication skills.”

AI bias is a feature, not a bug. Algorithms trained on biased historical data reproduce that bias with mathematical precision. But this transparency can be leveraged. Algorithmic decisions can be audited, tested, and corrected in ways human decisions cannot. The problem isn't that AI is biased; it's that we built biased AI and then abandoned the entire approach rather than fixing it.

Meanwhile, traditional interviews embed biases so deeply into process and culture that they become invisible. When neurodivergent candidates fail pair programming interviews, interviewers attribute it to poor skills or bad cultural fit, not to interview design that systematically disadvantages certain neurological profiles. The bias is laundered through seemingly objective technical assessments.

This reveals a broader failure of imagination. Tech prides itself on solving complex problems through innovation and iteration. Faced with biased hiring AI, the industry could have invested in better algorithms, more representative training data, robust bias detection and correction mechanisms. Instead, it abandoned ship.

The same innovative energy directed at optimising ad click-through rates or recommendation algorithms could revolutionise hiring. Imagine interview processes that adapt to candidates' strengths, that measure actual job-relevant skills in ways accommodating neurological diversity, that use technology to reduce bias rather than amplify it.

Some experiments point in promising directions. Asynchronous video interviews allow candidates to answer questions in their own time, reducing pressure. Computer-based assessments provide instant feedback, helping autistic individuals improve performance. Structured digital platforms ensure every candidate faces identical questions in identical formats, reducing interviewer discretion and thus bias.

The Intersectional Dimension

For neurodivergent individuals from ethnic minority backgrounds, challenges compound. Research on intersectional stereotyping shows these candidates face layered discrimination that adversely affects recruitment, performance evaluation, and career progression. The biases don't simply add; they multiply, creating unique barriers that neither neurodiversity programmes nor diversity initiatives alone can address.

Women who are neurodivergent face particular challenges. Amazon's AI tool discriminated against women; traditional interviews often do too, filtered through gendered expectations about communication styles and leadership presence. Add neurodivergence to the mix, and the barriers become formidable.

This intersectionality demands more sophisticated responses than simply adding neurodiversity awareness to existing diversity training. It requires understanding how different forms of marginalisation interact, how biases reinforce each other, and how solutions must address the whole person rather than isolated demographic categories.

The Legal Landscape Is Shifting

Companies ignoring these issues face growing legal exposure. Disability discrimination claims from neurodivergent employees have risen sharply. In fiscal year 2023, 488 autism-related Americans with Disabilities Act charges were filed with the EEOC, compared to just 53 ten years earlier and only 14 in 2003.

Remote work has become the most commonly requested accommodation for neurodivergent employees under the ADA, precisely because it provides control over work environments. Companies that eliminated remote options post-pandemic may find themselves defending decisions that disproportionately impact disabled workers.

The law is clear: employers must provide reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities unless doing so would cause undue hardship. Many accommodations neurodivergent employees need cost little to nothing. Companies that refuse face not just legal liability but reputational damage in an industry claiming to value diversity.

What We're Really Measuring

Perhaps the most fundamental question is what interviews actually measure versus what we think they measure. Traditional interviews, including pair programming sessions, test a specific skill set: performing competence under observation in unfamiliar, high-pressure social situations requiring real-time multitasking and spontaneous problem-solving whilst managing interpersonal dynamics.

These capabilities matter for some roles. If you're hiring someone to give live demos to sceptical clients or debug critical systems whilst stakeholders watch anxiously, interview performance may correlate with job performance.

But for most technical roles, day-to-day work looks nothing like interviews. Developers typically work on problems over hours or days, not minutes. They have time to research, experiment, and iterate. They work in familiar environments with established routines. They collaborate asynchronously through well-defined processes, not impromptu pair programming. They manage their sensory environments and work schedules to optimise productivity.

By privileging interview performance over demonstrated ability, tech companies filter for candidates who excel at interviews, not necessarily at jobs. When it systematically excludes neurodivergent individuals who might outperform neurotypical colleagues in actual role requirements, it becomes both discriminatory and economically irrational.

Rethinking Progress

Tech cannot claim to value objectivity whilst relying on subjective, bias-laden interview processes. It cannot champion innovation whilst clinging to traditional hiring methods proven to exclude talented candidates. It cannot celebrate diversity whilst systematically filtering out neurological difference.

The flight from AI bias was understandable but incomplete. Algorithmic hiring tools reproduced historical discrimination, but retreating to equally biased human processes isn't the solution. Building better systems is. Both technological and human systems need redesign to actively counteract bias rather than embed it.

This means taking neurodiversity seriously, not as an HR checkbox but as a competitive imperative. It means redesigning interview processes from the ground up with inclusivity as a core requirement. It means measuring outcomes (who gets hired, who succeeds, who leaves and why) and iterating based on evidence.

The tech industry's talent shortage is partly self-inflicted. Millions of neurodivergent individuals possess precisely the skills companies claim they cannot find. They're filtered out not because they lack ability but because hiring processes cannot recognise ability packaged differently.

The companies demonstrating success with neurodiversity hiring programmes aren't being charitable. They're being smart. Ninety percent retention rates, 48% faster performance, 92% higher productivity, one billion dollars in revenue from neurodiverse centres: these are business results.

Every brilliant neurodivergent candidate filtered out by poorly designed interviews is a competitive advantage surrendered. The question isn't whether companies can afford to make hiring more inclusive. It's whether they can afford not to.

Amazon's biased algorithm taught an important lesson, but perhaps not the right one. The lesson wasn't “don't use technology in hiring.” It was “design better systems.” That principle applies equally to AI and to traditional interviews.

Tech has spent years agonising over AI bias whilst ignoring the bias baked into human decision-making. It's time to apply the same rigorous, evidence-based approach to interview processes that the industry applies to products. Test assumptions, measure outcomes, identify failures, iterate solutions.

Neurodivergent candidates aren't asking for lower standards. They're asking for fair assessment of their actual capabilities rather than their ability to perform neurotypicality under pressure. That's not a diversity favour. It's basic competence in hiring.

The paradox of progress is that moving forward sometimes requires questioning what we thought was already solved. Tech believed it had moved beyond crude brain teasers to sophisticated technical assessments. But sophisticated discrimination is still discrimination.

In fleeing AI's biases, tech ran straight into human prejudice hiding in hiring processes all along. The industry faces a choice: continue defending traditional interviews because they feel objective, or measure whether they're actually finding the best talent. The data increasingly suggests they're not.

Real progress requires acknowledging uncomfortable truths. “Culture fit” often means “people like us.” “Communication skills” sometimes translates to “neurotypical presentation.” The hardest technical problems in hiring aren't algorithmic. They're human.

The question isn't whether neurodivergent candidates can meet tech's standards. It's whether those standards measure what actually matters. Right now, the evidence suggests they're optimising for the wrong metrics and missing extraordinary talent.

That's not just unfair. In an industry built on finding edge advantages through better information and smarter systems, it's inexcusably inefficient. The companies that figure this out first won't just be more diverse. They'll be more competitive.

The problem was never the algorithms. It was the biases we fed them, the outcomes we optimised for, the assumptions we never questioned. Those same problems afflict traditional hiring, just less visibly. Making them visible is the first step. Actually fixing them is the work ahead.

---

References and Sources

Neurodivergent Employment Statistics

• Creative Spirit. “Understanding Neurodiversity and Employment: 22 Key Statistics.” https://www.creativespirit-us.org/22-statistics-about-neurodiversity-and-employment/
• MIT Sloan Management Review. “Building the Neurodiversity Talent Pipeline for the Future of Work.” https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/building-the-neurodiversity-talent-pipeline-for-the-future-of-work/
• Neurodiversity Directory. “Neurodiversity Statistics & Research Data.” https://neurodiversity.directory/neurodiversity-statistics/
• Work Design Magazine. “Lost in Transition: Why the Workforce Fails Neurodivergent Graduates.” https://www.workdesign.com/2025/02/lost-in-transition-why-the-workforce-fails-neurodivergent-graduates/
• My Disability Jobs. “Neurodiversity in the Workplace: Statistics, Update 2025.” https://mydisabilityjobs.com/statistics/neurodiversity-in-the-workplace/

Interview Challenges and Discrimination

• Medium (Sorrel Harriet). “Supporting neurodiversity in pair programming.” https://sorrelharriet.medium.com/supporting-neurodiversity-in-paired-programming-8b250d2b5cab
• LinkedIn (Avik Das). “How tech interviews fail those with hidden disabilities.” https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-tech-interviews-fail-those-hidden-disabilities-avik-das
• WorkLife. “How companies like Microsoft, EY and Bank of America are hiring more neurodiverse staff.” https://www.worklife.news/talent/neurodiversity-autism-adhd-hiring-interview-microsoft-ey/
• SHRM. “Creating the Ideal Interview Setting for Neurodivergent Candidates.” https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/inclusion-diversity/creating-ideal-interview-setting-neurodivergent-candidates
• Medium (Mike Kureth). “Autism Awareness Day: How to Improve the Software Engineering Interview.” https://medium.com/@mkureth/autism-awareness-day-how-to-improve-the-software-engineering-interview-4ff9911145c7
• PMC. “Autism and the Case Against Job Interviews.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11090822/
• PMC. “Barriers to Employment: Raters' Perceptions of Male Autistic and Non-Autistic Candidates During a Simulated Job Interview.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8992918/
• The Conversation. “Why people with autism struggle to get hired and how businesses can help.” https://theconversation.com/why-people-with-autism-struggle-to-get-hired-and-how-businesses-can-help-by-changing-how-they-look-at-job-interviews-254658
• PMC. “Access to employment: A comparison of autistic, neurodivergent and neurotypical adults' experiences.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10375005/
• Creative Spirit. “The Interview Process Desperately Needs an Overhaul to Include Neurodiverse Employees.” https://www.creativespirit-us.org/the-interview-process-desperately-needs-an-overhaul-to-include-neurodiverse-employees-heres-how-it-can-happen/
• People Management. “Fifth of neurodivergent workers have experienced workplace discrimination.” https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/article/1862106/fifth-neurodivergent-workers-experienced-workplace-discrimination-report-finds
• HR Brew. “Disabled workers deal with unreported discrimination, denied accommodations.” https://www.hr-brew.com/stories/2024/12/04/disabled-workers-deal-with-unreported-discrimination-denied-accommodations-deloitte-survey-finds

AI Bias in Hiring

• American Bar Association. “Navigating the AI Employment Bias Maze.” https://www.americanbar.org/groups/business_law/resources/business-law-today/2024-april/navigating-ai-employment-bias-maze/
• The Conversation. “When AI plays favourites: How algorithmic bias shapes the hiring process.” https://theconversation.com/when-ai-plays-favourites-how-algorithmic-bias-shapes-the-hiring-process-239471
• University of Washington News. “AI tools show biases in ranking job applicants' names.” https://www.washington.edu/news/2024/10/31/ai-bias-resume-screening-race-gender/
• BSR. “AI in Hiring.” https://www.bsr.org/en/emerging-issues/ai-in-hiring
• Nature. “Ethics and discrimination in AI-enabled recruitment practices.” https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-02079-x
• Phys.org. “AI bias in hiring decisions is often copied by human reviewers.” https://phys.org/news/2025-11-people-mirror-ai-hiring-biases.html
• IMD. “Amazon's sexist hiring algorithm could still be better than a human.” https://www.imd.org/research-knowledge/digital/articles/amazons-sexist-hiring-algorithm-could-still-be-better-than-a-human/

Inclusive Hiring Best Practices

• AskEARN. “Neurodiversity Hiring Initiatives & Partnerships.” https://askearn.org/page/neurodiversity-hiring-initiatives-and-partnerships
• AskEARN. “Including Neurodivergent Workers: Job Descriptions and Interviewing.” https://askearn.org/page/neurodiversity-job-descriptions-and-interviewing
• Microsoft. “Neurodiversity Hiring.” https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/diversity/inside-microsoft/cross-disability/neurodiversityhiring
• Dice Hiring. “Neurodiversity in Tech: Inclusive Interview Process Tips.” https://www.dice.com/hiring/recruitment/neurodiversity-in-tech-inclusive-interview-process-tips
• World Economic Forum. “How employers are addressing neurodiversity needs at work.” https://www.weforum.org/stories/2023/05/neurodiversity-employers-workers-jobs/
• Joveo. “The Ultimate Guide to Neurodiversity Hiring [2025].” https://www.joveo.com/neurodiversity-hiring-the-ultimate-guide/
• Indeed. “Best Practices For Hiring With Neurodiversity In Mind.” https://www.indeed.com/hire/c/info/workplace-neurodiversity
• MIT Sloan Management Review. “Helping Neurodivergent Employees Succeed.” https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/helping-neurodivergent-employees-succeed/
• Mentra. “Top Ten Accommodations for Neurodivergent.” https://www.mentra.com/top-ten-accommodations-for-neurodivergent
• Life Skills Advocate. “Neurodivergent Interview Tips.” https://lifeskillsadvocate.com/blog/neurodivergent-interview-tips/
• SmartRecruiters. “Interviewing Neurodiverse Candidates: 9 Important Keys.” https://www.smartrecruiters.com/blog/interviewing-neurodiverse-candidates/

Sensory Processing and Executive Function

• PMC. “Relationships between Sensory Processing and Executive Functions in Children with Combined ASD and ADHD.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11201769/
• PMC. “Relationships between executive functions and sensory patterns among adults with specific learning disabilities.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8989333/
• CNBC. “People with ADHD, autism, dyslexia say AI agents are helping them succeed at work.” https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/08/adhd-autism-dyslexia-jobs-careers-ai-agents-success.html
• Neurodivergent Insights. “Sensory Overload in ADHD: 10 Hidden Impacts.” https://neurodivergentinsights.com/sensory-overload-in-adhd/
• Relational Psych. “The Link Between ADHD and Sensory Processing.” https://www.relationalpsych.group/articles/the-link-between-adhd-and-sensory-processing-how-to-manage-sensory-overload

Neurodivergent Strengths

• Harvard Business Review. “Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage.” https://hbr.org/2017/05/neurodiversity-as-a-competitive-advantage
• Boost Neurodiversity. “The Unique Advantage of Neurodiverse Thinkers: Pattern Recognition.” https://boostneurodiversity.com/the-unique-advantage-of-neurodiverse-thinkers-pattern-recognition/
• I AM Autism. “30 Strengths of Neurodiversity: Part 1.” https://i-am-autism.org.uk/30-strengths-of-neurodiversity-part-1/
• Medium (Nathan Organ). “Neurodivergent pattern recognition.” https://norgan.medium.com/neurodivergent-pattern-recognition-eb84e8a8f1ff
• BetterUp. “Neurodiversity in the Workplace.” https://www.betterup.com/blog/neurodiversity-in-the-workplace
• Alludo Blog. “5 strengths neurodivergent employees bring to the workplace.” https://blog.alludo.com/5-strengths-neurodivergent-employees-bring-to-the-workplace/

Company Success Stories

• CNBC. “JPMorgan Chase, Microsoft among growing number of companies turning to neurodiverse workers.” https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/20/-neurodivergent-workers-help-companies-meet-the-demand-for-talent.html
• BestColleges. “10 Companies Leading the Neurodiversity Movement in Tech.” https://www.bestcolleges.com/resources/companies-leading-neurodiversity-movement-tech/
• MindShift. “Creating Impact with Autism Hiring Program.” https://mindshift.works/transforming-workforce-hiring-autistic-employees/

Traditional Interview Bias Research

• IntechOpen. “Enhancing Inclusivity in Interviewing.” https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/1175019

Work Sample Tests and Structured Interviews

• PMC. “Best Practices for Reducing Bias in the Interview Process.” https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9553626/
• Harvard Business School. “Actively Addressing Unconscious Bias in Recruiting.” https://www.hbs.edu/recruiting/insights-and-advice/blog/post/actively-addressing-unconscious-bias-in-recruiting
• Harvard Business Review. “How to Take the Bias Out of Interviews.” https://hbr.org/2016/04/how-to-take-the-bias-out-of-interviews
• Harvard Business Review. “7 Practical Ways to Reduce Bias in Your Hiring Process.” https://hbr.org/2017/06/7-practical-ways-to-reduce-bias-in-your-hiring-process

Workplace Discrimination

• CIO. “Unlocking the talents of neurodivergent IT pros.” https://www.cio.com/article/4094678/unlocking-the-talents-of-neurodivergent-it-pros.html
• Wiley Online Library. “When Neurodiversity and Ethnicity Combine.” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/hrm.22286
• Diversity in Tech. “Neurodiversity in the workplace.” https://www.diversityintech.co.uk/neurodiversity-in-the-workplace/
• Prospect. “Survey highlights need for better support for neurodiverse tech workers.” https://prospect.org.uk/news/prospect-survey-highlights-need-for-employers-to-provide-better-support-for-neurodiverse-tech-workers
• Bloomberg Law. “'ADA Generation' Fuels Rise in Neurodiverse Employee Bias Claims.” https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/ada-generation-fuels-rise-in-neurodiverse-employee-bias-claims

---

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

Greetings,

I’m The Conifer Guy. This blog exists to document my journey into growing conifers in my small yard. Space is limited, so the trees will need regular pruning to ensure that they remain within the bounds of the property. However, this makes things more interesting, as I have plans on addressing this.

Currently, the plan is to grow four trees on the property as follows:

• Two balsam fir trees
• One white spruce tree
• One red spruce, or a red/white spruce hybrid

I ordered white spruce and balsam fir seeds from my favorite seed supplier, The Ontario Seed Company. The seeds are expected to arrive by Friday, and I will begin stratifying them when they arrive.

For the red spruce, I intend to grow it from a cutting. Living in southern New Brunswick, I expect that there will be many places where I can go to get a cutting. I intend to get this in March, after my seeds have had time to stratify.

If you’re unfamiliar with terms like stratifying, cuttings, or the differences between these species—don’t worry. That’s exactly what future posts will cover. For now, this is where the project begins. Once the seeds arrive, I’ll post photos so you can follow along from the very start.

A quick disclaimer: Carl Jung has become popular with some right-wing commentators. Please don't take this blog post as evidence that I have any affinity whatsoever for those commentators. It's sad that so much has become political these days, but I don't believe in guilt by association, and long before anyone had heard of Jordan Peterson, my dad, a psychologist, was telling me about Jung.

With that out of the way, I recently stumbled across Jung's five factors of happiness, and I find it to be very interesting. This isn't the first set of guidelines I've come across in my life, the first list of ten rules or eight practices one should follow to find fulfillment, but I find it to be a bit more modern and understandable than some of those.

His five factors of happiness are:

1. Good physical and mental health
2. Good personal and intimate relationships, such as those of marriage, the family, and friendships
3. The faculty for perceiving beauty in art and nature
4. Reasonable standards of living and satisfactory work
5. A philosophic or religious point of view capable of coping successfully with the vicissitudes of life

I would point out that this list may not be complete. A murderer or spoiled child might check all of these boxes, but would they be happy? I don't think so. Perhaps that's why we need multiple perspectives, after all.

#PersonalDevelopment #Philosophy #Wellbeing

In Summary: * Two high points of this Wednesday in the Roscoe-verse: First – This morning I used my new little washing machine for the first time, and was pleased with how it worked. I'm thinking now that using it for about an hour or so, three or four mornings per week, that should allow me to keep up with socks, underwear, and shirts. I can live with that. :) Second – I've got a Big Ten Conference men's basketball game to follow on the radio tonight. This game should take me up close to a comfortable, old guy bedtime.

Prayers, etc.: * My daily prayers

Health Metrics: * bw= 222.67 lbs. * bp= 157/96 (59)

Exercise: * kegel pelvic floor exercise, half squats, calf raises, wall push-ups

Diet: * 06:45 – 1 peanut butter sandwich * 11:00 – crispy oatmeal cookies, home made meat and vegetable soup * 16:00 – more crispy oatmeal cookies, more home made meat and vegetable soup * 16:50 – 1 fresh apple

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 05:15 – listen to local news talk radio * 06:30 – bank accounts activity monitored * 07:00 – read, pray, follow news reports from various sources * 08:00 – do laundry * 10:00 – read, pray, follow news reports from various sources * 12:30 to 14:00 – watch old game shows with Sylvia * 15:15 – read, pray, follow news reports from various sources * 15:30 – listening to The Jack Riccardi Show * 17:00 – listening to The Joe Pags Show * 18:00 – listening to a Big Ten Conference men's basketball game, the (5-4) Minnesota Golden Gophers vs. the (8-1) Purdue Boilermakers

Chess: * 15:10 – moved in all pending CC games

Matthew 23 is one of those chapters that doesn’t whisper. It doesn’t gently nudge. It shatters the room. If most of the gospel feels like Jesus reaching for the broken, this chapter feels like Him turning over the last untouched table inside religious power itself. There is no soft entry, no small talk. The moment opens with Jesus speaking directly to the crowd and to His disciples, not privately to His enemies. That matters. This isn’t a secret rebuke. This is a public exposure of spiritual hypocrisy because private corruption always damages public faith.

He starts by acknowledging authority before dismantling it. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees “sit in Moses’ seat.” In other words, they inherited real spiritual responsibility. The position itself is not the problem. The problem is what they’ve done with it. They teach truth but refuse to live it. They bind heavy burdens on others but won’t lift a finger to help carry them. This alone cuts deep in today’s world. There is a special kind of harm that comes from people who speak God’s truth accurately but embody it dishonestly. It creates a disconnect that confuses the wounded and hardens the doubting. Jesus doesn’t accuse them of teaching lies. He accuses them of living lies.

Then He names the disease beneath the behavior: everything they do is done to be seen by others. The long prayers. The religious clothing. The front-row seats. The public greetings. The platform. The titles. They don’t just want influence; they want admiration. They don’t just want to serve; they want status. And Jesus does not soften this diagnosis. He exposes it in front of everyone because unchecked spiritual ego multiplies its damage silently.

The pivot comes fast and sharp. “Do not be called Rabbi… you have one Teacher.” “Do not be called Father… you have one Father.” “Do not be called Instructor… you have one Instructor, the Messiah.” This is not a denial of mentorship or leadership. It is a demolition of hierarchy built for self-glory. Jesus is ripping out the spiritual ladder that people climb to feel superior to others. In the kingdom of God, elevation flows through humility, not through performance.

Then He lays down the inversion that terrifies insecure systems: the greatest among you will be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted. This is not motivational language. This is a warning label on pride. It tells us exactly how gravity works in God’s kingdom. What goes up by ego eventually falls. What descends in humility eventually rises.

Then the chapter turns into a courtroom. Seven times Jesus pronounces “woe” over the religious leaders. These are not curses thrown in anger. They are judicial declarations of spiritual danger. Each one exposes a different fracture in the same corrupted foundation.

The first woe is devastating: they shut the door of the kingdom in people’s faces. They do not enter themselves, and they prevent others from entering. This is the greatest crime of spiritual leadership. It is not ignorance. It is obstruction. It is the use of religion to block people from God instead of guiding them toward Him. It happens whenever systems become more sacred than souls.

The next woe reveals manipulation cloaked as devotion. They travel land and sea to win a single convert and then make that person twice as much a child of hell as themselves. That sentence lands heavy because it shows how transmitted distortion multiplies. When unhealthy leaders recruit followers, they don’t just spread belief—they spread blindness.

Then comes the woe about oaths. They create complicated hierarchies of words to protect themselves from accountability. Swearing by the temple means nothing, but by the gold of the temple is binding. Swearing by the altar means nothing, but by the gift on the altar is binding. This is spiritual legal gymnastics designed to sound holy while evading responsibility. Jesus dismantles their logic down to the dust. You cannot separate God from the things that belong to God. You cannot compartmentalize truth. Integrity either exists everywhere or nowhere.

Then the critique moves to their obsession with minor religious precision while neglecting the core of God’s heart. They tithe herbs down to the leaf—mint, dill, cumin—but neglect the weightier matters of the law: justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Jesus does not condemn discipline. He condemns misplaced devotion. He says you should have practiced both, without neglecting the other. They focused on polishing ritual while ignoring righteousness. They knew religious math but forgot divine compassion.

“Blind guides,” He calls them. Straining out a gnat but swallowing a camel. That image is almost absurd—tiny detail filtering paired with massive moral blindness. It pictures a spirituality that micromanages trivialities while excusing cruelty, greed, and oppression.

Then He moves from the outside to the inside. They clean the outside of cups and dishes, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. The issue is not surface behavior. It is interior formation. Jesus always goes straight to the core. Outward holiness without inward transformation is just spiritual costuming.

The next woe describes how they are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside, full of dead bones on the inside. This is one of the most haunting metaphors in the entire gospel. Whitewash was applied to tombs so travelers wouldn’t touch them and become ceremonially unclean. These leaders looked radiant, respectable, pure. Inside, they were spiritually decomposing. This reveals that not everything that looks alive actually is.

Then comes the final woe: they build tombs for the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, claiming they would never have behaved like their ancestors. Yet by rejecting Jesus, they prove they are exactly the same. They honor the dead voices they feel safe with while silencing the living voice that confronts them. It is easy to love prophets once they are gone. It is dangerous to listen while they are alive.

And then the chapter turns again—this time from judgment to grief. Jesus cries out over Jerusalem. The same voice that thundered against hypocrisy now trembles with sorrow. “How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” This is not rage speaking. This is heartbreak. Divine heartbreak.

He acknowledges that rejection was not accidental. It was chosen. You were not willing. That sentence echoes down every generation. God’s desire to protect, gather, and cover was met with refusal. And the result is devastation. “Your house is left to you desolate.” The cost of resisting grace is always emptiness.

Yet even here, at the edge of judgment, hope is not erased. “You will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” That is not just a prophecy of Palm Sunday. It is an open future invitation. It whispers that recognition can still happen. That eyes can still open. That repentance is still possible.

Matthew 23 is not anti-religion. It is anti-deception. It is not anti-leadership. It is anti-performance masquerading as holiness. It is not anti-truth. It is anti-truth used without love.

And it is not a chapter meant for “them.” It is a chapter meant for every heart that ever turns God into a tool for power, visibility, or self-protection. It confronts the subtle ways people use spiritual language to avoid spiritual surrender. It exposes how easily devotion can become decoration. How prayer can become performance. How doctrine can become defense against transformation.

This chapter levels everyone. Titles mean nothing here. Platforms evaporate here. Applause dies here. The only thing that survives Matthew 23 is humility that actually bends the knee.

Jesus is not calling people out to destroy them. He is calling them out because what is hidden is lethal. Hypocrisy poisons both the one who practices it and the one who follows it. And the reason His words feel scorching is because the disease they confront is terminal without truth.

What makes this chapter unsettling is that the Pharisees were not outsiders. They were Scripture experts. They fasted. They prayed. They studied. They tithed. They served in the temple system. Their downfall was not rebellion. It was substitution. They replaced intimacy with system. They replaced obedience with optics. They replaced repentance with ritual.

And the terrifying lesson is this: you can be very busy in God’s house and never actually live in God’s presence.

Matthew 23 does not ask whether we believe in God. It asks whether we are willing to be undone by Him.

This chapter is a mirror held up to spiritual culture across every generation. It forces an uncomfortable question into the room: Are we following Jesus… or just performing belief in Him?

And part of what makes Matthew 23 so necessary is that real hypocrisy rarely looks ugly at first. It looks polished. It sounds articulate. It quotes Scripture. It carries authority. It prays publicly. It gives publicly. It leads publicly. That is why discernment cannot be built on appearance. Jesus teaches us to look for fruit that grows in the dark when no one is watching.

The chapter also redefines leadership forever. Authority in the kingdom is not about elevation. It is about weight carried for the sake of others. It is not about being served. It is about serving in obscurity without applause. It dismantles the entire concept of spiritual celebrity. The closer someone claims to be to God, the more their life should bend low, not stand tall.

And as harsh as the words are, they are spoken by the same mouth that heals lepers, forgives adulterers, and welcomes thieves. The rebuke is not contradictory to His mercy. It is an extension of it. He is exposing what blocks mercy from flowing freely.

What Matthew 23 ultimately reveals is that God is not fooled by religious theater. Heaven does not mistake volume for virtue. God does not confuse memorized Scripture with transformed hearts. He sees the inside of the cup. He knows what fills the tomb. He reads what is beneath the robe.

And yet, even in this chapter of confrontation, the image Jesus gives of himself at the end is not of a judge with a hammer. It is of a mother with wings. A hen longing to cover her vulnerable children. That is the heartbeat beneath the discipline. The goal was never condemnation. The goal was always covering.

Matthew 23 does something that few chapters in Scripture dare to do. It refuses to let anyone hide behind the safety of “those people back then.” The temptation is to read these words like a historical transcript—Jesus versus the Pharisees—ancient clash, ancient failure, ancient lesson. But the truth is far more uncomfortable. This chapter is not trapped in first-century Jerusalem. It breathes in every age. It presses on every system that ever confused structure with surrender. And if we are honest, it presses on us.

The danger of hypocrisy is not that it deceives others. The deepest danger is that it first deceives the one who practices it. It allows a person to keep the external motions of faith while the internal posture slowly dissolves. Over time, performance replaces prayer. Image replaces intimacy. And what began as genuine devotion slowly mutates into spiritual muscle memory—movements without marvel, words without wonder, rituals without reverence.

Jesus is not attacking discipline. He is attacking disconnection. The Pharisees didn’t stop believing in God. They stopped being vulnerable before Him.

One of the most sobering realities of Matthew 23 is that Jesus is not speaking to people who abandoned Scripture. He is speaking to people who memorized it. Their problem was not a lack of knowledge. It was a surplus of control. They knew how to quote God without trembling before Him anymore.

This is why this chapter still shakes churches, leaders, and believers today. Because the danger zone is not skepticism. The danger zone is spiritual familiarity without spiritual awe. When God becomes predictable, controllable, and manageable, we stop being transformed by Him. The fire becomes a prop. The altar becomes a stage. The mystery becomes a script.

Jesus calls them blind guides. That phrase alone is haunting. A guide is supposed to lead people forward. Blindness doesn’t stop movement—it misdirects it. That’s what makes blind leadership so destructive. People trust the direction, not realizing the one in front cannot see the cliff they are approaching.

And this blindness isn’t rooted in ignorance. It’s rooted in pride. Pride always convinces us that we see more clearly than we actually do. It masks insecurity as certainty. It disguises fear as control. It dresses self-protection in the language of righteousness.

This is why Jesus keeps bringing the conversation back to inward integrity. Clean the inside of the cup, He says. Not because the outside doesn’t matter—but because if the inside changes, the outside follows. Transformation is an inside-out process, never the other way around.

Whitewashed tombs might be the most unsettling image in the chapter because it captures the paradox so perfectly. Something can look holy and be hollow. Something can look alive and be full of death. Something can be admired by people and be distant from God.

And this doesn’t only apply to institutions. It applies to individuals. It applies to me. It applies to you.

It applies to any moment where we protect our image more fiercely than our conscience.

It applies every time we correct others with truth we ourselves struggle to live.

It applies when we use doctrine to win arguments instead of to wash feet.

One of the quieter indictments in Matthew 23 is how the Pharisees honored dead prophets while silencing living ones. This is still happening everywhere. We quote the courage of reformers long gone. We celebrate truth-tellers safely buried in history. We decorate their tombs with admiration because they no longer threaten our comfort. But when truth walks into the room in real time—when it challenges current power, current systems, current habits—it is suddenly inconvenient again.

It is safer to honor yesterday’s conviction than to obey today’s confrontation.

Another piercing layer of this chapter is how much it reveals about performative spirituality. “Everything they do is done to be seen by others.” That line alone feels like it was written for the modern age. Visibility has never been easier. Platforms have never been larger. Applause has never been more accessible. And yet, the spiritual hazards remain exactly the same.

It is possible to build an audience and slowly lose an altar.

It is possible to be gifted in speech and impoverished in surrender.

It is possible to be known by thousands and unknown by God.

Jesus never condemns influence. He condemns influence that feeds ego instead of obedience.

This chapter invites every leader, teacher, communicator, and believer into a terrifyingly honest self-audit. Why do I do what I do? Who am I becoming when no one is watching? What would remain of my faith if all applause disappeared?

Matthew 23 also quietly exposes how spiritual systems can drift from protection into control. The Pharisees didn’t start as villains. They began as preservationists of faith in a culture under pressure. But over time, the system they built to guard holiness became a wall that blocked grace. The laws meant to lead people toward God became fences that kept them at a distance.

This is one of the great tragedies of religion untethered from relationship. The rules keep multiplying, but the peace keeps shrinking. The procedures increase, but the presence fades.

And people get tired. They grow weary under burdens never meant for them to carry. They begin to associate God with exhaustion instead of rest. Obligation instead of healing. Fear instead of freedom.

This is why Jesus’ rebuke is actually an act of mercy. He is interrupting a cycle that was slowly suffocating people with spiritual weight instead of lifting them with divine life.

And it is telling that after all the thunder, all the exposure, all the sharp language—Jesus ends with tears.

“O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…” The repetition alone reveals emotion. He is not distancing Himself. He is aching. He is not celebrating judgment. He is grieving refusal.

“How often I wanted to gather your children together…” This confession reveals that confrontation was never born from contempt. It was born from longing. God wanted to gather. God wanted to cover. God wanted to shield. But you were not willing.

That phrase is brutal because it reminds us that resistance to grace is not passive. It is chosen. Love was offered. Covering was extended. And it was declined.

Still, even here, hope flickers. You will see me again when you recognize me. When blessing replaces resistance. When surrender replaces defense.

This is the tension Matthew 23 leaves us in. Exposure without despair. Judgment without finality. Reckoning without hopelessness.

So what does all of this demand from modern faith?

It demands that we stop using church as camouflage for transformation.

It demands that we stop confusing participation with obedience.

It demands that we stop applauding performance more than we honor integrity.

It demands that we welcome private repentance as much as we celebrate public worship.

It demands that leaders tremble again.

It demands that believers examine again.

Matthew 23 forces us to confront a faith that is willing to be seen but reluctant to be changed.

And it also gives us a rescue route. The path forward is not perfection. It is humility. Not image management, but heart surrender. Not performance, but posture.

There is a reason Jesus dismantles titles in this chapter. He knows how easily identity becomes idol. Rabbi. Father. Instructor. The danger is not the words themselves. The danger is when people begin to feed on what those words give them emotionally. When worth becomes sourced from recognition instead of relationship with God.

Jesus collapses the hierarchy by pointing everyone back to the same place. One Teacher. One Father. One Instructor. The ground at the foot of the Cross is level. The ground at the foot of the altar is flat. No one kneels higher than anyone else.

This chapter also redefines success in the kingdom. Success is not conversion counts achieved through manipulation. It is not doctrinal precision paired with relational indifference. It is not visibility sustained by spiritual exhaustion. Success in God’s economy looks like quiet obedience. Quiet service. Quiet holiness that never makes headlines.

Matthew 23 is a safeguard chapter. It protects the church from becoming a stage. It protects leaders from becoming celebrities. It protects believers from becoming actors. It protects truth from being weaponized. It protects grace from being barricaded.

And most importantly, it protects the vulnerable. Because hypocritical religion always crushes the vulnerable first. The poor. The wounded. The confused. The searching. They don’t need more weight—they need more welcome. They don’t need heavier loads—they need shelter under wings.

And that image of wings lingers.

A hen does not gather chicks with authority. She gathers them with exposure. She covers them with her own body. She absorbs the wind. She absorbs the danger. She shields the fear. That is what Jesus wanted for Jerusalem. That is what He still wants for every soul that will let Him near enough to cover.

This chapter does not end in triumph. It ends in invitation through sorrow. And that is exactly where real transformation always begins—not in spectacle, but in surrender.

Matthew 23 leaves us with no applause break. No easy exit. No triumphant anthem. It leaves us alone with a mirror, a tear, and a question.

Will we be willing?

Willing to lay down image.

Willing to release control.

Willing to stop performing.

Willing to start repenting.

Willing to be gathered instead of guarded.

Because the truth is this: You can defend your reputation and still lose your soul. You can preserve your platform and still drift from your prayer closet. You can master Scripture and still resist surrender. You can look alive while slowly hollowing out inside.

And Jesus loves us too much to leave us there.

Matthew 23 is not comfortable. But it is kind. It is the kind of kindness that wakes you up before the fire spreads. It is the kind of kindness that pulls the mask off before the air runs out. It is the kind of kindness that exposes so that healing can finally begin.

This chapter does not exist to shame the church. It exists to save it from becoming something Jesus never intended.

A stage instead of a shelter.

A show instead of a sanctuary.

A hierarchy instead of a family.

A performance instead of a presence.

And if we let it, Matthew 23 will do something holy in us. It will make us lighter. Because pride is heavy. Performance is heavy. Image management is exhausting. But humility breathes. Surrender rests. Mercy flows.

This chapter is not just a warning. It is a doorway.

And the same Jesus who confronted hypocrisy is the same Jesus who still spreads His wings and waits.

— Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

Watch Douglas Vandergraph’s inspiring faith-based videos on YouTube

Support the ministry by buying Douglas a coffee

There are moments in Scripture where Jesus does more than teach. He reveals the very heartbeat of God, exposing the world as it really is while uncovering who we really are. Matthew 22 is one of those chapters. Every conversation Jesus has in these verses carries a weight that presses into the soul, stretching across centuries to speak directly to the person wrestling with faith, fear, identity, purpose, and the ache of wondering whether they truly belong in God’s story. As we sit with this chapter, the brilliance of Jesus becomes unmistakable, not simply because He wins debates or outsmarts religious leaders, but because He keeps insisting that the doorway into the kingdom is wider, deeper, and more transformative than anyone expected. In a world that constantly tells people they are not enough, Jesus offers a kingdom that refuses to stop calling their name.

Matthew paints this chapter like a tapestry woven from three threads: invitation, confrontation, and revelation. It begins with a parable about a king who refuses to let the celebration of his son’s wedding be empty, even when those invited treat his generosity with contempt. Then it moves into the tense air of public challenge as religious leaders and political groups try to corner Jesus with trick questions designed to break Him. And finally, it ends with Jesus turning the entire narrative around, revealing not only that the Messiah is more than a descendant of David but that He is Lord in ways they have never imagined. Through it all, one truth rises: God’s kingdom calls, pursues, confronts, invites, corrects, and awakens people in ways that expose two realities at once—how deeply God loves us, and how easily we resist a love that big.

The parable of the wedding banquet sets the stage. Jesus describes a king who prepares everything for a wedding feast—lavish, extravagant, generous beyond measure. The invitations go out, yet the people invited treat the king’s kindness as though it is a burden. Some walk away with indifference. Others respond with violence. The messengers, symbols of prophets and voices sent by God, are beaten and killed. This is not just about biblical history; it is about the ongoing tension between God’s persistent invitation and humanity’s persistent resistance. It is painful to admit, but we often reject what we claim we deeply desire. God offers joy, purpose, renewal, forgiveness, relationship, and identity, yet people often cling to whatever distracts them, numbs them, or grants temporary comfort. The banquet is ready, but many never make it to the table because the noise of daily life drowns out the call.

And yet, the king refuses to let the celebration die. This is the detail that reveals the nature of God more clearly than any religious structure ever could: God does not stop inviting. If the ones who were first invited refuse, He sends invitations to those no one expected people from the streets, people society ignored, people who never imagined a king would look their way. This is where the heart of the gospel shines. The kingdom is not upheld by human worthiness. It is upheld by divine generosity. The original guests were not valuable because of their status, and the new guests are not honored because of their lack of it. The feast is not about who they are. It is about who the King is.

This is something people still misunderstand today. Many believe the kingdom of God is only for people who have it all together, who pray flawlessly, who understand every theological nuance, who behave perfectly and never struggle with doubt. But Jesus’ parable dismantles this idea entirely. The people who assumed they deserved the invitation refused it, and the people who never thought they belonged were welcomed in. The gospel is not a reward for the spiritually successful. It is a rescue for the spiritually hungry. It is a reminder that grace is not an accessory to your life—it is the foundation for everything your life will ever become.

But then Jesus includes a detail that unsettles people: one person at the banquet isn’t wearing wedding clothes and is removed. People often misinterpret this as harsh or contradictory to grace, but it reveals something deeper. The wedding garment is symbolic of transformation—of responding to God’s invitation not with indifference or arrogance but with a willingness to let Him shape your life. The issue is not the guest’s background, history, failures, or social standing. The issue is their refusal to honor the king by embracing the change that comes with entering the kingdom. Grace is free, but it is not cheap. It invites you to come as you are, but it never leaves you as you were. In the kingdom of God, love does not merely comfort; it reshapes. Mercy does not merely forgive; it restores. God does not only invite you to the table; He clothes you in a new way of living that reflects who He is.

When Jesus finishes the parable, the atmosphere shifts. The religious leaders who feel threatened by His authority begin plotting traps. They want Him silenced, embarrassed, or discredited. The Pharisees send their disciples with a question about taxes, hoping to force Jesus into a political statement that would cost Him either public support or Roman tolerance. It is a manipulative, calculated attack, built not to seek truth but to weaponize it. Yet Jesus answers with a clarity that cuts through the tension: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” It is a reminder that while believers live within earthly systems, their identity, allegiance, purpose, and worth do not originate there. The image on the coin belonged to Caesar, but the image on humanity belongs to God. This means every human being carries divine imprint, divine value, and divine purpose, regardless of how governments, critics, or systems attempt to define them.

Then the Sadducees step forward with a hypothetical question about marriage in the resurrection. Their goal is not to understand eternal life but to mock it. Jesus not only corrects their misunderstanding but shows that resurrection life is bigger, fuller, and more glorious than the narrow categories people try to impose on it. Human systems of identity will not bind people in the age to come because God’s restoration is greater than anything people can imagine. Jesus points them back to Scripture, reminding them that God is “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob”—and emphasizing that He is “not the God of the dead but of the living.” If God is still their God, then they still live in Him. This was not a theological sparring match. It was Jesus pulling back the veil and revealing a God whose life-giving power is so complete that death cannot undo His promises.

Then comes the final question—one that tries to define the greatest commandment. The Pharisees believe they are testing Jesus, yet Jesus reveals the essence of the entire law in two unshakeable truths: love God with everything in you, and love your neighbor as yourself. These are not soft commands. They require a rearrangement of the heart. They require a surrender of pride, ego, self-protection, bitterness, and the desire to win. They require humility, compassion, patience, and faith. What Jesus is describing is not religious behavior; it is the core of what a transformed life looks like. If you love God truly, you cannot help but love people. And if you love people sincerely, you cannot help but reflect the heart of God.

But Jesus does not stop there. He flips the script and asks the religious leaders a question they cannot answer: “How is the Messiah both David’s son and David’s Lord?” In this moment, Jesus reveals what they could not see—that He is not simply a teacher or prophet but the fulfillment of promises stretching back through all of Scripture. The Messiah is not merely a king in David’s line; He is the Lord who gave David his throne. Jesus is declaring that the kingdom He brings is not one of political power or religious dominance. It is a kingdom rooted in divine authority, eternal truth, and transformative love. He is not a reformer of old systems—He is the foundation of a new creation.

This chapter reminds every reader that God’s invitation reaches further than people expect, confronts deeper than people admit, and transforms more profoundly than people imagine. It challenges the comfortable and comforts the broken. It calls out to the weary, the overlooked, and the spiritually hungry. It strips away pride, exposes hollow religion, and reveals a kingdom built not on status but on surrender. Matthew 22 is not just a story about Pharisees, Sadducees, and ancient debates. It is a mirror held up to every heart today. It asks questions no one can escape: What will you do with God’s invitation? What will you give your allegiance to? What kind of love shapes your life? And who do you say Jesus truly is?

Matthew 22 is more than a chapter. It is a confrontation with the deepest parts of your soul and an invitation into the deepest parts of God’s heart.

The invitation of the kingdom never loses its urgency. What makes the opening parable of Matthew 22 so unsettling is not the rejection of the guests—it is the persistence of the King. God does not cancel the banquet simply because people refuse to attend. He does not withdraw the invitation because it is ignored. He does not lower the standard because people misunderstand Him. Instead, He expands the reach. This is one of the most overlooked truths of Scripture: rejection never diminishes God’s generosity. It simply reveals His willingness to go further to reach those who never expected to be found. The streets become holy ground. The overlooked become honored guests. The forgotten become first in line at the feast.

There is a quiet grief embedded in that parable that people often miss. The King wanted those first guests there. They were not trick-invited. They were genuinely desired. This reveals a painful truth about God’s heart: He does not casually discard those who turn away. Their rejection costs Him something. Love always risks loss. Love always opens itself to heartbreak. Yet God still chooses to love, fully aware of how often that love will be rejected. That is not weakness. That is divine courage.

And that courage is still at work today. Every time someone hears truth and turns away, God feels it. Every time someone shrugs at grace, heaven notices. Every time someone treats the invitation of Christ like background noise, God does not grow numb to it. He does not become hardened. He does not become indifferent. He remains the King who keeps preparing tables for people who do not yet realize they are hungry.

Then come the traps. The shift in tone from parable to confrontation feels abrupt, but it is intentional. The same people who refuse God’s generosity now attempt to entangle God’s Son with legal arguments and political pressure. The question about taxes is not about civic responsibility—it is about control. They want to force Jesus into choosing sides so that His authority can be discredited. But Jesus does something deeper. He exposes the counterfeit nature of their concern. They claim to be spiritual but are fixated on political leverage. They claim to care about righteousness but are motivated by image and influence.

“Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” is not a clever escape. It is a spiritual boundary line. Jesus is saying that systems have their place, but they are never ultimate. Governments can regulate money, borders, laws, and structures. But they cannot regulate the soul. They cannot rewrite identity. They cannot define eternal purpose. The image stamped on a coin gives Caesar limited claim. The image stamped on humanity gives God infinite claim. Your value does not come from the world that taxes you. It comes from the God who formed you.

That truth still cuts through the confusion of our time. People are exhausted by politics, divided by ideology, and overwhelmed by the constant pressure to choose sides. Jesus reminds us that our lives are not owned by systems. Our hearts are not governed by institutions. Our future is not dictated by cultural tides. Our being belongs to the One whose image we carry. This does not remove us from responsibility—it anchors us in a higher identity so that we do not lose ourselves trying to survive within lower kingdoms.

The Sadducees enter next, armed with intellectual skepticism disguised as sincere inquiry. Their question is built on a shallow view of eternity. They reduce resurrection to social logistics instead of spiritual reality. Jesus dismantles their framework not with ridicule, but with revelation. Resurrection is not a reorganized version of earthly systems. It is not a continuation of broken patterns dressed in brighter colors. It is the arrival of a new order governed fully by the life of God. It is restoration at a level that renders old categories inadequate.

When Jesus calls God “the God of the living,” He is not making a poetic statement. He is redefining what life actually is. Life is not merely breath in lungs or a pulse in the wrist. Life is sustained connection to God Himself. This is why death cannot sever it. This is why faith is not blind optimism—it is alignment with the deepest reality in existence. If God remains, life remains. Even when the physical vessel fails, the relationship continues. The resurrection is not a theory. It is the natural consequence of a God who refuses to abandon what He has claimed as His own.

The greatest commandment conversation then pulls everything inward. Love God. Love people. All of the law hangs on this. This is not a reduction. It is a consolidation. Jesus compresses thousands of rules into two relational realities. This does not lower the standard—it intensifies it. It means that righteousness is not measured by how well you navigate religious behaviors but by how deeply love governs your inner world.

To love God with all your heart, soul, and mind means surrendering your inner drive, your emotional loyalty, your intellectual allegiance, and your deepest motivations to Him. It means faith is not compartmentalized into weekends or rituals. It becomes the architecture of your entire existence. And to love your neighbor as yourself means you are no longer the center of your moral universe. Compassion becomes instinctive. Grace becomes reflexive. Mercy becomes a lifestyle. You begin to treat people not as obstacles, competitors, or categories, but as reflections of the image you yourself carry.

This command dismantles religious hierarchy. It removes the ladder. It exposes hypocrisy. Anyone can perform spirituality in public. Only love reveals transformation in private. Only love survives inconvenience. Only love speaks truth without cruelty and offers grace without compromise. This is why Jesus says all the law and prophets hang on these commands. Everything Scripture points toward converges here—transformed hearts expressing transformed love.

Then comes the final reversal. Jesus asks a question that silences His challengers. The Messiah is not just David’s son—He is David’s Lord. This is the moment where the entire chapter crystallizes. Every challenge, every parable, every question has been building toward this truth: Jesus is not just an invited guest at God’s banquet. He is the Son for whom the banquet was prepared. He is not merely a teacher in Israel’s story. He is the center of God’s redemptive plan across all history.

Matthew 22 is therefore not primarily a debate chapter. It is a revelation chapter. It shows us a God who invites relentlessly, confronts lovingly, corrects firmly, reveals boldly, and loves persistently. It reveals a kingdom that does not bend to human power games, political traps, intellectual arrogance, or religious pride. It reveals a Christ who cannot be reduced to categories or confined to expectations.

This chapter forces every reader to answer the same questions the original audience faced. Will you respond to the invitation or dismiss it as background noise? Will you allow grace to clothe you in transformation or will you enter the banquet clinging to self-rule? Will you give your allegiance to temporary systems or to the eternal King? Will your faith be rooted in arguments or in love? And when everything else is stripped away, who do you believe Jesus truly is?

These are not abstract questions. They surface in daily life. They rise up in moments of pressure, disappointment, rejection, uncertainty, and loss. They appear when prayers feel unanswered and when obedience costs more than expected. They surface when loving people feels uncomfortable, when forgiveness feels impossible, and when surrender feels like weakness. Yet Matthew 22 insists that the kingdom of God is not built on comfort—it is built on transformation. It is not sustained by consensus—it is sustained by surrender.

The King is still inviting. The table is still being set. The doors are still open. The garments of grace are still available. The only thing undecided is whether a heart will respond.

This is the quiet power of Matthew 22. It does not entertain. It awakens. It does not flatter. It confronts. It does not settle for surface belief. It calls for total alignment. It does not merely offer religious insight. It offers kingdom identity.

And the invitation still stands.

Not because you earned it.

Not because you understood everything.

Not because you performed perfectly.

But because the King refuses to let the banquet be empty.

Because love never stops calling.

Because grace does not know how to quit.

Because the Son is still worthy of a full table.

---

Your friend, Douglas Vandergraph

Watch Douglas Vandergraph’s inspiring faith-based videos on YouTube

Support the ministry by buying Douglas a coffee

#faith #jesus #matthew22 #kingdomofgod #gospeltruth #christianlife #grace #biblicalteaching #spiritualgrowth #discipleship #christcentered #hope #belief #scripturestudy

I’ve been exploring philosophical pessimism lately. It’s not all Schopenhauer and his misery; it’s actually a pretty interesting angle. The dominant strand of philosophical thought suggests that the application of human reason, through pure reason or through technological advances, will lead us to better places. This includes in politics. Pessimism tells us to expect nothing in particular, or perhaps to expect anything. Things can always get better, or always get worse. We have no reason to expect either to occur in the long-term. We have no reason to think that we’ll ever pull ourselves up, or that any effort at pulling ourselves up will last, because we aren’t beings that can make things better reliably, or we live in a world that won’t let us make things better reliably, or both.

This seems kinda bleak. But pessimists sometimes argue this is pretty liberating and refocuses us on the right-now. We can’t trust that reason or technology or any other natural trend in human behavior or “arc of the universe” will save us. If we want a better world, we have no option other than to stand up and try to win it. We might very well fail, but the cost of trying is the possibility of failing.

I’m a Unitarian Universalist, and philosophical pessimism doesn’t slot neatly into that. As a liberal religion, it retains a certain hope for the future of humanity, a faith in our ability to improve. It commonly speaks of an “original blessing,” a belief that every soul is a sacred good in the world. That doesn’t naturally mesh with the pessimist idea that we are constitutionally incapable of reliably making things better.

But I’ve been playing with an alternative, almost “shadow” version of Unitarian Universalist theology that in many ways mirrors and complements more traditional presentations, drawing on philosophical pessimism.

The First Principle: The Inherent Worth and Dignity of Every Person

Unitarian Universalism teaches the inherent worth and dignity of every person. In fact, this is the first principle. While most Unitarian Universalists interpret this as seeing every person as a positive imprint upon the world, I understand it through seeing consciousness as the capacity to do wrong. Rocks are not conscious; rocks do not make decisions; rocks do not make mistakes. Rocks are perfect at being rocks. Humans are conscious; humans make decisions; humans make mistakes. We have the distinctive capability to do things wrong, and that is what makes us inherently valuable, and gives us dignity even when we aren’t at our best.

The Third and Fourth Principles: Communal Growth and the Free and Responsible Search for Meaning

We exist in a world that does not provide easy meaning, and we are not even provided a guide on how to find meaning. We are all in the struggle together. Because of this, we have a reason to accept one another while still helping each other grow. This growth will probably look different in each person. Our shared predicament provides the opportunity to bond over the lack of easy meaning and the process of responding to that.

The Seventh Principle: Respect for the Interdependent Web of All Existence of Which We Are a Part

This is most immediately an ecological idea, but it’s even more so. In pessimism, we find that we all share vulnerability. Every conscious being lives in a world that is not altogether friendly to consciousness, and every conscious being shares vulnerability to this world and to each other. What impacts one of us impacts the web widely; our vulnerability ties us together. The unpredictability of the world comes for us all, and impacts us all. We’re in this together.

The Second and Sixth Principles: Justice, Compassion, Peace, and Liberty for All

The fact that we’re in this together, intimately vulnerable in a world that is not altogether kind, gives us an imperative to act. The world will not get better on its own. Our only chance at improving it is if we try—and we may fail, but we have to try. Our actions constitute our reason for hope.

The Fifth Principle: The Right of Conscience and the Use of the Democratic Process Within Our Congregations and in Society at Large

And, lastly, democracy. Because if we’re in this together and our actions are our only hope for a better world, let’s act together. Hoping in individual action is self-deception about our place in the web.

---

This is a quick summary of my thoughts, but you can go deeper. For example, Unitarian Universalism contains a fascinating two-step between the individual-as-individual and individual-as-constituted, individual-as-process. You can find this in thinkers like Kierkegaard and Sartre, who felt similarly, and also found that this duality creates the potential for intense difficult emotions. Kierkegaard said, to simplify, that the misplacement caused by being both self-as-being and self-as-becoming creates an ontological condition of despair, because we can’t stabilize ourself between the two without an existential anchor. Unitarian Universalism might suggest, with Love at the Center, that love is our existential anchor. And so through Kierkegaard, a “shadow” Unitarian Universalism might discuss the difficult facts of being a person in the world, and how the path through involves love. (Not to say that no one does this; they just usually do it in quite cheery terms.)

I find pessimism healing. It returns me to the here-and-now by reminding me that the future is uncertain and says that, if I give a damn, I better do something. It tells me that I’m only human and will make mistakes, and that being only human is beautiful, even as it’s hard. It tells me that my dark moods don’t do a thing to negate my worth, and every dark thought I have is itself proof of my value.

Pessimism might not be for everyone. But I bet there’s a few souls out there that, like me, could use it. I hope they find it.