More longer friend see that sky?

It was too late

A few weeks earlier, there might have been a chance to save the intrepid explorer. Alas, the environment had overpowered him and broken through all of his protective gear. The goggles, the standardized dictionaries, the regularly scheduled communal low-stakes domestic activities – they did nothing. Not even the makeshift metaphorical tying himself to the mast had helped. He had heard the siren call, and succumbed. He ventured too deep into the memetoxic environment, and did not return. Only a husk of his former self remained

To think that, back in the old days, they let young academics go alone into these territories, without even so much as a supportive conversation to back them up. A simple introduction to methodology, some theory, and then off they went. Alone, unprotected, at times also unfunded. Sacrifices to the optimism of early digital humanities

The broken man murmured, the only phrase he knew how:

Sonic, and Knuckles, and Knuckles, and Knuckles, and

He was, to put it bluntly, a good educator. Not only did students leave his lectures heads abuzz with new thoughts and a desire to get new impressions – they also anticipated each new lecture with trembling knees, and a mild sense of awe at the upcoming widening of perspective. Nor were they mere passive recipients of information; the aforementioned anticipation sparked action, reading, discussions, in some cases a whole academic habitus. From a pedagogic perspective, he was quite the thing

From a pragmatic business point of view, his presence also had distinct advantages. In survey after survey, students reported they had actively applied to this university instead of literally all the others – based on his presence alone. Indeed, even those who had managed to get enrolled at more prestigious universities had turned them down in favor of coming here. Of all the things that put the university on the map, he was one of the more significant

Alas, he also had not published a paper in 2.7 years. When the administration took note of this abysmal performance and lack of academic excellence, they immediately informed him that his contract would not be renewed

It was a mystery to everyone involved. Children all over the world had started to draw very similar pictures, seemingly without talking to each other. All explanations as to why this happened drew a blank. At first, it was thought to be cultural influences – kids drawing what they saw on television. As pictures were reportedly seen in places like North Korea, the deepest Nigerian interiors and remote villages of the Amazon, this hypothesis was rejected. For the same reason, the notion that it was a group of artists roving the lands teaching kids to draw this way (for purposes unknown), were dismissed. Scientists were, to use a popular word in the press, baffled

A comprehensive research program was put in place to solve the mystery once and for all. Every scientific discipline (and a few unscientific one, just in case) got funding to figure it out. Most scholars made the rational decision to treat this as free money to finally do some actual work instead of being forced to hunt grants nonstop, but a few took to the mystery. And, after a daring adventure involving a container ship experience a week-long timelapse, many formal interviews and a whole lot of informal restaurant chatter, they finally solved it

Turns out, it was aliens

More specifically, it was aliens trying to send a message. The problem was, they had no conception either of money or how art circulates through society, so they blindly sent it to anyone willing to draw. Given that drawing is something that kids do, the images primarily ended up in their heads, resulting in the geographical distribution that so baffled the world. Given also that kids’ paintings are not seen as meaningful communication, the message remained unheeded

The scientists in question decided not to report their findings. Instead, their article opened up with the immortal words: “As Jung postulated,”

Every corpse on Mount Everest was at one point a highly motivated person. They looked at what it would take to get where they wanted to go, assessed all the available means to get there, negotiated the process of acquiring these means, faced inevitable logistical setbacks, eventually got to the mountain, and started ascending. They could, at any point, have given up and returned home to a comfortable bed, a marked lack of extreme physical hardship, and a stable altitudinal situation. But they didn’t. They persevered, because they thought that was the thing to do.

Fortunately, our protagonists were only climbing a relatively small hill.

Get in touch with your feelings! the helpful people said. So you decided to take a look. Survey the terrain. Familiarize yourself with the lay of the land. Get to know yourself.

This is what you saw:

Nothing lived there. The ground was craggy and hard to navigate due to the constant artillery shelling, and it was hard to determine what it might have looked like before the war. Bombers flew overhead, occasionally dropping their deadly payload, occasionally becoming the payload as fighters drove them screaming into the ground.

This was not a recent battle site. That is not to say it was abandoned, or that fighting had ceased. Quite the opposite. Fighting had commenced for many moons, and any hope of peace had long since died, along with the best of several generations. This was not a recent battle site, and the bodies did not linger long enough for it to become a graveyard. Neither living nor dead prevailed. Only war.

The onslaught of feelings never ceased. At all times, they threatened to overrun the understaffed ramparts. They roamed the trenches, lurked the shadows, sprung upon those caught unaware. No place promised safety. No wall could be too high. No measure could be too extreme. All that mattered was keeping them at bay. By any means necessary and possible.

As a result of this, those areas that are not constantly reformed by the eternal explosions, are desolate hellscapes where even the thought of ecology has long since perished. Succumbed to the forces atomic, (anti)biological and chemical, nothing will ever grow there. No matter how many rays of sunshine (in the form of cheerful aphorisms ) find their way there.

As you take in the details of the scene, you notice that this isn’t the only site. In fact, it is but one of many similar theaters. The battle lines stretch out for as far as your inner eyes can see, and if the strategic maps are anything to go by, the only limit to the scale of it seems to be entropy itself.

This is your inner life. These are your feelings. This is your soul.

Get in touch with your feelings! they said.

Your only rational response is: no.