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Epistle: The Weight of Worlds (October 6-8, 2025)

The Geopolitical Monster

Six weeks ago I began an undertaking to write a "short essay" on the re-emerging multipolar world order. The research for it has metastasized into a 26-page monster of notes; a dense, sprawling chronology of global political structure since World War II, and often long before. The difficulty isn't just attempting to articulate five paragraphs of accessible comment on the situation; it's the total, terrifying immersion.

Buried in this history, I have been genuinely horrified to witness the accelerating erosion of U.S. strategic advantages. This decline is not a sudden external shock but a self-inflicted wound, fueled by crippling domestic political polarization and the utter loss of a long-term strategic vision. The real torment is the apparent silence: the complete lack of expressed awareness from our national "leadership" that they even grasp the gravity of the situation, let alone that it requires immediate, adaptive action.

All this high-level geopolitical anxiety is exhausting, proving that even the attempt to distill it into a few cogent paragraphs can drain a person. I am simultaneously trying to knit this massive collection of notes into a few meaningful pages while navigating life as a homeless writer. The constant, crushing logistics of being a person with no reliable place to be—the prioritization of laundry, food acquisition, and safe space—unrelentingly competes with the intellectual work.

The Bureaucratic Deception

Which is how I ended up here, at the library on a Monday morning, hammering out this small update. The guilt over the unfinished essay has become a lead weight—a pressure so heavy it forces me to file this piece of writing just to pretend I've accomplished something. It is a small, necessary bureaucratic deception against my own conscience.

The essay still looms, the world is still burning, but perhaps a smaller, more immediate injustice can sustain me: It's October 6th, and still no word on the Book Club pick. "Announced October First" should mean October First. Proof that waiting for a woman is as much a fact as it is a sexist cliché. (The pick, I now realize, may finally be out. Small victories.)

The Chaos and the Calm

I did manage a small material victory on Tuesday: I got laundry done. I was quite relieved to find my only other pair of pants was not ruined by the half bottle of nicotine vape I spilled on them last month. It's a moment of small, bizarre relief in a world that increasingly looks less like a path to a meaningful future and more like a slow death from resource constraints.

That grim contemplation led me to the wildlife refuge at the beach. It is wild how quickly the summer came and went. The summer beach crowd has mostly cleared out, leaving the shore to a few outdoor enthusiasts and myself. I took off my shoes and walked along the sand, noticing the empty shells of horseshoe crabs scattered at the high-tide line—hollow traces of life. I found myself wondering how these alien creatures met their end. After my stroll, I sat, staring out at the immense ocean and the cargo ships on the horizon, contemplating my own smallness and immediate needs. When I got back to The Spot, I made a pretty good sandwich with the last of my zucchini and spam.

I wonder if there will ever be a day when I feel competent as a writer.