The Holidays Are Strange and Full of Horrors (Week 11/12)
Letter 013: 10 Months on Matilda
“Outside looking in, it may look like I’m barely holding things together...
…no idea how I got here, but I’m thankful. Literally beyond words.”
Ave, Lector Carsissime!
The Day is Strange and Full of Horrors… ._.
I say this every morning to the MINDSET Nation, but this week it lands differently. The holidays have a weight to them that the regular days don’t carry. Even when you’ve severed from the expected gatherings.
Especially when you’ve severed, and even more when you become Ronin.
I finished my boat manufacturing course nearly two weeks ago. It still hasn’t set in that I’m free of external obligations. My body panics at 9am when I feel like I’m supposed to be somewhere. I get paranoid when my phone doesn’t ring.
It almost feels naughty leaving the boat to take a walk in the middle of the day. I like feeling naughty…
The nervous system lags behind transformation. The body remembers the wild longer than the mind.
So I’m learning to settle. To self-domesticate after so long in survival mode. To choose which parts of the boar I forged in the wilderness to keep, and which to gentle.
It’s honestly easier to just let go and allow base desires to take me... This is more challenging than the actual survival to get here was, in a way.
This Damned Liminal Space
These days feel like the aftermath of a breakup. What do you do with all the time that used to belong to someone else? What do you do with the space where tradition was supposed to live?
Going home to Chicago used to mean close to a band in travel fare and about as much in activity funds. Then there was the “what’d you bring me?” that left me fighting an aneurysm and biting near clean through my tongue.
» So I stopped going.
Then it was awkward exchanges above ground until I retreated to the cave to listen to how-to videos and learn how to write newsletters.
Always either alone in a room of strangers, or alone with the person I’m dating, or alone with myself. Each version carries its own particular silence.
I did not have a bad childhood.
I wish I had more time talking to my uncles when they weren’t drunk, high, or passed out. I wish we were the kind to host relatives over for a few days, spending it all sharing stories and swapping tales.
father was nowhere to be found. Mother worked holidays. Grannie once served waves of strangers I’d not see again until the next year, though now she rests, as her body returns to the dirt, like my uncles. Like so many cousins, and old friends.
I went nearly twenty years before I realized I grew up in borderline poverty;
I did not have a bad childhood.
I just wish the image of holidays and family and tradition that the TV played matched the ones that played before me in reality.
For all the strength and cunning, intelligence and power I claim to have, I could not fix what was broken there.
» So I stopped trying.
My Current Reframe
I am tired.
I’d love to be surrounded by the love of kin and a partner...
It would be easy to slip into cheap pleasure and forget my longing in a bottle.
But it is better to find a plot of land and build the foundations for a garden than to spend my time chasing butterflies.
So that’s what I’m doing.
I’m here on Matilda, making the cabin glow with whatever radioactive energy keeps some people at arm’s length.
And this Holiday Season, I will plan.
I will build.
I will get these channels in order for The Revolution, and line up my articles to scaffold the projects that are waiting to be born.
I have a healthy supply of Thunder to deliver upon the mornings of the coming year. A Cult Legion of Builders to raise. Skills to learn, messages to deliver, ideas to dissect, projects to birth, people to meet, and lives to touch.
I have to build the machine that broadcasts to the world that they can build too.
The horrors are unrelenting in their pursuit of my destruction.
Though, so am I, in my pursuit of my garden site.
I will have it.
State of the Reconstruction
Outside looking in, it may look like I’m barely holding things together...
But my only goal for this entire QuarterSeason was to ship as consistently as possible, never miss a numbered drop, and build out everything that needs building before I shift focus to working on filling out core systems with value based content.
as always...
I’m behind where I wanted to be, but I’m further ahead than I ever expected possible.
For the curious:
15 months living on a boat. 14 months at current location 10 months on Matilda. 5 months, "Creator" Body of work: materializing Impact: materializing Confidence through proof: materializing I am the game changer I am a city chaker I AM RESILIENCE I will break the chains I will create the legacy I WILL BUILD EMPIRE
It still hasn’t fully set in. At least three times a week, I get out of my car personal Imperial Transport: ShadowFax, (gotta keep that delusion to a nice and obscene, healthy, level) look at the marina, and think:
“Ah, right... exhale… no idea how I got here, but I’m thankful. Literally beyond words.”
#FYP - For You Passage:
If the holidays are strange for you too, I see you. If you’re alone in rooms of strangers or alone with yourself, I see you. If you’re tired and longing and fighting the pull toward cheap comfort, I see youmotherfucker, resist! Don't you do it!
You don’t have to be okay right now. You don’t have to perform gratitude or pretend the season feels the way it’s supposed to feel.
But if you can, ship something. Even if it’s small. Even if it’s just an update that says “I’m still here, I’m still building, the horrors haven’t won yet.”
That’s enough.
That’s more than enough.
Find happiness, stillness, warmth and peace however your body and soul most need it. Cherish what you love. Protect what matters.
And when you’re ready, we build.
What Shipped Recently
He enters by invitation. He stalks you by the minute. Moments turn to hours. Hours dissolve into nothing. Another evening gone, labeled “relaxation” after the fact.
The Mornings were long, indeed.
Ships have departed the bay, delayed,
but “The Yards of Isaac’s FeverWorks Literary Engine” did not miss.
~ I bring you Thunder
Morning Thunder 011: “Your Energy Is Your Currency”
Morning Thunder 012: “Recent Pain Feels Permanent”
Morning Thunder 013: “Loyalty To A Bad Map Is Treason”
Morning Thunder 014: “Curate Or Be Curated“
Morning Thunder 015: “Work Backwards From Inevitability“
Morning Thunder 016: “Monk Mode Is For Monks. This Is War“
Morning Thunder 017: “You Can’t Fix A Toxic Environment“
The MINDSET Daily continues through the week (Extraction arc)
Video production schedule established; Daily Drops - en route
Learning to record podcasts from an air station, on a sailboat, in winter.
I AM RESILIENCE
And I will speak these words to continue my self indoctrination, in effort to maintain my success, and to indoctrinate you to believe the same about yourself.
My Friend,
I would have you speak it aloud:
As we face 2026. I AM RESILIENCE As we read to escape societies derailment I AM RESILIENCE As the day seeks to break you... I AM RESILIENCE
Next Week
The *remainder of this week is casual catch up. There will be podcasts… videos… archive updates… articles… keep an eye out.
I’d absolutely hate to surprise you on your feel when you aren’t expecting me…
The year turns. QuarterSeason 2 begins. The focus shifts from building infrastructure to attacking core systems. Revenue architecture. Community launch preparation. The machine starts generating.
But that’s next week.
This week, we rest where we can and ship where we must.
Are you with me?
Lux Ex Tenebris | Light From Darkness Per Aspera Ad Astra Through Hardships to The Gorydamn Stars — Isaac & Bobert, via Matilda, on Campaign