There's A Crack In Everything, That's How The Light Gets In
What a freakin' summer.
Gaza, Iran, Epstein, Mamdani, Exploding debt, Imploding Dems, B2 Bombers, Active Shooters, AI Doomers… What the hell!
Things are looking pretty, pretty bleak out there. The world feels unhinged, unmoored, fundamentally unsafe. Like maybe—just maybe—we've finally slipped the surly bonds and aren't coming back.
I say it constantly: the best response to madness—whatever form it takes—is staying alert. Head up, eyes open. Keep watching, keep listening, keep asking questions. Never lose your curiosity for what's happening around you.
People these days ricochet between extremes. They're either entirely on or entirely off. Completely plugged in or totally checked out. Full throttle or dead stop. Manic or catatonic. The middle path has... vanished.
Balance, people. Balance.
Stay aware. Take account. Learn what's happening. Talk about it. Debate it. Ignoring madness won't make it disappear, and it sure as hell won't make the world any less mad. But the opposite extreme—total withdrawal, detachment, disengagement—is no less a funhouse mirror. Stare at a circus long enough and you'll convince yourself the whole world is a runaway clown car—heartless, menacing, and stripped of dimension.
The danger, beyond losing your grip inside the chaos, is believing it's the whole story. It's not. The world is also filled with beauty. Kindness. Small mercies. Proofs of wonder. Sublime creativity. Moments that stun you still. The ordinary, wonderful, impossible miracle of being alive is everywhere, hiding in plain sight. You just need to look up.
The world has turned upside down. Gone insane. No argument there. But it's also filled with so much extraordinary good. And staying tuned to that, especially now, may be the sanest thing you can do.
This past week, I came across two brilliant, delicious essays that reminded me why it's worth keeping your eyes open. Proof that no matter how bleak things feel, there's still beauty in the margins and wonder in the cracks.
After all, that's how the light gets in.
The first piece by the blogger Eevee, The Rise of Whatever, is brilliant, hysterical, deeply insightful. It's easily my favorite essay of 2025, so far, and the single best, most honest, hardest-hitting piece of cultural commentary I've come across on the AI slop machine.
The second piece by the science writer Amanda Gefter, Finding Peter Putnam is a little harder to classify.
Gefter tells the incredible, almost unbelievable, story of Peter Putnam, a secret multimillionaire who mopped floors, a theorist of mind who died unknown, and just maybe the man who cracked consciousness decades ahead of his time.
Gefter's extraordinary profile is part science thriller, part tragic elegy for a hidden genius. If you care about AI, philosophy, or the strange lives of overlooked visionaries, you must read this.