JK, JK — They’re not here to rule over us.

I did a weird thing and drank a white Monster around 4pm yesterday. I stayed up til around 11:45pm, stimming on the couch, watching youtube and fucking around on my phone when I made myself go to bed.

Surprisingly, I was able to fall asleep right away. Unsurprisingly, I found myself wide awake at 4:30 in the morning, mind at unrest.

I moved the party to the dark, pre-dawn living room and decided to keep it that way except for the glow of the TV mounted on my wall. Fired up YouTube (yes, I’m hopelessly addicted to YouTube) and my eyes were graced with this:

Jason Silva first happened upon my awareness back in 2013. He was a guest on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast (which I watched religiously at the time), and I was seriously impressed with his ability mastery of language and his ability to say profound things over and over again; It definitely opened my eyes to some new ways of thinking. Jason is a gifted wordsmith - you can tell he’s a true appreciator of the experience he dreams and writes about and I admire his work.

This short film, “The Arrival of the Psychedelic Puppets” (made by Jason and Brad Necyk) was apparently animated in a week(!) using MidJourney and Runway AI tools. It’s presented in a documentary style, with the AI really shining through in all the wildly detailed depictions of the various “Psychedelic Puppets” that sit not-so-firmly in that uncanny valley. And obviously - as suggested by the title and subject matter - it’s trippy, but it’s not druggy. And as striking as the visuals are, I want to give the message of hope, inspiration and possibility the attention I feel it deserves.

The film introduces the Psychedelic Puppets (PPs) to the viewer as these beings that exist in our world (they can be seen and heard, and their impact on the happenings of the world are all around us) but otherwise they leave no trace. They’re known and referred to metaphorically by the ones that have only heard stories, but the ones that know (or know others that know) know that these beings are real and many of us have encountered them on our journeys. And the way the story is told leaves the door open for one to think that this is a work of fiction. But don’t let the heavy use of metaphor fool you — this is about our world.

You see - this story of “what if these things called psychedelic puppets were suddenly noticed by people — what then?” is actually an allegory for the awakening of consciousness that we are living through at this moment in history. These psychedelic puppets are the personification of the absurdity in which we live: we are all one — with everything! — yet we struggle, fight, and are blinded to this ultimate truth.

The result of this is that instead of seeing possibility and letting our imaginations fill in the blanks with what we desire, our futile efforts to demystify and explain away the world out of fear or self-preservation can oftentimes lead us down a path of “naïve realism—the realism of hardened materialists, literalists, and reductionists. Those stuck exclusively in the psychological poverty and existential dread of the objective world”.

And while objectivity obviously has its place in matters of fact, this type of thinking, previously thought to be the only rational way of thinking, has its own tendency to become a race to the bottom when used exclusively. Because without the subjective POV, the objective POV is meaningless.

Beyond the visual impact of their otherworldly appearance, the film relays a few messages “direct” from the Psychedelic Puppets:

The puppets tell us, "Your map of the world is wrong." They suggest, "Where you have centered physics, you should actually place literature as the central metaphor to map reality." "Truth but no logic" is their motto. And it is as important as rational thought. "We aren't after accuracy," they tell us. "We are after poetry."

I love this because it’s such a curt way of saying “try looking at it another way”. Maps serve a purpose - they are intended to help you get to a destination. When we use a map without a destination in mind, it starts to become a limitation. It may enable you to visually discern based on what’s on the map, but when you’re looking to set a destination, has “must exist on the map” become something that’s become a given? In order to give ourselves the widest berth for becoming our truest selves, we need to start diving in before needing to reference a guide for how we “should” live our lives.

The puppets elaborated, "In a world where anything you want is true, the only way to deal with this is by learning how to deal with your will. Dealing with will is what magic, in all cultures, has always been about."

It’s alluded to in the film, but in today’s age of AI and the way information has been commoditized it can be downright impossible to re-orient and recontextualize the noise.

The reflexive option is to drown out the noise, to blame the world for being too noisy, ugly, incorrect, wrong, hateful, cheap, rude, or stupid (the list is ever growing, and can encapsulate all of the ways in which people are lacking, have been lacking, or will ever be lacking). This strategy depends on a strong sense of self (obviously, to know where you stand on all matters of opinion), and depending on how far you are willing to go and the resources at your disposal, you can make everyone that you disagree with STFU (i.e. - nuke the world). Once we learn how it is the “world” works, it can be easy to see all the flaws in what once shined so bright that the association with it can make us ashamed to take part, so we withdraw, distract ourselves, or demand change.

The true battle, however, isn’t the one we wage against the world, but the only battle there really is: the battle of will. But what WILL you do?

The puppets continued, "Love, beauty, truth—these are the vectors of human becoming. They always have been, and they always will be. The technologies that open these paths for you are no more and no less powerful than the human beings that wield them. So, this is an enterprise of integrity and millennial implication. What lies as our goal is true human unity in sympathetic symbiosis with the planet. That is the challenge at the end of history."

It always, only comes down to this, friends.

At the center, the root, of it all: the awareness that is at the center of our being. The love we hold in our hearts. The loving awareness that we are. And I know that if I am that, then that is also you. So there is nothing to fear, since I am not my body. And that is what will drive me, and what I will use to define my will.

And in times like today, where uncertainty about the future is wielded over us like a threat, being armed with this knowledge is like a forcefield. There is nothing to fear. I don’t know the details of what will happen next (I’ve got some hunches, but more on that later :) ), but I know there’s only one true ending to the story, which is a return home for everything. Ah so.

As far as what this means for everyone: internalizing the message the Psychedelic Puppets have sent to us individually, will naturally mean that we become whatever we want to be as a collective. In whatever it is we end up wanting/wanting to do, we do it the way we want to - IN LOVE - because to choose to not do so is just as absurd as choosing to.

And you wouldn’t want to be absurd :P

I love you!