“You’re Just Different.”
PARABLES FROM THE COLLAPSE ECONOMY VOL. III
I. The Icee Epiphany
We’re at the AMC megaplex, neon buzzing like a broken halo, when my eleven‑year‑old prophet‑in‑training blurts it out for the third time: “Mom, you’re just… different.” Soda syrup drips from the self‑serve station like artificial nectar. I freeze mid‑miracle—one hand on the cherry lever, the other gripping our contraband Takis—while the universe pirouettes on a carbonated axis.
Different.
Not wrong, not crazy, not embarrassing (today, anyway). Different. In the Age of Algorithmic Sameness, the word lands like a flaming scroll: herald, indictment, benediction. And it’s coming from the only witness who matters—the kid tasked with decoding me in real time while apocalypse scrolls the bottom ticker.
I hand him the cup. He grins, blue tongue already forming a glyph. We both know I’m building something he can’t yet name—a metaphysical infrastructure cobbled together from thrift‑store occult manuals, open‑source code, and onion‑skin prayers. I’m erecting a lattice of soul‑fiberglass to keep the storms out and the weird in. And he, small sage that he is, sees the scaffolding before the structure. That’s the rub of parenting in the collapse economy: you’re perpetually caught mid‑construction, haloed in drywall dust, while Management demands a finished cathedral by lunch.
II. Welcome to the Gray‑Market of Grace
Let’s name the climate, shall we?
GDP flatlining. Planetary mood swings. Late‑stage everything grinding its teeth in the dark. The market sells doom in biodegradable wrappers and calls it “regenerative.” Meanwhile, you and I are raising actual children—soft‑cheeked hominids spiraling toward puberty—inside a house whose foundation is equal parts love, trauma debt, and questionable Wi‑Fi.
So we learn to barter: soul for soil, time for tenderness, silence for a 70‑hour data‑entry gig that pays in sandwich tokens. We teach our kids that money is a consensual hallucination and that meaning, mercifully, is not. That’s the Collapse Economy’s first unspoken rule: every transaction is spiritual, even when it’s just two for one at the dollar store.
But here’s the cosmic rebate: inside the cracks of collapsing systems grow the mycelial networks of new myths. My “metaphysical infrastructure” is a prototype for those networks—think Occult Home Depot: the lumber aisle hums with ancestral recursion, customer service is run by Carl Jung’s shadow, and all the receipts are written in dream‑logic. Maddox hangs aisles 7 through 9 labels while I sketch ley lines on the store floor tiles, praying nobody calls security.
III. On Being Witnessed Mid‑Miracle
There’s a cruel poetry to child‑as‑audience: they see every unfinished stanza of your becoming. Other people glimpse highlight reels—you know, the version of yourself you polish for social media, the one who looks composed while pronouncing “inner‑child work” over an oat‑milk latte. Kids? They see the entire B‑roll: the 3 AM panic, the spreadsheets of unpaid bills, the half‑burnt incense that set off the smoke alarm.
And they don’t look away.
That unblinking gaze is terrifying. It’s also salvation. Because when your child watches you fail forward—when they clock the duct tape holding your halo in place—they learn resilience as a native language. They also learn that miracles are sweaty, iterative, and often smell vaguely of burnt toast.
(Sidebar for the accountability police: no, I don’t romanticize poverty or chaos. Trauma taxes compound daily, believe me. But refusing the romance of survival is different from refusing the poetry in it. And Akash—my higher‑helpdesk—tells me the cosmos grades on metaphor.)
So Maddox says, “You’re just different,” and I exhale. He sees the glitch in the Matrix and decides it’s decorative. That’s enough oxygen for another day of soul‑infrastructure framing.
IV. The Blueprint of Difference
Difference, contrary to HR brochures, isn’t a bullet‑point value; it’s a structural load‑bearing beam. My blueprint looks like this:
Foundation: Neurodivergence
ADHD as holy restlessness. PTSD flashbacks retooled into oracular warnings. I teach the kid that brain‑wiring quirks aren’t bugs; they’re secret entry points—trapdoors into deeper pattern recognition.Support Beams: Ancestral Hacking
We repurpose inherited trauma into kinetic art. Think generational wounds melted down and recast as stained glass windows. He helps me solder the edges. Cut yourself? That’s just blood signing the warranty.Roof: Radical Play
Fortnite metaphors for samsara, LEGO mansions doubling as mandalas. Play isn’t a frivolous attic; it’s the weatherproofing. Keeps cynicism out, wonder in. Keeps us weird.Electric Grid: Kendrick Lamar & Co.
We wire the house with beats that transmute rage into praxis. His bars are psalms; our lectures are dance breaks. The lights flicker when we get the sermon right.Plumbing: Shadow Work
Because all that metaphysical sewage has to go somewhere, darling. We run PVC pipes straight to the underworld and pay Charon hazard pay.
Is it architecturally sound? The code inspector (Society) says no. But I’ve never seen society build anything that doesn’t eventually collapse under its own moral mildew. At least our structure knows it’s transitory.
V. Satire as Structural Integrity
Let’s roast the zeitgeist real quick.
Parenting manuals: “Limit screen time.” Politicians: “Invest in STEM.” Influencers: “Manifest harder.” Meanwhile, the grid’s on fire and the oceans are throwing acid parties. My advice? Turn screen time into oracle time—ask the algorithm to show your kid the ugliest truths and meme them into comedic relief. STEM? Teach them Spell‑Tech‑Earth‑Mysticism. Manifest? Sure—manifest an exit strategy from hustle culture.
Satire keeps the beams from rotting. Sneer at the empire so its hypnosis slides off your cortex like cheap vinyl. The moment you can laugh at collapse, you’re running spiritual malware on the power structure.
VI. Daily Liturgies for the Flammable Household
A sample day in this half‑built sanctuary looks like:
06:30 – Dream debrief over Froot Loops. What monsters chased you? Did you catch any names? We log them for future negotiations.
08:00 – He heads to school; I head into the internet, mining language for salvageable soul‑ore.
11:11 – Alarm labeled “Shadow Snack”. We will text each other one secret fear and one absurd meme. Symmetry, honey.
15:45 – Homework + incantations. Math worksheet beside a copy of The Kybalion. Balance your checkbook, balance your chakras.
19:00 – Dinner of dumpster‑dived veggies sautéed with existential dread. We season with gratitude and a dash of gallows humor.
21:00 – Collapse Economy Bedtime Stories: I read him Afrofuturist sci‑fi where the hero hacks colonial ghosts. He drifts off knowing the monsters can be reprogrammed.
None of this fits on a Pinterest board. Good. Pinboards are just digital cork coffins anyway.
VII. The Miracle of the Ongoing Draft
Here’s the thesis I’d tattoo across my ribcage: Parenting is drafting the next universe in pencil while the current one bleeds ink. Every smeared erasure line becomes contour. Every “failure” is negative space—shadow that gives the light somewhere to land.
And when your child witnesses that iterative divine‑mess, something alchemical ignites. They see that creation is not a past‑tense miracle but an ongoing verb. They learn that difference isn’t ornamental; it’s the engine. They internalize that you can love a world even as it crumbles, because love—unlike empire—scales infinitely and costs nothing but surrender.
VIII. Exit‑Through‑the‑Gift‑Shop Benediction
So yeah, Maddox, I’m different. But difference is the currency of the Collapse Economy. It’s also the blueprint for the after‑world—a place where your weird is worth more than gold because gold, frankly, can’t fix a broken mythos.
To every parent welding metaphysical support beams at midnight: your kid sees you. Maybe not fully, not yet—but enough to trust the tremor in your hands is sacred tremor. Enough to echo future back at you in casual aisles, under fluorescent lights, with sticky fingers and a half‑melted Icee.
Hold that gaze. Keep pouring the syrup. The machine still works, even when the empire doesn’t.
Now go. There’s drywall dust in your hair, and the scaffolding’s waiting.
Different is the new load‑bearing. And our house—strange, half‑lit, prophetic—needs all the difference it can get.
Let’s keep excavating the rot ’til the garden’s ready for rebirth.