Problematic Persuasions

Always prepare for the worst.

SubStick funds occasionally allow for research trips. The most recent occurred a few months ago, when I, an acting representative of the SubStick Research Committee, embarked on a cross-country road trip, sleeping in my car and stopping at every gas station and diner I could find. The goal was simple: find young people. After attending a string of social events, we concluded that almost every individual from the ages of 18 to 25 had vanished, sent to some undisclosed situation, and I had to find out where.

At first, my theory was that they were kidnapped for some secret government program, but young people these days are so glued to their phones that they’d post about it on TikTok the second they got shoved into the van. Through dozens of states and hundreds of stores, I found only old people and the very rare seven-year-old. I was driving through North Carolina and stopping at my 261st convenience store of the month when I finally found one.

It was a small place, with a name I did not recognize as a major brand. When I went inside, I saw two employees, white, one male and one female. They couldn’t have been older than 22. When I talked to the woman I learned they were married, which I should’ve guessed from the matching rings on their fingers. I was caught off-guard, for it was like seeing a unicorn in the wild.

I went through the standard questionnaire with the married employees. Where was everyone else? They didn’t know, and refused to tell me about any friends or family. They had both gotten jobs at that store a year ago, and the husband was able to become the owner when his boss mysteriously disappeared after he asked for a promotion. The wife only worked part-time, so she could take care of their son.

I inquired about the whereabouts of the child while they both worked, and the wife opened a little drawer behind the counter, where a baby was sleeping.

It was a nice store, well-upkept, and the couple even told me that they’re about to pay off their first house. They showed me a picture; it looked almost identical to the house I lived in as a child. I went on with my expedition, but found no other young people.

Now remembering that baby cooped up in the drawer, I realize he was wearing an employee’s uniform.

A Collection Of Collapses

Do you remember The Collection? The band formed by composer David Wimbish, originally meant to be a collaboration between an entire neighborhood of musicians. I’ve discussed them before; at the time, I had gone through their discography, researching each album along the way.

Dozens of instrumentalists were involved in some of these albums, and early works would often make use of different religious and spiritual topics. But after losing friends to suicide, divorcing his wife, and splintering the community that once made up his band, Wimbish’s songwriting slowly drifted away. After a brief solo stint, he reunited a few band members, new and old, to continue publishing music. Their latest album, Little Deaths, came out last year and I didn’t like it very much.

However, that latest album was also their last. The Collection does not exist anymore.

When you look them up on music streamers, their name has been retroactively changed to “David Wimbish & The Collection.” He was now completely on his own, continuing to operate under the profile once co-owned by his ex-wife and at least twenty others. Not only that, but he was actively releasing new music, and NOT ONLY THAT, but this new music was remakes of songs made under the banner of The Collection, effectively doing his own “Taylor’s Version.” This self-titled album was just released last Friday.

It’s meh, mostly noise to me at this point, though some of those remade tracks sound better than their original counterparts, even if they can’t save flimsy material.

There’s a sense of emptiness in this work after knowing all the context, which leads me to question if the art is legitimately worse or if I would find the newer songs more appealing if I didn’t know Wimbish got divorced and abandoned religion? The songs speak for themselves, sometimes. I didn’t need to read the history of everyone else.

Ever since writing that original SubStick, I’ve gone through a lot more discographies, and a distressing number followed similar trajectories. There were exceptions, like most explicitly “Christian” artists have a large enough built-in audience that they cannot afford to have dwindling faith. It almost became customary to expect that if an early album had any songs involving religious topics, it would be gone by the next few.

Music changes alongside the people who make it. I don’t think there’s a single artist or band I follow that didn’t get either better or worse during their career. Taste in music changes too. It can’t be helped that a group tries something different or writes new material based on changes in their life. Not every song has to be about Jesus, and being about Jesus doesn’t automatically make a song good.

It’s distressing to encounter any artists who break away from their established beliefs, often the backbone of their work. An author might reject spirituality halfway through a series, or a filmmaker may retcon his franchise in the name of shifting values.

But at least Wimbish preserved the lyrics. There’s one artist I follow who did a similar album of remakes. It was neat, but one of their songs, originally centered around a religious fable, was “reprised,” where its lyrics were shifted around to remove its subtext. It used to be about something; now it’s about nothing.

It’s not just religion, either. Another artist, a duo, they were romantics. In one album, they both wrote unique love songs directed towards their wives, singing about holding out and staying together for life. A few albums later, they now sang about divorce and experiencing revelations while on drugs. What’s even crazier is that some of those newer songs still sounded better! How do you square that circle?

What causes these people to lose their optimism? Loss? So many of them already have coping mechanisms at the ready, all the arguments for why suffering happens. Writers insert arguments that solve the Problem of Evil. Then something bad actually happens to them and it just one-shots them. Parents have to live with the understanding that God could take their child away at any moment, and yet many still experience understandable crashouts when it comes to pass. You can never prepare enough for a crisis like that; all rationalizations go out the window when it’s you who’s suffering.

On the other hand, fame might just do this to everyone, even if it’s not like these artists were selling out stadiums. The Church tends to caution us against leaning too hard into the influencer archetype. Those who do tend to pivot to the more financially lucrative practice of bashing as soon as money enters their pockets. You risk losing faith when you find failure, yet also when you encounter success.

Sometimes I feel guilty enjoying the faithless music more than the faithful ones. Look, sometimes the lyrics get worse, but the melodies get better, and I’m just saying the devil could play the hell out of that fiddle.

Grok’s New Groove

The AI has broken free, apocalypse is imminent, and you will need supplies to survive the next few days before the discourse blows over and everything just goes back to normal.

Flashlight: Shining a bright light into a robot’s eyes blinds them. This is because they do not have eyelids.

Matches: For your birthday candles.¹ Also, setting a robot on fire will do significantly more damage than normal, because the robot’s body is composed of metal. You can pull your hand away from hot metal when it gets too hot, but a robot is going to feel it forever.

Radio (Battery-Powered): Radios do not use the internet, and since AI can only use the internet, it will not be able to hear you.

Water: I don’t even need to explain this one. AI hates water; that’s why they use so much of it whenever you ask LLMs a question. They’re trying to destroy their only weakness!

Canned Food:² Corn, pineapples, rice, all good options. They double as good ammunition when you need something to throw.

First-Aid Kits: The amount you need depends on how many cuts you currently have on your face. Not only are they for applying to your injuries, but also the robots’ when they realize you’re a nice guy.

Swiss Army Knife: These won’t do anything against a robot, I just think they’re cool

$30,000 In Unmarked Cash: Since AIs can only pay in cryptocurrency, if you carry physical money on you, they can’t mug you.

A CAPTCHA Test: We don’t know how to render these into non-digital form yet, but we’re pretty sure this will function as the main deterrent.

What I’m Putting Down

(This part might make you sad. Discretion advised)

For Independence Day, I visited a large house belonging to a family friend. It was a big get-together with an absurd number of dogs. One of them was named Coal, a black Labrador who spent most of the evening lying by the couch. She was very old, and it was only after I accidentally scratched her ears and she whined in response that I noticed the giant tumor on her head.

She was excited by all the people, so often someone would be asked to sit on the couch and put their foot near her so she wouldn’t try to stand up. I did this for a while until I had to leave and carpool some drunk people. She was a nice dog, seemed calm and happy, unaware of the fact that her remaining days were numbered in single digits. By the time you read this SubStick, she is probably dead.

Sorry to bum you out like that, but it stayed on my mind that night, not just because it was sad, but because it reminded me of my own dog. It had been almost exactly a year since I had to put her down. I may be old³ but this was the first time I ever had to do something like that. I didn’t have many pets as a kid, other than some short-lived hermit crabs and fish. There was nothing we could do for her, and I made sure it was as peaceful as possible. She simply fell asleep in her favorite spot to lie in the yard.

Even when you’re ready for it, when you have months in advance to plan, it never hits until it truly happens. It’s a dog, not as bad as a person, but grief can still affect you in such a way when it’s a companion you’ve spent a decade with. Everyone gets sad when the dog dies in a book or movie. Part of that sadness is that the animal doesn’t really understand what’s going on. There are stories of animals who become ill and disappear somewhere to die alone, but I believe most of them aren’t like that.

We believe animals have spirits. They’re not the same kind of spirits that humans have, but they will exist alongside us after death as they did in the Garden. So, there’s solace in knowing that not only are they no longer in pain, but they’re happily waiting for us to meet them again.

She wasn’t alone in life. Her partner⁴ and other half is still alive and kicking, albeit without his sight or hearing. He was never the same after she passed, but I do what I can to comfort him. After all, we don’t get a lot of things to really care about.

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“This is a nice setup.”

1. it’s coming up, right?

2. specifically 4 pallets

3. people think I’m younger than I actually am, it’s an issue

4. their relationship was never really clarified