September 15th, 2025 - Voyagers!

Dear TNY,

Motivation is probably at an all time low, but I did check out “Voyagers!”

It isn’t good. 

I was talking to a fella about it and the more I talked the more I realized that the major problem is that the story is just words on a page.  At no point did anything come alive.  Flourish.  Sizzle.  Crackle.  Live.  It’s as informative as the back of a NyQuil bottle.  There are two MCs that I don’t feel compelled to care about.  Their “transcendence” at the end, I see the outline, the scaffolding, I see the architect’s plans.  It’s obvious where this shit was going and then we are spoonfed some deeper “we are all one” bullshit.  It’s just lame.  It’s flimsier than cardboard with no real heart anywhere in it.

And I’m sick of it.  Sick-sad though.  I’m sick-sad about a lot of shit these days.  I have said this many, many times in the past:  The world appears to have no desire for me anymore.  Like, I don’t fit where this ship is going.  I tried to fashion a raft and jump off the boat but I ran out of money.  And I know I’m not the only one.  I think most people don’t want to go down this road.  It’s all very testy out there right now.  Or what my sergeant said about our hot little corner of Iraq in 2004, “It’s sporty out there.”  And I’m sitting here thinking I just want to be nice and kind to people and help them with their problems and maybe have a few beers and talk about deep shit. 

But nope.

It’s all me me me out there.  Fuck, buddy.  It’s not about you.  It never was.  It’s about the other guy or gal.  It’s about us.  It’s about we.  It isn’t about you.

But that’s late stage capitalism showing its colors.  Every advertising campaign that you have been inundated with your whole life has told you that you are special and you deserve it.  Spoiler alert: You don’t.  No one does.  The entitlement.  The gnashing of teeth.  It’s all so self-centered. You guys have lost your way and while it seems like there’s more room than ever for kindness and selflessness, there seems to be no room for it.

And what’s fucked is that the way, the way, is all still inside you.  You just got lost.  It’s okay to get lost.  Hell, I’m lost.  But I know the area of the forest that looks like what’s in the world today, that’s not the way out of the forest.  That’s a darker place that ruins people.

But, like I said a while back, they are all just kids.  Generations of kids who don’t know any better.  They don’t know what they are doing.  And it’s heartbreaking.  To see people you love and ones you don’t and/or don’t even know just…swallowed up.  Becoming the adults that would have abhorred their childhood selves.  Out there breaking their own hearts and blaming it on everything around them. 

I’m just sad.  This is a beautiful place.  Every day is a privilege to be here.  It is astonishing.  And this place makes me so sad I don’t want to wake up anymore.

So there we go. Those who exude empathy are being pushed to feel like they should perish from this earth while this government of the lowest common denominator, by the lowest common denominator, for the lowest common denominator, shall not perish from the earth.

Just so we are clear, that means both sides.

Nick

P.S. The pic is Christmas, 2004. Check the tree topper. Unity. I made that. 20+ years ago. Actually in war.