1. The End

Aldia: Young Hollow, are you intent on shattering the yoke, spoiling this wonderful falsehood?

I don’t know. I face this false architecture every day. It is warm, coherent, and it offers shelter.

Aldia: Peace grants men the illusion of life… But is this so wrong? A construction, a facade, and yet—a world full of warmth and resplendence.

2. Aldia: A Creature of Roots, Ash, and Fire

Aldia is a creature made of roots, ash, and fire. Whenever he appears, he tears through the floor beside the bonfire. His former shape is gone. He is proof that you can cease to be someone and still continue to exist.

A lie will remain a lie. Young Hollow, knowing this, do you still desire peace?

A priest who does not believe in God continues to celebrate Mass anyway until the end of his life. He knows his parishioners would not survive the loss of the illusion. He does not deceive them out of contempt, but out of love. Every morning he rises, puts on his vestments, and speaks words he no longer believes in. That exactly is Don Manuel. Aldia can no longer spread such shelter around others. He tears himself out of the fire only to leave a destructive thought behind in the mind of the Bearer of the Curse. Truth has made him devoid of the ability to lie out of love.

3. Amygdalae: The Creatures That Hold Your Words

A swarm of Amygdalae waits for you every day. You are talking to someone at work, or to a friend. They make a comment, and suddenly you realize that you can no longer take up your old, familiar position because an Amygdala is standing there.

Hard work pays off.

The Amygdala stands beside you, holding your regular answer of course. It does not want to give it back. But you no longer want to take it either. You look further, and the creatures are holding other words, other replies. Words like success, you deserve it, growth have become inseparably fused with Amygdalae. They are difficult words to use when these creatures cling to them. They will not pass your lips, because the Amygdala holds everything deep in your throat. And slowly, there are more of them arriving in your life. Even mindless agreement becomes impossible, because one of them has you by the head. Ordinary functioning begins to feel different. Then you reach inward. You discover that an Amygdala is hanging from you, too.

You ask:

Who am I?

And answers come. Not one. Several. Each Amygdala says something different.

One tells you that you are what other people say you are. Another says you are what you do. A third says you are what you failed to do.

Wrong life cannot be lived rightly

The wise of this world once said.

4. Intro: Taylorism Standing Behind You

You sit at a keyboard, work in a workshop, hear the hum of an engine or the idle chatter of coworkers. Taylorism has never disappeared. It merely dematerialized, stepped away from the assembly line, and now stands behind you. Your Insight stat finally allows you to see it in full. It is no longer transparent, at last. You carry on with your work. And now you can see them clearly - the Amygdalae hanging from the ceiling, clinging to the lamp, crouched above the doorway. You know Aldia is somewhere nearby.

Bibliography

These particular books affected the overall shape of the article

  • - San Manuel Bueno, mártir
    The source of Don Manuel: a priest who keeps the Mass alive after faith has left him, because his parishioners could not bear the truth. The essay’s central figure of the lie told out of love.
  • - Minima Moralia
    The source of the line “Wrong life cannot be lived rightly.” Adorno’s aphorisms give the essay its suspicion that the problem is not merely personal failure but a damaged world.