Can you feel it?

I know I certainly can.

The proverbial tug at your shirt sleeve by the hive mind attempting to draw your attention toward the next conflict. The "current thing".

"Look over here. Your attention is needed. Your opinion is demanded. What do you believe? Which side are you backing? Why do you think this? Are you ready to do what is necessary to make the change?"

The clown show is a powerful drug. People are addicted to it. Easily duped by it. Myself included. Thirty-two years into my life and I have come to understand that this may be the natural order of things. Our minds – driven by subconscious pattern recognition and a need for some semblance of what is perceived to be logical structure – take to the "current thing" as if it is some natural Schelling point that demands our attention instead of recognizing it for the distraction that it is.

That's the power of the clown show. It pulls you from the crowd, into the mud in the center of the circus tent and forces you to get dirty with the clowns.

It's hard because the "current thing" always stirs emotions in ways that you didn't think were possible. Each thing brings with it a unique set of circumstances and nuances that make it different enough from the other things you felt compelled to get involved with in the past. The minute differences warrant your undivided attention. They provide enough variety that you can engage with the clowns in the mud because you convince yourself that this time is different. This "current thing" is legit. You're not getting duped again. The hive mind is right about this thing. This current thing is truly existential. You must speak up. You must act.

This is the tragedy of our time. The need to involve oneself in each current thing and have an opinion on every thing.

"What do you believe?"

"Well..."

Again, I am guilty of this.

This is the nature of every thing. The "current thing" is the same as every thing and each thing is meant to make you feel a certain way so that you look to find a solution that is inevitably always sitting in the corner of the circus tent.

While those being emotionally manipulated are busy getting dirty in the mud, the circus manager sitting in the crowd stands up abruptly as the spotlight pans its focus on him, the record scratches, everyone in the mud pauses mid-tussle, and the circus owner begins to proclaim he has a solution that will end the mud tussle. The solution to the current thing.

In reality, the circus owner completely manufactured the current thing and his solution to that thing is to ensure that those tussling stay in the mud so the stands stay full in anticipation for the next thing. Exquisitely executed Kayfabe.

The sad thing about the implementation of the Kayfabe theater that is our current geopolitical landscape is that the people who get swept up into the emotion of it all aren't tussling in a proverbial mud pit in the middle of an imaginary circus tent. They are engaged in a spectrum of violence that ranges from keyboard punches that land in the digital ghettos better known as social media platforms to full blown kinetic warfare that leads to mass casualties.

They're all very sad things. And until more people wake up and realize that a circus owners' thing is never the best thing we will all be stuck in the stands waiting for the next thing.

The only way out is to opt out of the current thing and walk out of the circus tent.

Final thought...

Sorry, Mr. West is gone.