BEEW

Update on "The Cult of Personality" Series

In May 2025 I published The Cult of Personality, the first in a four-part series on the collapse of meaning in modern life.

I planned the series in a very deliberate order:

While parts 3 and 4 are mostly complete, Part 2, The Cult of Stuff & Status, has proven much harder to wrestle down than I was expecting. I've thought about releasing the essays out of order, or even reducing the series to three parts, but I'd rather not make that call yet.

The past few months have only reinforced how much these ideas, and the upheavals unfolding around us, matter. They're too important to rush. Writing for the public is a responsibility, an honor, and a privilege I take seriously.

As I wrote in Part 1:

We want belonging, yes.
But we also want the appearance of belonging.

Identity becomes performance. Belief becomes costume. Politics becomes mood — vibe — tribe.

We don't arrive at our convictions through reflection. We absorb them. We inherit them by proximity.

We don't think our way into groups. We find ourselves inside one and then convince ourselves we belong.

This passage (from Part 1) captures what makes this work feel so urgent to me. Our identities, our beliefs, even our sense of belonging are fragile things, easily shaped and borrowed. To write carelessly about them would only add more noise to a world already drowning in it.

If I'm moving slowly, it's because I believe these ideas deserve clarity, not haste, and because BEEW readers deserve writing that earns your time and attention.

I'd rather be late than careless.

#favorites