You, your shelf, and the fires

A man has fallen asleep in his armchair. He dreams of better times. But then he suddenly wakes up, coughing and in sudden panic—his room is on fire!

This room is his entire apartment, and his entire world exists within this room.

“I must escape!” he thinks. “There’s little here worth saving!”

He stands before his favorite shelf, the bookshelf, and he must immediately choose a book.

He understands that his life as it was is over. Only one decision remains, and it must be made quickly: Which book should he take with him?

But those who own books and cherish reading know that this question resembles another question that is, in fact, three questions: Who am I, who do I want to be, and who will I become?

Let me explain

I know and fear that the vast majority of so-called ordinary people today do not grasp how completely the world they knew is gone.

In Germany, for example, thousands of jobs are simply eliminated every week. Factories are closing, entire towns are being deindustrialized. But these jobs are not like the electric lights on a Christmas tree, which can be switched off and on again.

These jobs were more like the fingers on a hand. When, through some foolish mistake, the hand is chopped off and the fingers are no longer needed, a new one doesn’t grow back quickly. And nothing less than cutting off our own hands has been German “industrial policy” since Merkel.

And German deindustrialization is only one of the accelerants. Ah, we know the others: Artificial Intelligence, birth rate, migration crisis and social collapse, censorship, surveillance & EU dictatorship, the consequences of hyperinflation, an education crisis among adults caused by smartphones and propaganda, irreversible brain damage in the coming generation. Not one fire—many fires are burning your present down.

In 2017, I wrote about the last days of the West. These are the final minutes, and in some neighborhoods and regions, it’s already over. Much like the different parts of the Titanic sank at different times. Yet, of course, it was already over much earlier. (Some say the Titanic’s fate was sealed when it struck the iceberg. Some say when the captain ignored the iceberg warnings. Some say in the design—with overly simple rivets and too few lifeboats. And some have entirely different theories.)

And therefore this

It’s obvious why politicians don’t speak honestly about it, even if they know it’s over. They just want to secure their own wealth and safety in time.

A politician who tried to start a real rescue effort would immediately face all the forces that deliberately brought about these circumstances—all the NGOs, foundations, and other hostile powers.

It’s humanly understandable that many of us ordinary people don’t want to face it.

Perhaps you’ve inherited or paid off your little house in the countryside. Perhaps the birds are still chirping in your garden, and your children’s school is still socially decent. Well, a cup that falls from the table remains lovely and intact—until just before it shatters. (Just like the man who falls from the tenth floor.)

Yes, Niebuhr’s serenity prayer teaches us to distinguish what we can change and what we cannot—and to accept the unchangeable with serenity. Wouldn’t it then be logical to remain serene?

We may be drawing a tragically false conclusion from a factually true premise, because we’ve forgotten a central point.

The house is on fire—that’s true. It’s over. But that you can save little doesn’t mean you can save nothing.

You can hopefully save your own life, even if it will soon be structured very differently.

Above all: Even if you can change little about your external circumstances, you must still remain the captain of your internal circumstances, mustn’t you?

It would be useful

The one book that the man rescues from the burning room stands for the person I wish to be after this order has been burned down by the elites.

Perhaps he doesn’t even need to search his shelf for a book before fleeing, but simply takes the book he was already reading when he briefly nodded off!

Which inner order do I rescue from the conflagration of the outer world?

Perhaps the blueprint of this inner order is indeed outlined in an actual book. In that case, it would be useful to have that book ready now—and perhaps even to open it again today.

What will be useful then is surely no less advisable now! (If only to ensure that we intend to take the right book with us.)