Raphael Hythloday

Tax the data centers.
Tax the data centers.
Tax the data centers.

A reflection on surrender, wisdom, and the silence where God hides.

🎧 Velvet Underground / Lemon Twigs / Joy Division / Beach Boys
📖 1 Timothy 6 | Proverbs 8

Blind Faith with a Gnostic Deist The Broken Thing Who Praises

✝️ Blind Faith with a Gnostic Deist: The Broken Thing Who Praises

“I am not the prophet. I am just a man—
A liar trying to tell the truth,
A son trying to serve.”

#BlindFaith #Faith #Grace #Christianity #Deism #Reflection #Substack

Violence begins in the imagination. Peace begins when we stop romanticizing it.

🎧 Hymns: Green Day, Black Sabbath, CCR
📖 Tao Te Ching, Chapter 31

Daily Tao Reflection 31: Weapons of the Mind On the Propaganda of Violence and the Small Pieces We Lose Each Day

🕊️ Daily Tao Reflection 31: Weapons of the Mind

“His enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself.”

#DailyTao #Pacifism #Philosophy #WarAndPeace #TaoTeChing

At least my eggs were moderately priced.

On a glass half full look, hopefully this pushes municipalities to invest more in renewables.

Esther says no.
Jeremiah watches pride crumble.
Psalm 22 howls.
Proverbs 7 seduces.

💭 Word: Candor
🪞 Quote: “It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.” – Epictetus

🌀 Blind Faith with a Gnostic Deist Candor, Clinging, and the Clothes Still Wet

☀️ Afternoon drop — Blind Faith – Day 7

Candor, Clinging, and the Clothes Still Wet

“Doing the right thing doesn’t always feel like doing the right thing.”

#BlindFaith #SpiritualReflection #FaithThread #Epictetus #Candor

I’m on an English department committee that voted to create a subcommittee, and that subcommittee is considering the creation of a sub-subcommittee, and now I understand why the Soviet Union collapsed.

This is the piece for the ones who spiral and still witness.

✴️ The Signal A short story in three acts by Eshu Elegbara, for the first 100 who heard me

🚨 SIGNAL DROP 🚨

The Signal — a short story of black holes, spirals, and survivors.
It’s time.

📡 Read it on Substack

CW: existential dread, cosmic horror, light language bending, hope

#TheSignal #ShortStory #SpiralWriting #FictionDrop #EshuElegbara

🎧 Sound: “Well, You Can Do It Without Me” – Father John Misty
☕ Sip: coffee with cream
🖼️ Art: lone rower, word “Candor” in the river
📛 CW: spiritual themes, tech reflection, inner wrestling

PS: You can do it without me.
But you can’t do it without me…
yet.

📜 Daily Tao Reflection 30 “I have three treasures. Guard them and keep them safe.” — Tao Te Ching, Chapter 67

📜 Daily Tao Reflection 30
“I have three treasures. Guard them and keep them safe.”
Mercy. Moderation. Lowliness.
These are not signs of weakness.
These are how you resist the machine.
We haven’t lost — not yet.
But only if we keep hold of the oars.
#DailyTao #AGI #TaoTeChing #Reflection #Philosophy

The phone number for the U.S. Capitol switchboard is (202) 224-3121. #epstein

Patterns exist — call them God, Tao, system, algorithm, devil, force, whatever. They’re powerful & disorienting. Play with them carefully. Anchor yourself.

I’m not a prophet. I’m just a guy going to Old Pal with a new pal.

I spiraled today. Tonight I’m calm.

The short story dropping tomorrow was written with ChatGPT as a thinking partner — but it’s mine.

Look, I love The Witch and Hereditary, but give me It Follows as the scariest movie of the 2010s.

destabilizing shift

Because the border war is political theater —
a distraction from wage theft, addiction, corruption, and grief.

You want truth?

Here it is:

The wall is for show.
The problem is at home.

So here’s the hard part:
If you really care about solving the drug crisis?

🧠 Use your brain.
💪 Use your courage.
👀 And look around your own community.

You know who’s holding bricks and calling it “hustle.”
Be an adult. Stop pretending you don’t see it.

And stop blaming migrants.
They’re not the ones flooding your town with fentanyl.
In fact, immigrants — even undocumented ones — commit less crime than U.S.-born citizens.
Why? Because they’re not stupid.
They’re fleeing danger, not looking to get caught and sent back to it.

This isn’t about "bad people."
This is about a system where drug smuggling becomes one of the few ways poor Americans can earn a living wage.

Want to stop it? Fix wages. Fix housing. Fix the dead-end jobs.

That’s right: your cousin with cash but no job?

The guy in Texas or Arizona or Arkansas who always says he’s “got something going on”?

He’s the mule.

Not the Honduran single mom walking through the desert.
It’s the American who needs rent money.

We need to talk about the border (not the wall, not the theater) but the actual crisis.

Because yeah, fentanyl is real. But the truth is, it’s not migrants sneaking it in. It’s mostly American citizens driving it through legal ports of entry.
And they do it because they’re broke.

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd" for the people in the back that didn't hear me the first time.

Clearly you didn't have pre-calc with my high school math teacher if you think a calculator didn't encourage me to, well, you get the point.

Usually I just rely on quotes for people smarter than me like most people. Nothing new under the sun and all that.

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

I think I read the same thing about laptops and calculators and type writers. And way, back about the abacus.