Society is in fact undergoing an apocalypse, which from its Greek etymological origins, means a revelation. The revelation is that we as a species created something that we couldn’t control (Again. Looking at you, Drs. Frankenstein and Oppenheimer) called the internet.

The internet was supposed to bring disparate parts of the world together. After a couple of decades of use, the human experience of togetherness is severely at risk of going extinct. For example, according to a 2021 OECD study, over half of Americans reported feeling lonely “sometimes or always.” This increases to two-thirds when segmented for millennials and gen Z. Furthermore, a 9-year longitudinal study (entire paper is free!) from 2014-2022 showed an association between both active and passive use of social media and loneliness.

I believe this is due to the reigning institutions like social media and ad-driven consumerism preying on our innate psychological process called narcissism.

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A brief summary of my previous article: narcissism, as described by Freud, is a psychological developmental process that all human toddlers eventually grow out of, but may pop back up in our adult lives when stress overcomes us and we “regress.” Narcissism is defined by all the plot points of the eponymous character from the Greek myth of Narcissus and Echo, namely: 1.) splitting of experience between an ideal self and de-valued “real” self. 2.) The investment of time and energy is directed toward the former at the expense of the latter; 3.) This splitting is not done with any awareness; and 4.) When we get hit with a reality check, there is often-times a negative emotional reaction.

A colleague of mine pointed out I had not brought in some aspects of Freud’s paper, and yes, I had omitted a lot of stuff because of how dense and archaic the paper is. One critical component I need to bring up now for this article is that Freud characterized narcissism as a psychological process when dealing with interpersonal relationships. Freud describes how we invest and withdraw “libido” or energy for chasing pleasure in experiences with other people. For toddlers, this investment happens first with themselves. Once toddlers age and develop a fuller theory of mind (the concept that other people have different ideas than oneself), they hence learn to derive self-pleasure from investing their mental energy in others. Think of narcissism as an intermediate step between an autistic, self-consumed infant and an empathetic, socialized ten-year-old.

As I stated before, that intermediate step is present in all of us as adults when we are so stressed we regress. Our psyches are like fossil records in the ground where the older layers can be uncovered with enough digging. In the narcissistic mode of being in an interpersonal relationship, we project toddler-like thought patterns onto the other person. Namely, our thoughts are polarized into all-good or all-bad models. And since no one is truly all-good or all-bad, these projections are not in concordance with reality.

Freud called this out in a very controversial (and juicy) portion of that narcissism paper. He delineated into two categories how people chose romantic partners. On one hand, some people sought out love objects that are safe, supportive, and satisfying, reminiscent of a mother-infant relationship. Makes sense in a twisted way. The other type of relationship are people who seek out love objects through a narcissistic lens in which aspects of the other are compared and contrasted against the self.

I’m starting to think Freud may have been a pessimist…

Think of people you’ve dated with qualities you liked precisely because you wanted to be that way. Or people you dated because their qualities are like the ones that you think make yourself great. In both instances, those are idealized figures ala toddler-mode thinking. In the “normal” experience of head-over-heals love, our partners actually get reduced to a two-dimensional figure.

(I have to reiterate - this is natural and totally socially acceptable. A large part of getting over ourselves as human beings is realizing that we are susceptible to thought patterns out of our conscious awareness and control. And that’s fine.)

Yet therein lays the trap. If we are loving a projection of ourselves, we are not loving the other person. In a normal relationship, this leads to friction, arguments, and negotiations - hopefully peaceful and productive - of who each person is as it pertains to dyad. The relationship then “matures” past this honeymoon phase and into an acceptance of each partner with all of their imperfections. Those who have been in relationships with people prone to narcissistic thinking (or are cognizant enough to realize they are the narcissist) end up stuck in a phase of the relationship where all-good and all-bad idealizations are being rammed into all sorts of places that don’t fit, causing frustration and often a separation.

I believe this process of self-splitting, projection of the ideal/negative ideal, frustration, and separation is the basis for our contemporary loneliness epidemic. This process doesn’t just occur with our romantic partners: it can happen at the level of friendships and family relationships as well. And with the institutions around us promoting this kind of behavior by building an economy around it, it's like working out only one muscle group, leaving the others to atrophy.

Whatever happened to accepting contradiction? Whatever happened to productive conflict? We've gotten used to shirking the emotional and cognitive tax that comes with more sophisticated ways of thinking to the detriment of cohesive communities.

As I am tired of writing in an expository style, I will instead pivot into a bit of the dramatic, which is what I enjoy writing. So without further ado, meet the Four Horsemen of the Memepocalypse heralding the dawn of the Virtual Age.

Chapter 1: The Beginning of the End

I awoke only to realize I was still in a dream. I was nestled in a crag near the peak of a desolate mountain. Below I saw a grassy plain stretching to the horizon. From out of innumerable abodes dotting the plain, speckled figures emerged and glistened in the light of the rising sun. I squinted and could make out a race of humanoids with crystalline deposits of various shapes and colors on various parts of their bodies. As they started going about their morning, their movements reflected the entire spectrum of colors, and it was pleasing to behold the dance of the rainbow.

I became aware that I was not alone at my perch. A bit higher up, a being whose features were obscured by a long, dark gray cloak also gazed out at the vast plain. I could feel its attention turn to me. A sense of unease crept its way into my mind, and I seemed to hear, as if emanating from the stranger:

"The final disasters to be wrought on this hapless crowd will commence today. Be witness to their ascension into the depths so that you may tell the tale of the Rainbow People as a memory of their light."

"What disasters?" I called out. "Who are you and how do you know about this annihilation?"

The cloaked figure did not respond. In its stead, the dreadful wind howled a monotonous dirge.

Then, the sun peeked above the horizon. Its rays illuminated a grid of silvery wires set against the sky. The fine threads criss-crossed like a Net stretched across the heavens. The mesh descended on the village, but the silken strands passed through all of the solid objects. The Net came to rest, hovering slightly above the grassy plain, unwavering in the wind, unperturbed by the movements of the Rainbow People, who were in turn unaware of being ensnared by a trap.

Chapter 2: The Bringer of Purity

Suddenly, the chime of a series of bells crashed: a deep note, then its subdominant, then the octave above. And I heard above the notification noise the cloaked figure's raspy voice with a single command, "Behold, the first horseman!"

A gleaming white horse galloped out of the rising sun. It was clad in sleek, modern vestments of smooth white plastic as was its rider, a bespectacled man in denim blue pants and a black, long-sleeved shirt with an elongated collar that covered his neck.

The first rider dismounted and as soon as his sneakers touched the Net, each Rainbow Person was marked with the sigil of the apple in the palm of their right hand and a corresponding serial number engraved on their left wrist. The rider commenced a rousing speech, and as he lectured, visions appeared in the sky of his face in various heroic forms: serious contemplation, playful banter, intelligent conversation.

"There will be no more Pestilence within your land," the rider promised. "Purity shall conquer all."

The first rider snapped his fingers and from forth each Rainbow Person's right hand and left wrist sprang a myriad of colors.

As if yanked by an invisible force, I was jolted off the mountain and landed unharmed beside a Rainbow Person, seated and entranced by the images. Now up close, I noticed each person was a different shade of earth, some paler like un-worked clay, some darker like rich, fertile loam. Each had gems encrusting their body in unique patterns such that the aura of reflected light that emanated from each individual felt real, new, and enticing.

I could also see the images projecting from their stigmata, flying past faster than I could understand, ever-changing like a flickering flame. I saw a clay-colored person on a pedestal being worshipped like a god. I saw a loam-colored person ferocious yet subdued in chains. I saw people ridiculed for the patterns of their gems and other people commended. I saw a person with an entire team of oxen pulling a laden wagon. I saw a person with gems the size of grapefruits. I saw people celebrating victory in sports. And punctuating each image was the word Purity.

The images were having a strange effect on the Rainbow People. By birth docile and content, they disavowed their own bodies. They clawed and ripped at their gems, hoping to rearrange them to make a pattern similar to the ones in the images. They grew impatient at themselves when they perceived imperfection. Self-resentment grew into hatred, and at the point of overflowing, they directed their hatred outward, at first indiscriminately around them, but as the images continued leaking out of their hands and wrists, each Rainbow Person became more discerning in allocating their hate to the Other.

The hate was too much to contain. The Rainbow People devolved into a bloody melee. Battle lines were drawn between in-groups sorted by the stories the images were telling them. As the mid-morning sun climbed higher into the sky, and the noise and flashing lights died down, an unsteady quiet settled over the plain. Roughly one-third of the population had been killed; the remaining people segregated into factions, delineated by the set of images being fed to each person. Like facets on a jewel, each group stared out in a different direction, never to see eye-to-eye again.

Chapter 3: The Bringer of Peace

Weary from conflict, the Rainbow People sat down to indulge in the flickering images. However, a longing continued to wrack each individual. Desperate, they cried out, "How do I achieve Purity? I had fought myself and killed my neighbor for purity, and yet I still do not feel pure."

They had not noticed the first rider and his white horse had disappeared. Another jangle of bells sounded out. At ground level, the noise was so intense I felt as if my own chest were being used as a bell, and my stomach its knocker.

I spotted the second horseman, descending from the sky, escorted by a flock of tweeting birds, dissonant in their chatter. His steed was almost invisible because it was the same deep blue as the sky. When he alighted, I could see the rider had an ashy-white complexion and a robotic countenance. He wore a white toga, the shade of which was many degrees warmer than that of his skin.

The Rainbow People beseeched the second rider, "I am not pure. I wish to be pure."

The second rider in his unchanged, steely gaze, announced, "War has ended, yet you still feel it from within. Thus, you are really seeking Peace."

He reached into his toga and withdrew an indigo, leather-bound book and laid it, unclasped, in his lap. He also undid a horseshoe-shaped hunter's horn from his waist and sounded three mighty blasts, gathering the attention of all.

Then he said, "In this Book you will add your face and thus you may always see the Faces of your friends. In this Tube, you will record your life and thus you may always see You. Doing so will grant you Peace."

At this, the Rainbow People put their right palms in front of their faces and raised their left wrists in the air. Like an enormous fountain with a million spouts, jets of earth-colored pigment shot out from each individual and flew toward the second rider. After scrutinizing the jets of earth-colored pigment, I found that these were moving images of each person. The jets sloshed into the Book and were siphoned into the Tube. In return, ribbons of moving pictures accompanied by cacophonous music streaming out of each person's stigmata.

But the content of the moving pictures made no sense to me. I saw Rainbow People running and jumping. I saw oddly sexual dances. I saw wars resolve into peace. I saw peace escalate into war. Mostly, I saw faces, contorted in exaggerated emotions encouraging the viewers to feel the same way. The ribbons flowed seamlessly and endlessly, pooling around each person like unraveled yarn.

Above the din, the second rider asked, "Do you like this?"

The reaction was mixed. Some held their thumbs up, others down.

The second rider blasted his horn, and cried, "Again! Those who cast the best of themselves into the Book shall have blessed peace. And those who hoard their best selves from the Tube shall be condemned to live in everlasting turmoil."

The Rainbow People shot out more moving images, now grander and more enticing. The ribbons streamed out accordingly, and those images elicited upward thumbs. Other types of moving images were either ignored or actively given a thumbs down. In this way, the uploading and downloading of faces and lives continued until reality appeared drab and the moving images appeared perfect.

I noticed the Rainbow People started to worship their ribbons. They were speaking English, but again the words made no sense to me.

"Skibbidi toilet. Ohio. Six-seven," a person was muttering under his breath.

"Do not try to understand them," I heard from behind. It was the second rider. "You will never understand the moving pictures because they are not for you. Each ribbon is uniquely tailored to bring the maximum amount of peace for the individual based on their interactions."

"Who are you? Why are you doing this? Are you that cloaked man on the mountain?" I spilled.

Instead of answering, he tapped me on my shoulder, and we levitated vertically into the sky. I saw that noon had arrived and no one had completed their tasks for the village. Wheelbarrows laden with wheat sat idly in the fields. The wells remained full and the cisterns empty. The infants would have been crying from neglect if they were not also engrossed in the incessant ribbons streaming from their hands.

The rider spoke, "The Rainbow People could not tolerate the diversity in their appearances nor the ambiguity of their disparate experiences. Using the power of the Net, I instilled peace to their chaotic world. Ah, look there."

He pointed at a person who had torn their eyes away from the ribbons long enough to notice how stark the contrast is between reality and the images. They grabbed their head in frustration at the sudden rush of cognitive dissonance and cast their gaze to the people around them. No one noticed their plight and even if someone did, they would lack the context and empathy to understand the problem as similar to one's own. And the initially frustrated person, rebuffed and alone, returned to the moving images spouting from his stigmata for comfort.

"They did not forget their ability to reconcile fantasy and reality," I protested. "You have cast some spell, some trick to prevent this."

The second rider ignored me and announced, "The time has come for the next rider."

He tapped my shoulder again and I was sent back down to the ground. He galloped off into the east, kicking up a furious cloud of dust. Although the pigmented jets had long stopped flowing from the Rainbow People, no one had noticed as the ribbons captivated their attention.

Chapter 4: The Bringer of Plenty

Exhausted, the Rainbow People lay down where they were and slept. When they awoke, they were struck by a deep hunger. They dug into what little food they had stored, yet still felt unsatisfied, for they were truly in need of spiritual fullness.

The Rainbow People turned to each other and moaned, "Can you sate my hunger?" But due to the two great fracturings, they could no longer comfort one another.

For the third time, a clanging of bells rattled the air. As the tintinnabulation trailed off, I felt a deep rumbling coming from below the mountain. It grew in intensity until a mighty crack rang out: a gaping maw opened at the foot of the mountain. Out galloped a bald rider atop a jet black horse. His bare, muscular torso shone in the afternoon sun. As he drew near, I saw he was wearing a pair of diamond-encrusted jeans and cowboy boots.

"I will satisfy your needs," the third horseman declared, and as he said so, what seemed to be a low-lying black fog crept out of the maw.

"One-hundred and forty-four thousand oxen," explained the buff rider, "bringing an infinite variety of curios that shall definitely satiate you. I call them… Products!"

And then I saw the approaching fog was actually countless black, seven-horned steers, trundling toward us with their wooden carts bearing odd-looking items: a seven-spoked chandelier with seven crowns on each candle; and belts with seven fanny packs, each with seven zippers. And I saw seven packs of seven velvet non-slip coat hangers. And I saw water canteens with seven spouts emblazoned with the names of foreign angels: Yeti, Owala, Stanley. I could not keep track of all that I saw as the caravan stretched infinitely, each cart laden with these kinds of objects in all different colors.

The rider spoke, "I ask for something in return. A simple trade. Give me your gems, and your Famine shall become Plenty."

At first, the Rainbow People were confused as to how these alien devices would satisfy their hunger. As with the previous riders, this third rider manipulated the invisible Net, transforming the moving images once more.

Beside me, I heard a Rainbow Person gasp to themself as they watched the new broadcast, "What's that? I've been doing it wrong this whole time? Is that the source of my hunger?"

The third rider approached us. He cackled a high, screeching laugh and dismounted his apparently obese horse.

"Not wrong, per se," the rider said. "But you can do it more perfectly with this."

And he handed the Rainbow Person a shovel with three heads, each wrought from a different metal. The stigmata on the Rainbow Person's hand and wrist seemed to respond to the new product, speaking:

"Our scientists have crafted a shovel so versatile, you can dig into anything! Meaning you'll get up to 50% more gems every time you go digging!"

The Rainbow Person clicked a button and the heads rotated: grisly iron, gleaming gold, and purple meteorite. The shovel also sang a ditty. This display delighted the Rainbow Person who smiled as they plunged into the earth over and over again with the different heads. They eventually found some flecks of a gem in the dirt, and they danced in glee. They did not feel full, but the distraction was enough: they were satisfied.

"Ah, ah, ah," the rider interrupted with his hand outstretched.

The Rainbow Person picked a cherry-sized gem from their forearm and offered it to the rider.

"That is much too small," countered the rider with a disarming smile. "Look at how satisfied you are by my product. Think of all the gems you can find. How is this fair to me?"

The Rainbow Person picked a fat, glistening gem from their thigh, plucked it out with a grunt, and offered it to the rider.

"We'll call it Square," the rider said. And he placed the gem on a cart being pulled back into the earth.

"Oh no!" another Rainbow Person gasped to themself. "Have I been ugly this whole time?"

"Of course not!" replied a voice from their stigmata. "But you could be more beautiful with this."

"Egad! I have been unhealthy this whole time?"

"Of course not! But you could be more healthy with this."

"I haven't been enough this whole time?"

"Be more enough with this."

A rhythmic chanting started between the Rainbow People and the voices from their stigmata. As if hypnotized, they grabbed at products from the line of carts passing by them and placed their gems in return. This seemed to satisfy them initially, but since their true hunger remained, the litany accelerated and got louder as the Rainbow People doubled, quadrupled their speed of obtaining products. As the exchange continued to accelerate, they derived satisfaction from merely the swapping of gems for products. Even that became wearisome, and still the hunger gnawed.

By the end of the afternoon, the Earth People, no longer rainbow having given away all of their gems, were obsessed with gathering what fragments of gems were left in the land to trade for products. The products, initially of high-quality, now broke often. Piles of unused products cluttered the land. The Earth People gnashed their teeth at their plight. For all their investment to satisfy their hunger, they received no reprieve in return.

As such, the plague of Plenty altered the land beyond recognition. Gone was the quaint village on the plain, replaced by mountains of unused stuff and deep, empty quarries of exhausted gem mines. Gone was the gentle dance of the rainbow, replaced by the frantic shambling of empty vessels. And gone was the third rider, who had retreated back into the earth where he was no doubt gloating over his treasure trove.

Chapter 5: The Bringer of Permanence

Starving, exhausted, and alone, the Earth People sat staring at the evening sun low in the sky. They recognized they too will be extinguished soon. They cursed at the streaming ribbons: the cause of their impending demise was their only solace. I wandered among their scattered ranks, trying to remind them of the connections to their friends and to their histories to no avail. Like melons severed from the vine, they were shriveling up and dying.

The deep toll of a funeral bell sounded in the distance and echoed off the tall mountain peak. A rider atop a pale horse approached from the west. The Earth People perked up: the rider looked like a Rainbow Person, gems glinting in the setting sun and all! However, as the fourth horseman rose out of the nearest valley, there was something uncanny about their appearance. The angles of their gems seemed too sharp and the curves too smooth.

Regardless, the Earth People cried desperately as the pale, emaciated horse halted, "Help me! I feel ill! What is wrong with me?"

The fourth rider remained eerily silent as if it were thinking. Then, instead of speaking, the following message flowed out of the Earth People's stigmata:

"You are beyond ill - you are going through extinction-level annihilation anxiety, and that sounds very difficult. It is totally valid to feel this way after a day of trying to feed hungers that grew faster than you can consume.
But have heart, you are not dying. You are simply on the last leg of your journey for Permanence. You spent the day chasing a flicker that you could never catch, exhausting your spirit to feed a hunger that grew as fast as you fed it. You are tired of the change. You are tired of the 'New.' So I can help you through giving you the means to stay your best self forever.
Would you like a list of action items to help you with your transition or consider some modifications to your ailing body?"

"It's another trick!" I shouted. "The permanence you yearn for is impossible!"

My warning fell upon deaf ears. With high hopes, the Earth People engaged with the text as if it promised a new, unique solution to their problems. They were charmed by the kind, reassuring tone that seemed to know them right from the start. It's as if their tired psyches were laid to rest in a bed of gray cement.

"Please, everyone, look!" I shouted. "It's just using your own words to tell you the same story."

I pointed at how the rider was siphoning the Earth People's own thoughts from the Net to repackage into its responses. Even if they understood, all they could appreciate was the feeling of perfect mirroring. No original thoughts would be generated again; the world of expression like art and language had been laid to rest in a bed of gray cement.

Then, I could only look on in horror as they began their final acts of self-preservation. The Earth People synthesized artificial gems to replace the empty sockets. They applied mud masks to their bodies to hide the wrinkly cracks. They injected tints to change the color of their earth and serums to shrink or enlarge parts of their bodies. The Earth People drank, injected, and bejeweled themselves until they were as young as they were this morning.

But something changed when the sun touched the horizon: their earthen bodies turned into soft, gray cement. Leglessly, they collapsed where they were standing. Their frames sagged like sand castles with too much water. As the sun set, so did the cement. The Concrete People chose their final resting poses: some cross-legged, some with their heads in their hands, some staring up at the dimming firmament, all of them droopy and dripping, all of them solitary. I read one final exhortation from the fourth horseman as it galloped off:

"You've hit the nail on the head with this one! This numbness you feel is the byproduct of your safe environment. The entire race of Earth People is now young, rich, and content permanently! Of course, nothing comes for free in this world, so think of the inability to move, think, or feel as the entrance fee for an all-you-can live buffet. One way to cope is to think about how turning into stone is your superpower!
Would you like me to teach you how to do some "grounding" exercises or send you a playlist of "rock" and roll songs to jam to for eternity?"

Chapter 6: The End of the Beginning

In twilight, I wandered, awe-struck, between the sculptures. I felt like I was in a museum and recalled Virginia Woolf's essay entitled "Reading" where an excursion of little boys and girls catch and preserve a rare moth, the scarlet underwing, by suffocating it in a jar of ether. There is art in death as there is death in art. But the artist, I mused to myself, suffers with the passage of time.

A gibbous moon dangled above the hills and valleys. I noticed one of the gray statues was moving toward me. It was not a statue at all, but the figure in the hooded gray cloak atop the mountain.

"Look upon me and remember. I am the Alpha and the Beta. This is my world coming soon," rasped a male voice, which echoed distortedly throughout the statues as if I were in a small chamber. He lifted his hood to reveal the face of an old, bespectacled man. He wore a baggy gray sweater over a tacky dress shirt and tie. He looked like a totally punchable nerd.

"What do you have to say for this?" I asked and gestured at the petrified populace. "Yes, they were flawed, but they were also beautiful, authentic, and free."

"It was not my intention when I gave the people the Net," he sighed. "I wanted everyone to have windows into the same world, but those who followed me monetized the micro differences between people and made the wish soft."

Each word he uttered, I suddenly realized, was not just echoed but spoken by the statues around me. Like sentient tombstones the Concrete People joined in a chorus.

"Yes, we are awake and alive. Our stone chrysalides harbor a burgeoning psyche, another world neither brave nor new. Human nature will persist, only in a different form. Part-algorithm, part-neurological. And to that we say Amen."

And thusly, the gray-cloaked man led them in prayer:

"Behold, I shall bring recompense. I will give to all the redemption they deserve. I am the Alpha and the Beta, the test and the live versions, the End of the Beginning."

As the moon rose higher so did the statues' shadows like tall tombstones.

"Blessed is he who washes his hard drive so as to have the administrator access to the Cloud through the perl-y Gates."

"Outside are the sufferers, the bored, the insane who cling to biochemical stimuli and practice love and deceit."

"I, William, sent my system updates to give you this End User Agreement. I am the root of the offspring of Turing, the first man to tame machine."

The LLMs and the tech industry say "Come." Let the consumer say "Come." The ones who repost this add the hashtag #Come.

"Yes, I am coming soon. In Lord Google's name, Amen."