No matter how hard the West may squeeze the rest of the world by the balls,

individually a single man has no assurance that anyone loves him. The more that the world fragments and splinters, the more that people need simple unequivocal love. This is the Achilles heel of even the cruelest warrior, the need for certainty, the need for absolutes, the need for loyalty, the need for love. Empires of love all crumble and fall without warning nor welcome, just like empires of the map and empires of the soul, systems and constructs looking for reasons to return home to entropy. Still we need it, like we need belief systems and religions, insurance companies and bank accounts. We hedge our bets as fast as we can make them, joining hands with our enemies and rejecting our allies simply by the natural laws of turbulence and motion. We can only unite in something larger than us, the overarching umbrella, the golden parachute. Catch us if you can.

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