by Travis Mateer
A few months ago I started thinking of my focus with this blog as hyper-localism because, despite being a big picture thinker, I realized that larger scale forms of organization are more vulnerable to infiltration and co-optation. I also think it’s where one can have more impact.
This time last year I had to contend with an ideological crusade LARPing as a scientifically sound, medically necessary “health” protocol for my kids. The particulars of actual risk vs. actual harm got swept into a constantly morphing clusterfuck of strategies and interventions that pushed me, as a parent, into temporary alliances with institutions I had to reconsider out of necessity.
My initial hope in attending different churches in Missoula was to find new networks of support if I needed to remove my kids from the public school system. My abstention from box wine and other monumental changes in my personal life also fueled a need to connect to a spiritual support system.
Well, church in Missoula IS NOT THAT.
Instead of focusing on local threats, I’m reading a book called Rabbits, but it’s not about little furry animals. It’s about something sinister penetrating this world from somewhere else. And the churches aren’t spiritually prepared for what’s coming, just like the universities aren’t intellectually prepared.
Here’s a teaser about the plot:
Rabbits is a mysterious alternate reality game so vast it uses our global reality as its canvas. Since the game first started in 1959, ten iterations have appeared and nine winners have been declared. The identity of these winners are unknown. So is their reward, which is whispered to be NSA or CIA recruitment, vast wealth, immortality, or perhaps even the key to unlocking the secrets of the universe itself.
But the deeper you get, the more deadly the game becomes. Players have died in the past—and the body count is rising. And now the eleventh round is about to begin. Enter K—a Rabbits obsessive who has been trying to find a way into the game for years. That path opens when K is approached by billionaire Alan Scarpio, the alleged winner of the sixth iteration. Scarpio says that something has gone wrong with the game and that K needs to fix it before Eleven starts, or the whole world will pay the price.
If you understand that fiction can provide insights into how our world functions that other forms of writing can’t, and if you keep an open mind, this book might offer a glimpse into another world that exists alongside the supposedly “normal” world.
I’ll leave it there for today. Thanks for reading!