Purpose in Powerlessness

Übermenschen, Autists, Superculture, & the Perils of Soul-Branding in Ego-World (with Aaron Sheppard)

Audio version at the end

Original art by Michelle Horsley

Three Brothers

“All dwelling in one house are strange brothers three, as unlike as any three brothers could be,

yet try as you may to tell brother from brother,

you’ll find that the trio resembles each other.

The first isn’t there, though he’ll come beyond doubt.

The second’s departed, so he’s not about.

The third and the smallest is right on the spot,

and manage without him the others could not.

Yet the third is a factor with which to be reckoned

because the first brother turns into the second.

You cannot stand back and observe number three

for one of the others is all you will see.

So tell me, my child, are the three, of them one?

Or are there but two? Or could there be none?

Just name them, and you will at once realize

that each rules a kingdom, of infinite size.

They rule it together and are it as well.

In that, they’re alike, so where do they dwell?”

—Michael Ende, Momo

Before he died of a heroin overdose, my brother Sebastian Horsley used to say that he was his best—or only—product. Sometime after being crucified, he traded his loin cloth for a top hat and went from being an artist to a showman. Dandyism became his brand.