To What End?

To What End?There is a particular stillness that settles in just after the fire. When the last column of smoke trails into a morning sky, when the rubble is warm and the children have stopped crying—when the architects of destruction finally sit down and loosen their ties. It is in that moment, in that breath, we must ask: To what end?Sex, cocaine, a sunny day at the beach with obedient family and perfectly tanned minions, a knowing smirk behind dark sunglasses that you’ve changed the world—yes, changed it. Bent it. Molded it like soft wax to your will. This is the vision, isn’t it? The reward for a job well done, even if the job was dismembering the spirit of a people. Even if the contract signed was with delusion, sealed not with blood, but with indifference.Religious men—men who clutch scripture like a dagger in a velvet sheath—what animates your crusade? I am not asking as a cynic, but as a student of consciousness, of cause and effect. You speak of salvation, but deal in torment. You preach sacrifice, yet feast on abundance. You wear piety like a tailored suit, its seams bursting with your appetites.To what end do you bring about poverty and fear as if they were gifts? As if suffering itself were a sacrament. What god delights in the sight of a trampled garden? What father permits a home built on ash and silence?Let us be honest—brutally so. There is a perverse joy in domination, and it dances just beneath the surface of sermons and flags. The ecstasy of control. The sweet, bitter nectar of being right in the face of ruin. It is not heaven they seek, but proof. Proof that their inadequacy is not inadequacy. That their ignorance is not ignorance. That the world they could not understand could still kneel before them.You can smell it in their policies, in their pulpits, in the psychosexual fever dream of power projected onto God. You can see it in the eyes of televangelists, in the trembling hands of billionaires who still believe they are not enough unless someone else is crushed. This is not faith. This is a tantrum, weaponized.Alan Watts, in his meandering genius, once said that trying to control the world is like trying to hold water in your hands. The tighter you squeeze, the less you hold. But try telling that to a man whose god is a mirror. Try telling that to someone who has mistaken conquest for transcendence.So again I ask: To what end?Is it a question they dare ask themselves in the mirror? Or is it our duty now—to ask it louder, over and over, until the echo rattles the cage they've built for the rest of us?Because some of us still believe in a garden worth tending. Some of us believe in joy without oppression. And some of us, gods help us, are still asking the question.To what end?And waiting for the answer.Carl’s Mind Chimes Magazine is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mindchimesmagazine.substack.com/subscribe