INVISIBLE SPECTACLE

You want to read my work? I am pleased to hear it.

Popularity won’t be a problem. For I have spent my life hiding in plain sight, pretending to be as ordinary as the next man buying coffee at a shop with too sweet pastries and questionably harvested beans.

Formerly working with military intelligence, our goal was to not be seen, not be recognized, to blend in such that no one could know what you were. James Bond is sexy, the rest of us were invisible.

Leaving the military, I continued to work behind the scenes as an information technology specialist, building infrastructure for a world that claimed to be desperate for communication, but discovering my efforts have instead fueled a surveillance state, in which I once again, understanding, fear its reach.

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VISIBLY INVISIBLE

Ironically, I imagined worlds where heroes fought against the status quo, in the backrooms of storefronts, as superheroes, espionage agents, operatives of monstrous computer intellects ruling the world, I was a lifelong tabletop roleplaying gamer, one of the few times I allowed myself a bit of noteriety because the nature of such gaming was relegated to the fringes of society, my safe spot.

How I found myself a college professor, I cannot tell you, but the visibility was in and of itself a form of invisibility, but I enjoyed it much more than I ever had any other work because I could see a difference in the people I trained, the first time in my life where my goal was to transform the world invisibly from the margins.

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INVISIBLE COMPETENCE

As a Black man during the period I grew up in, my job was to blend it, to be amazing and yet not have anyone become too disturbed by my capacity.

In my final act as a writer, author, journalist, analyst, I find it strange to have to promote my work, espouse my competence and discover I don’t like people to read my work because I can’t trust their responses.

Popularity, dear sir, will not be a problem. I am not popular. But I can see my work as visionary, challenging and often problematic because of its very unexpected, and undesired existence.

But I find myself in a strange moment. The world I learned to navigate - the one where invisibility was rational calculation, where strategic absence was survival - is fracturing. The institutions that demanded I calibrate my competence for their comfort are themselves losing coherence. The systems I helped build are consuming their own foundations.

And I'm tired of the tax.

Not seeking popularity - that remains someone else's game. Not performing visibility - I have no interest in being seen on terms other than my own. But I'm done with strategic absence. Done spending energy on making my existence less disturbing to people who were never going to be comfortable with it anyway.

So here's the shift: I'm present now.

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NOT VISIBLE. PRESENT.

The work exists. The analysis cuts through systems that prefer opacity. The frameworks illuminate what institutions would rather keep dark. The narratives reconfigure understanding in ways that make people uncomfortable precisely because they're accurate.

You want to read my work? It's there. Unmodulated. Unperformed. Uncalibrated for your comfort or mine.

I won't make it easier to encounter. I won't explain away its existence. I won't apologize for competence that society found unexpected and undesired.

But I'm no longer hiding it either.

The calculations changed. The cost of invisibility now exceeds its protective benefit. So I'm here - still distrustful of easy responses, still uninterested in courting approval, but done pretending excellence should apologize for taking up space.

You asked where to find my words. They're everywhere I've been. I have written online for 30 years, on science, climate change, popular culture, movies, anime, computer technology in places like Quora and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Stack Exchange.

You can read a slice of my writing on my two Substacks: Cognitive Dissident and Omniverse. One is for truth, the other for lies, both are subjective, because your opinion will be based on where you stand in the world. Enjoy.

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Welcome to the Cognitive Dissident: cognitivedissident.subs…