Eternal Recurrences

April 24, 2026 ·

One time I saw a TikTok of a hairdresser saying she could tell how the economy is doing by the kinds of hair styles people were opting for; that people tend to have stories explaining their choice of hair aesthetics, which in her point of view were coping mechanisms for the real reason underneath: affordability of good and services. Such observation invokes laughter but everyone has their own version of it.

One such signal I jokingly point at is freedom and sovereignty marketed as a product or service; or at least some kind of aesthetic version of it. YouTube videos of people quitting their jobs increasingly become frequent, encouraging others that they, too, can quit their jobs and join the free on a tropical island where people walk around bare feet, drink raw milk, and transact in bitcoin. Course selling shows an uptick and starts showing up more and more on screens. Funding announcements. Startup accelerators. You, too, can start a company. A big underneath driver of this in the 2010s is now said to be 0% interest rates by the U.S. federal reserve; abbreviated ZIRP, for zero interest rate policy.

The interesting thing about ZIRP is, it wasn't named until the decade had already passed. Nobody was calling it ZIRP while it was going on. It was given a name and explanation only after it was already over. So the next thing, which in my opinion is happening now, doesn't have a name yet. The details vary but a general feeling of increasingly being marketed to feels eternally recurring. There is a bear case that forms in response, meaning people start to bet against emerging trends. I hadn't heard the word grift all that much until a few years ago, but now it's very casually used for things one doesn't approve of. Regardless, this difference in opinion helps in forming and fueling the marketplace. People explain their choices with stories, both for and against, all while enacting affordances and flexes.

There's such an uptick happening right now it feels. Good. Great. I've found that there are lots of people who are aesthetically driven and they are starting to show up. It's a slow thing.

I look forward to it.

Nietzsche's portrait taken from here.