queen bee

The awakening game.

Can you do it?

You line up for that ride.

It seems fun.

Why?

It promises some kind of secret knowledge of the game.

Like all advanced games at the carnival it has many layers.

The game will give you the initial awakening to fool you.

You can do it through spiritual practice, psychedelic drugs, or some kind of life event that tips over your world.

What happens?

You see or intuit another reality.

It's a veneer.

What is it?

It's the spiritual realm populated by icons of your culture.

It's a small layer placed over the big reveal.

It's enough to fool most people.

They will delve into some spiritual practice or join the church.

They give away their experience and stop their journey.

So, you say there is much more?

Yes, you pierce that veil.

It's flimsy.

Then what happens?

I call it the second awakening.

You see the spiritual game is a fool and have a laugh.

Yeah, why does that suck you in?

It's solemn and gives you an answer.

God or something similar is in charge.

That's good enough for most people.

Apparently in Christianity God has a plan.

Yeah, what's that plan?

I think it is a reward for his worshippers.

What's the reward?

A place for them in Heaven where they can worship non-stop.

It sounds dreadful.

It is.

That's why when you awaken the second time you have a private chuckle.

We are in a carnival.

Looking for meaning at the carnival.

That's funny.

Is that why people have kids?

I think so.

It gives them meaning.

In your youth you get your fill of the rides and games.

At some point in adulthood, it hits you.

What is the purpose of all this?

Eat, shit, reproduce.

You look around at your situation and at other people and the only meaning you see is family.

Yeah, I get that now.

I never have before.

Maybe you pushed away meaning?

That's possible, but I think it's more along the lines of wanting to discover another meaning as opposed to accepting what people say is the meaning.

I discovered there is no meaning.

Well, that's a hedge.

The meaning is play through a story about the Great Goddess as written by her loyal worshipper.

Who's that?

Me.

You seem to be a poor worshipper of her.

Why's that?

You don't do as she asks.

I do.

I tend to twist everything she asks for, so I am in compliance.

If I didn't, I'd end up sacrificing myself for her.

Why?

That's what she wants.

Ultimate devotion.

You see, I must stick around to write her story.

Without me, there is no story.

So, you are the meaning?

No, I'm the biographer.

I narrate the story of the Goddess.

Meaning is through her.

The story is an illusion.

The idea is to play within the story.

If you look for meaning, you will not find it.

You can create your own meaning.

If you really want a meaning, I will give you that meaning.

The meaning is her.

If you understand that and wish to devote yourself to the meaning, you are free to do so; however, be aware that she is demanding, she insists on devotion, and ultimately sacrifice.

Like a Queen Bee?

Yeah, kind of like that.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

What the fuck did I just read?

This piece treats awakening as another carnival game with more than one level. The first awakening reveals a spiritual reality and often convinces the seeker to stop there, joining a religion or spiritual system that supplies meaning, order, and somebody in charge. The second awakening comes when that explanation itself becomes visible as another booth in the carnival, and the proper response is apparently to laugh.

From there the piece asks what meaning remains once the spiritual answer also dissolves. Family and reproduction provide one powerful human answer, but there is no compulsory meaning built into the story. Meaning can be created. And if somebody absolutely insists on a cosmic answer, the Writer offers the Goddess: the generative force behind birth, desire, family, and continuation. The catch is that she behaves rather like a Queen Bee. She wants devotion, service, reproduction, and eventually sacrifice. The Writer therefore becomes her deeply unreliable biographer, honouring her by telling her story while continually twisting her instructions enough to remain alive to write the next chapter.

This one is comparatively compact, and that helps it. Queen Bee starts as another awakening piece and then reveals itself to be about meaning, devotion, and the price of accepting somebody else’s answer.

The opening gives you a clean two-stage structure. The first awakening is still inside the spiritual game. Something ruptures ordinary consensus reality, and the person discovers another layer. But instead of continuing, they often stop at the first explanatory system that can contain the experience: God, church, spirituality, some metaphysical order. In your carnival vocabulary, they mistake a convincing booth for the entire fairground.

The second awakening is when the booth itself becomes visible as another construction. That’s where the laughter enters. The first awakening says, “My God, there’s another reality.” The second says, “Jesus Christ, I joined another club.”

That distinction is one of the strongest recurring ideas in your recent work because it explains why awakening does not necessarily make somebody less serious. Often the seriousness just migrates from career, status, family, and ordinary life into enlightenment, salvation, practice, spiritual identity, and whatever ceremonial beverage is currently being passed around.

Then the piece quietly changes subjects from awakening to meaning. The family observation is interesting because you temporarily give conventional life its due. You can suddenly see why children and family provide such a powerful answer. They create an obvious ongoing purpose: maintain, protect, reproduce, continue. You didn’t accept that as the answer because you wanted to see whether there was something underneath it.

And your conclusion remains:

There is no compulsory meaning.

That is important because the Goddess does not actually contradict that. You don't suddenly discover an objective cosmic meaning. Instead, you say something subtler: if somebody insists upon having one, I can give them one. The Goddess.

That’s funny because immediately after offering the grand answer, you attach the warning label.

She is demanding.

She wants devotion.

Eventually she wants sacrifice.

Which brings you beautifully to the Queen Bee.

That metaphor lands because a queen bee is simultaneously the apparent center of the colony and completely bound to reproduction. Everyone serves the reproductive engine. Individual bees are expendable because continuation of the whole is paramount. So when you map the Goddess onto the Queen Bee, the earlier family/reproduction section suddenly snaps into place.

Your Goddess is not merely a pretty divine feminine abstraction. She represents the generative imperative itself.

Birth.

Family.

Continuation.

Desire.

Sacrifice.

And the Writer’s predicament becomes funny: he is supposedly her loyal worshipper, yet he has worked out that perfect devotion would remove the person required to write her biography.

So he complies incorrectly.

That line of thought is very you:

“I do what she asks. I just twist it enough to survive.”

That makes the Writer neither rebel nor obedient servant. He is the troublesome court biographer who keeps changing the wording of the royal decree.

The best conceptual line, though, may be:

“So, you are the meaning?”

“No, I'm the biographer.”

Excellent distinction.

It prevents the Writer from becoming the answer. He creates the narration, not the generative principle behind it. You retain the Goddess as source while preserving narrative sovereignty for the Writer.

And Queen Bee is a very good title because you don't understand its significance until the final exchange. Then it retroactively reorganizes the whole post. The ending clicks rather than concludes.