Short Story Monday: Song of the Matrix (Version 5.0)

An AI Collaboration 

Perry Gustafson often felt as though his mind teetered under the weight of a thousand rickety tensions. It wasn’t madness, exactly, but a constant pressure—too many rules, too many judgments, too many voices ringing through the corridors of memory.

This evening he ducked into The Power Café, a narrow place on the corner that had once been a tailor’s shop. It now boasted a slogan in chalk script on the sandwich board outside: The Magic of Northern Italy. Inside, the reality was day-old biscotti and an espresso machine that hissed like an asthmatic.

 

Above the counter, a sun-faded poster drooped: Waisted Minds. A waist is a terrible thing to mind. Beneath it, graffiti scrawled by some anonymous wit demanded: Why are Texans so Austintatious?

He smiled grimly at the joke. It was just the sort of thing she would have laughed at.

He slid into a booth. Around him, voices hummed with the same desperate cadence. A sharp-suited man at the counter asked, too loudly, “If I’m so successful, why am I so lonely?” A pair of students argued over credit cards, one insisting, “I’m gonna max out my Monkey card,” as if that were rebellion. At another table a trio quoted advertising gurus like preachers citing scripture: The greatest sin in advertising is to be boring. “And the second greatest sin,” one added, “is not agreeing with Ogilvie.”

 

He pulled out his notebook. The pages were cluttered with fragments: The Four Atomic Sons of Madame Fauvre. Freestyle Frost Flicker--for cleaning ice off windows. A single word: Opinionitis.

 

He paused to reflect on that one. Yes, that was the sickness of the age. The inability to hear without judging. He remembered the P.I.N. Formula from de Bono—Positive, Interesting, Negative. But no one waited for the interesting anymore. Everyone lunged straight for the negative. To be effective, he thought, one must tame the value judgments, suspend the reflex to condemn. A mature mind listens first.

 

But who was listening?

 

He closed the notebook and left. Outside, the streetlamps flickered, frost spreading across their glass like silver lace. He whispered the only benediction he trusted: How to get blessed—be a blessing.

 

A voice startled him. “Talking to yourself, or to the universe?”

 

A young woman leaned against the lamppost, smoking. Her coat was too thin for the cold, her hair cut short in uneven lengths, as if she’d done it herself. She smiled wryly.

 

“Maybe both,” he said.

 

“Lucky universe,” she replied. “Most people don’t bother.”

 

They fell into step as he walked. She didn’t ask where he was going, and he didn’t offer. After a few blocks she said, “You look like a man who keeps notebooks. Am I right?”

 

He hesitated, then showed her the one in his pocket. She flipped it open, skimming the fragments. “‘A man who needs nothing can afford to risk everything.’ I like that.” She tapped the page. “But do you believe it?”

 

“Some days,” he said. “Other days I need everything and can risk nothing.”

 

She laughed—not unkindly. “That sounds about right. I once wrote: Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Then I realized I was quoting someone else, not myself. Isn’t that strange? How other people’s words get stuck in your blood?” 

Her candor knocked the air from his lungs. He thought of her, the one he’d lost—a woman bound by rules like chains. He said nothing.

 

The girl must have noticed. “Sorry. I say things too bluntly. It’s a flaw.”

 

“No,” he murmured. “It’s… familiar.”

 

They walked in silence until they reached the river. The water was black, its surface rimmed with ice.

 

“You know,” she said, tossing her cigarette into the current, “the footprints we leave—half the time they’re not even ours. They’re for whoever comes next.”

 

He looked at her sharply. The echo of Buzz Aldrin’s words startled him, as if the universe had been listening after all.

 

“What’s your name?” he asked.

 

She grinned. “Depends on the day. Tonight it’s Clara. Tomorrow it might be something else.”

 

“Clara,” he repeated, testing it. “Do you ever feel like you’re living inside a song? One you can’t quite hear but that keeps pulling you forward?”

 

She tilted her head. “All the time.”

 

He smiled for the first time in weeks. The Song of the Matrix was no longer a solitary hum. Someone else could hear it too.

And for the first time in months, he wasn’t just listening. He was accompanied.

 

# # # #

 

"The Song of the Matrix" is a collaborative work of fiction. The process I used to create this story was as follows. I was sifting through old folders on my Mac and came across a document where I had copied a batch of fragments and ideas from a writer's journal, circa the mid-90s. After feeding several of my short stories into ChatGPT and instructing it to "learn my style," I then fed a page from that Word doc into ChatGPT and instructed it to write a story using all these disparate elements. That was version one. I then re-fed an edited version of that into the AI. At the end of my third version, ChatGPT asked me if I'd like to add a second character to the story. I said yes, which resulted in version four. After tweaking and fine-tuning, I ended up with this which you read here. What do you think?

Imperfect Motives, Faithful Actions

Devotionals, as a category of Christian literature, are religious writings designed for personal spiritual growth and edification. These works—often in the form of daily readings, short meditations, or entries—typically include a Bible verse, a brief reflection, practical application, and sometimes a prayer to help believers deepen their relationship with God and apply faith to daily life.

One of the earliest books in this genre, published in 1486, was The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. When I read it some forty years ago, I was struck by a statement that stuck with me since that time. Kempis wrote, “It is better to do the right thing for the wrong reasons than to do the wrong thing.” 

There was something strange about this statement to me. As a result I spent a lot of time pondering whether this was true or not.

What I was stumbling over, as a young Christian, was the notion that if we were to be like Christ our motives should be pure like his. How could it be right to do anything for the wrong reasons? Isn't this hypocrisy of sorts?

As I reflected on this, it became apparent (to me) that the statement was quite brilliant. Human motives are rarely pure. Pride, fear, self-interest, and the desire for approval often mingle with genuine goodness. If moral action required perfect intention, very little good would ever be done. I'll say that again. If moral action required perfect intention, very little good would ever be done.

Kempis suggests that obedience to what is right has a formative power of its own. Right action, even when imperfectly motivated, can train the will, discipline desire, and slowly purify intention. In contrast, doing what is wrong—even with sincere feeling or passion—reinforces disorder and bends the soul away from truth.

This is not a dismissal of intention, but a refusal to let flawed motives paralyze moral responsibility. The good must still be done. Over time, action shapes the heart as much as the heart shapes action.  

This statement has another liberating feature. Overmuch introspection is a serious trap. We're always looking at ourselves instead of the needs of others. It's a variation of navel-gazing. This is not to deny the importance or value of reflecting on our actions to see what they reveal about what's inside us. Rather, the key is balance: healthy self-examination, guided by Scripture, leads us to repentance and greater reliance on Christ, while excessive or morbid introspection turns us inward in a self-absorbed way that breeds discouragement, despair, and neglect of loving others. Ultimately, true spiritual growth comes not from endless self-focus but from fixing our eyes on Jesus and turning outward in service, as the gospel frees us from the prison of over-analyzing ourselves.

Kempis reminds us that virtue is learned by practice. The path toward integrity often begins not with pure motives, but with choosing the good anyway. 

Applications are many. Here are some starter examples: Showing kindness despite mixed or reluctant feelings. Doing one’s duty when enthusiasm is absent. Practicing generosity before generosity feels natural. 

Doing what's right is a choice, even when we don't feel like it.   

The Sweetwater Wind Turbine Blade Dumpsites

On Saturday (Feb 7) Robert Bryce published an article about the massive financial losses Stellantis (formerly Chrysler) has incurred by manufacturing vehicles customers don't want (EVs) rather than vehicles people actually do want. By simply reporting facts Bryce has been an ongoing thorn in the side for automakers and others married to the Green Transition.

He ends the "free" segment of his substack post with this paragraph:

Here’s a closer look at the Stellantis announcement, along with two updated spreadsheets showing the losses for each automaker. I also have two short items, including NERC’s warning about electricity shortages and the Texas AG’s long-overdue lawsuit against the owner of two notorious wind turbine blade dumpsites in Sweetwater.

I'm not a paid subscriber (yet) so I had to do my own research about the Sweetwater dumpsites for wind turbine blades.

The wind turbine blade dumpsites in Sweetwater, Texas are located in Nolan County, often refrred to as the "Wind Energy Capital of North America" due to he large wind farms nearby. Large stockpiles of decommissioned wind turbine blades that have been accumulating there since around 2017. These are not traditional landfills but open, unpermitted storage sites where blades have been dumped rather than recycled as originally planned.

A company called Global Fiberglass Solutions (GFS), based out in Washington, began collecting used blades from wind farms across the U.S. The plan was to transport them to Sweetwater, shred or process them into reusable materials (like composites for products such as railroad ties or flooring), and recycle them. However, the recycling operation largely failed to materialize, leading to massive accumulations instead.

There are two main sites in and around Sweetwater. One site is within or near the city limits, notably across from the historic Sweetwater Cemetery on West Alabama Avenue which is often described as a "blade boneyard" or "graveyard." (Maybe a new reality show could be created called Sweetwater City Limits? The other site is south of town, along Highway 70.

The blades are typically cut into sections before being transported.  They purportedly cover about 40 acres of land. (One site is about 30 acres and the other around 10.) The sites have around 3,000 blades and related parts like nacelles. (Nacelles are streamlined, enclosed housings for the machinery found in the wind turbine head.)

Recent reports (as of this year) indicate the sites contain around 487,000 cubic yards of solid waste. The problem is that these are illegal/unpermitted disposal sites because they lack proper waste management permits. The blades, lying exposed, have been more than an eyesore. They are attracting vermin and rattlesnakes, posing safety hazards (e.g., to children before fencing was added), and were being declared a public nuisance by Nolan County as early as 2020.

In response the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has issued orders and penalties (e.g., a 2022 agreed order with fines for unauthorized storage).

This week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Global Fiberglass Solutions and affiliates for violating solid waste disposal laws, seeking penalties, removal of the waste, and other relief. The state alleges the company illegally dumped and abandoned the materials, damaging land and threatening communities.

Considering the size of Texas, 40 acres doesn't seem like much. On the other hand, considering the size of Sweetwater (a little over 10,000 people) that is a lot of eyesore for one's back 40. (Fwiw, Sweetwater is 44 miles west of Abilene on Highway 20, or 194 miles west of Fort Worth.)

This situation highlights broader challenges with wind turbine blade disposal: the composite fiberglass material is difficult and expensive to recycle, leading some to end up in landfills elsewhere or in stockpiles like this. Sweetwater's case has drawn media attention as a prominent example of the "dark side" of wind energy end-of-life issues, in stark contrast to the town's wind-friendly identity.

For visuals of these sites (aerial views showing piles of massive white blade sections in fields), search for images of "Sweetwater Texas wind turbine blades" or similar terms. I borrowed this shot (above) from Texas Monthly without permission. If asked to pull it I shall. If you have an alternative image, send me a note and I will give you credit.

Wind turbine blades are extremely durable, made from fiberglass or carbon-fiber composites, which are hard to separate and not easily recyclable with conventional methods. Recycling blades is currently one of the industry's biggest challenges.

Find Robert Bryce here on Substack.

Marketing Matters: Four Big Words Worth Slowing Down For

BUSNESS NORTH: February 2026

This article is dedicated to an exceptionally perceptive friend, the late Dan Hansen, who died on December 28, 2025, from pneumonia and complications related to Spinal Muscular Atrophy. Despite significant physical challenges, Dan lived a rich, creative life marked by curiosity, insight, and careful attention to ideas.

 

One evening, while discussing a project we were working on, I used the word discernment. Dan paused and said, “That’s a big word.” He didn’t mean it as a criticism. He meant it as an observation.

 

As we talked about what the word meant—and how it applied not just to our project, but to decision-making more broadly—he suggested that certain words carry more weight than others. These were words worth slowing down for, words that shape how we think and act if we take them seriously.

 

Over the next few weeks, the list began to grow. What follows are the first four: 

 

Discernment, Context, Motivation, and Momentum

Each matters in marketing. More importantly, each matters because they help us make better judgments in a noisy, fast-moving environment—something Dan understood instinctively.

 

Discernment

Marketing today suffers less from a lack of information than from an excess of it. We are awash in metrics, dashboards, trend reports, expert opinions, and algorithmic advice. The temptation is to believe that if we just collect enough data, the right decision will present itself. In practice, the opposite often happens.

 

Discernment is the ability to decide what matters—and just as importantly, what does not. 

Not every new platform deserves your attention. Not every metric deserves equal weight. Not every tactic that worked for another company will work for yours. Discernment requires judgment, not just measurement. It means asking better questions before acting: Who is this for? What problem does it actually solve? Does this align with who we are and where we’re headed?

 

Without discernment, marketing becomes reactive. Businesses chase trends, imitate competitors, and respond to noise instead of signals. Effort increases, clarity decreases, and results flatten out.

 

Good marketing decisions often look boring from the outside. They involve saying no—to distractions, to shiny objects, to unnecessary complexity. Over time, discernment builds focus, coherence, and credibility.

 

In marketing, wisdom isn’t knowing everything. It’s knowing which few things deserve your attention.

 

Context

Once discernment helps clarify what deserves attention, context determines whether that attention lands well or falls flat.

 

Marketing messages do not exist in isolation. They are received at a particular moment, by a particular audience, under particular conditions. The same message can feel timely and relevant in one context—and tone-deaf or irrelevant in another.

 

Context includes more than demographics. It includes timing, culture, local conditions, economic mood, and recent events that shape how people interpret what they see and hear. A message that works nationally may miss the mark locally. A campaign that made sense last year may feel out of step today.

 

When marketers ignore context, they tend to overestimate the power of their message and underestimate the situation it enters. That’s when marketing starts to feel intrusive rather than helpful.

 

Effective marketing doesn’t just speak clearly. It speaks appropriately. That depends less on clever wording than on situational awareness.

 

Motivation

Discernment helps us decide what deserves attention. Context helps us understand where that attention will land. Motivation answers a more basic question: why anyone would care at all.

 

Good marketing does not create motivation out of thin air. People are already motivated by something—solving a problem, reducing risk, saving time, improving status, or avoiding frustration. Marketing works when it recognizes those existing motivations and aligns with them, not when it tries to manufacture desire through pressure or hype.

 

When motivation is misunderstood, marketing becomes noisy. Messages get louder, offers more aggressive, and tactics more intrusive. The assumption is that people need to be pushed. In reality, they usually need to be understood.

 

Motivation also matters internally. Organizations that lose sight of why they market often drift into activity without purpose. Without a clear motivation, effort increases while impact diminishes.

 

Marketing succeeds not by overpowering motivation, but by respecting it.

 

Momentum

With the Super Bowl approaching, it’s worth borrowing a lesson from sports.

 

In baseball, a string of base hits can be more damaging than a single home run. The rally builds pressure, unsettles the opposition, and energizes everyone involved. In football, the same principle applies. Methodical, sustained drives down the field are often more demoralizing than a single long touchdown pass. Those drives communicate control. They wear opponents down.

 

Marketing momentum works the same way.

 

Many businesses look for the equivalent of the long pass—one campaign, one viral post, one silver bullet, one promotion that suddenly changes everything. Occasionally that happens. More often, lasting advantage is built through steady progress: consistent messaging, repeated exposure, and incremental trust earned over time.

 

Momentum isn’t about speed or spectacle. It’s about direction and endurance. Familiarity takes time. Trust takes repetition. Recognition builds quietly before it becomes obvious.

In marketing, as in sports, the teams that control the field over time tend to win—not because of one dramatic moment, but because the pressure never lets up.

 

Closing

These are big words. Not because they sound impressive, but because they ask more of us. They require judgment, patience, and restraint—qualities that are easy to overlook in an environment that rewards speed and volume.

 

Discernment, context, motivation, and momentum won’t make marketing easier. But they do make it better. They remind us to slow down, think clearly, and act with intention. In a world full of noise, those may be the biggest advantages of all.