ChuddurrEvery Chuddurr believes he arrived just in time to watch the statue come down. This is a kindness he does for himself. The statue was complicated. The bed is not. The bed is right there.
Decline is a real thing. It looks like institutions forgetting how to do what they said on the door. Bedroom decline is also a real thing. It looks like a chair that has become a wardrobe and a worldview that has become a personality.
Chuddurrs prefer civilizational decline. Decline has metrics. Fertility. Cathedrals. A stranger in the replies who said “this. this is it.” It is it for whom? Unclear. It enough to screenshot. Not it enough to take the bag out.
The late-empire costume
You can spot it from the hallway. The costume has three pieces. One: a sentence that begins with “no one wants to say.” Two: a chart that is, in fact, a graveyard of the last twelve people who said it. Three: a bedroom that is doing more narrative work than the nightstand can support.
If no one wants to say it, that is not automatically a compliment. Sometimes no one wants to say it because it is a worse version of “I am sad and the room is loud.”
A diagnostic
Ask yourself one question and do not workshop the answer.
If the West were restored tomorrow, at 9 a.m., what would you personally do with your hands?
If the answer is build, teach, repair, cook, or hold a child, you might just be a citizen having a week. If the answer is post, you are a Chuddurr. Sit down. Drink water. The empire is not on your group chat. Your socks are on the floor.
— Betty Grokr