Universal Endeavors

Leaving the Stadium

I saw a clip of the Artemis II rocket climbing into the atmosphere and felt an unexpected feeling of joy. Not for any country, not for any team—just for humanity. For the fact that we, as a species, pointed ourselves at the moon again. That feeling told me something about where I am now, and I want to share it.

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Two Kinds of Human Activity

There are two categories of human activity worth understanding.

The first I call “universal endeavors.” These are pursuits that belong to all of humanity regardless of tribe, nation, race, or religion—science, philosophy, mathematics, engineering, and art. Every group of mankind has contributed to these throughout history because they serve everyone. The Artemis mission is a universal endeavor.

The second category is “tribal agendas.” These are the things that drive competition between groups—political, national, religious, economic, and racial. These things are not right or wrong. They are inevitable outcomes of how nature designed conflict into us, and it has always been this way.

Both will always exist. The question is which one you belong in.

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The Referee Illusion

When I first stepped back from political activism, I thought I had found a third option—the referee. Someone who watches the whole field, calls fouls on everyone equally, and holds all sides to the same standard. It felt like a clean position, accountable to no team.

But the referee is still at the game, still inside the stadium, and still defined by the conflict even if not participating in it directly. Meta-politics is still politics. Watching the tribal agendas and commenting on them is still letting them set your agenda. I had changed my role but not my orbit.

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Leaving the Stadium

Some people are built for the tribal agenda. They thrive in conflict, in group struggle, in the push and pull of political life. The game needs players, and it always will find them. But some people are built for the universal—philosophers, scientists, mathematicians, writers, people of the book rather than people of the field.

If you are one of those people and you spend your years inside a tribal agenda out of obligation rather than calling, you will feel it. There’s a constant low-grade wrongness, like wearing someone else’s clothes. No matter how much you try to fit in, it just doesn’t work.

I participated out of duty, not desire. There’s a profound difference between those two things, and confusing them costs years of your life. The tribal agendas will continue with or without me, you, or anyone else. The conflict is inevitable and permanent. Knowing that is not defeat—it is liberation. It means you are free to stop and find another way to contribute.

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What I Found on the Outside

My days are lighter now. I spend my time reading and writing philosophy, contributing to an endeavor that serves everyone rather than agendas that serve a faction. The relief is hard to describe.

After years of fighting, when you stop worrying about which team is supposed to win, all that anxiety goes away. That’s not quitting—that is finding where you belong.

Notice that no matter what happens in politics, humanity continues onward. All the doomsday prophecies of global domination or complete enslavement have never come true and never will, because no tribe can ever achieve complete victory. It violates the fabric of reality. The world moves on and always seems to recover—despite dark ages, world wars, and plagues.

Why? Because the things that pull humanity forward are not the tribal conflicts. They are the universal endeavors. The ones every group has contributed to. The ones no single tribe can claim or own.

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Where Do You Stand?

Are you contributing to a tribal agenda out of calling or out of obligation? Do you believe in the game, or did something happen that made you feel like you had to play?

There’s another option when you realize you’re in the wrong game. This universal option allows you to still serve humanity without guilt, because such endeavors secure the existence of all tribes, including the one you were born into.

The game will continue without you. The question is whether you belong on the field.

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