Non-Toxic Dad News: April 3, 2025

*Not what you're looking for? Go to the HTML version for the fancy stuff and content. OR: I need to ask you something.. How tightly are you holding on? Now don’t just answer with your mind. Feel it. Feel the grip inside of you, the tension, the way your heart clings to things, the way your mind grabs at control. I’m asking because this story is about letting go. Not in theory—not as some idea to think about. But as something to do. Right now. Let me explain. There was a man who lived his life as if he were holding on to a rope. The rope was long and frayed, tied to all the things he thought he needed to survive. He gripped it with both hands and held on for dear life. He thought that if he let go, he would fall into an abyss. He didn’t know exactly what was down there, but he knew it would be bad. He’d lose everything—his family, his job, his sense of self. Without the rope, he was certain, he would be nothing. But holding the rope was exhausting. It burned his palms and cut into his fingers. Sometimes it felt like the rope pulled him in different directions at once—one end tied to his need for people to like him, the other to his fear of failure. Sometimes the tension on the rope was unbearable, but still, he held on. Because to let go? That was unthinkable. One day, the man met an old woman sitting on a bench in a park. She had a peaceful glow about her, as if she carried no burdens at all. The man was jealous of her ease. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt that way. “How are you so calm?” he asked her. The woman looked at him and smiled. “I let go of the rope,” she said simply. The man frowned. “What rope?” “The one you’re holding,” she said. “You can’t see it, but you can feel it, can’t you? That tightness inside of you. That fear that if you let go, you’ll lose everything. But the truth is, the rope isn’t saving you. It’s strangling you.” The man was quiet for a long time. He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t even know how to imagine a life without holding on to the rope. “But if I let go,” he said finally, “won’t I fall?” The woman’s smile deepened. “That’s what you think,” she said. “But the only thing you’ll fall into is freedom.” The man didn’t believe her, of course. How could he? Letting go went against everything he’d been taught. He’d spent his whole life being told that survival depended on holding on—holding on to people, to possessions, to control. Letting go felt like giving up. It felt like failure. But the conversation stayed with him. And over the next few weeks, he started to notice the rope more clearly. It wasn’t something he could see, but it was something he could feel. He noticed how his stomach tightened when someone criticized him. He noticed how his chest constricted when he thought about money. He noticed how his mind raced when he imagined losing the things he loved. And the more he noticed, the more he realized that the rope wasn’t tied to anything outside of him. It wasn’t tied to his family, or his job, or his future. It was tied to his own need to control those things. And then one day, something happened that changed everything. He got into an argument with a friend. It was a stupid argument, the kind that shouldn’t have mattered, but it consumed him. He replayed it over and over in his mind, feeling the anger rise in his chest, feeling the grip of the rope tighten. He wanted to fix it, to make it right, to say the perfect thing that would restore the friendship. But no matter how much he thought about it, the tension wouldn’t go away. And that’s when he remembered the old woman’s words. “Let go of the rope,” she’d said. For the first time, he wondered what that might feel like. What if he stopped trying to fix the argument? What if he stopped replaying it in his mind? What if he just… let it be? So he tried. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and imagined himself opening his hands. He imagined the rope falling away, leaving his hands empty. At first, it felt terrifying. He could feel his mind resisting, telling him he was making a mistake, that he needed the rope to stay safe. But then something remarkable happened. The tension in his chest began to ease. The tightness in his stomach softened. And in the space where the rope had been, there was peace. It wasn’t the kind of peace he’d expected. It wasn’t a grand, earth-shattering revelation. It was quieter than that, gentler. It was the kind of peace that comes when you stop fighting. When you stop trying to control what you can’t control. When you stop holding on to something that was never holding you up in the first place. The man didn’t let go of the rope all at once. He still found himself holding it from time to time, especially when life got hard. But now, he knew he had a choice. He didn’t have to hold on. And every time he remembered that, the grip of the rope grew weaker. You see, we’re all holding on to a rope. It’s tied to different things for each of us—our careers, our relationships, our identities. But the rope isn’t real. The tension you feel, the struggle, the exhaustion—it’s all inside of you. The rope is just your mind trying to control what it can’t control. And here’s the thing: You don’t need to hold on. Life is not asking you to control it. Life is asking you to experience it. To let it flow through you, like a river, without clinging to the rocks. Letting go doesn’t mean giving up. It doesn’t mean you stop caring or trying. It means you stop resisting. It means you let life be what it is, instead of what your mind thinks it should be. So I ask you again: How tightly are you holding on? Can you feel the tension in your chest, the grip in your heart? And more importantly, can you let it go? You don’t have to do it all at once. Just open your hands a little. Just loosen the grip. And when you do, you’ll find that you’re not falling. You’re floating. You’re free. Let go of the rope. Trust me. You don’t need it. The Labyrinth of Light The dome was a living sun. Its translucent panels, segmented like a beetle’s shell, refracted the noonday radiance into a thousand glittering shards, each shard sliding and shimmering along the smooth, white walls below. Everything gleamed with antiseptic brightness, unmarred by the stains of weather, time, or emotion. This was Aurorium, the City of Light. It had no shadows, and, officially, no doubts. Here, under the ever-shining dome, humanity had left behind its fumbling uncertainties, its endless agonies of self-questioning. Gone were the abstract struggles of philosophers and the ceaseless murmur of poets. In their place stood the Ministry of Illumination, with its shining creed: “Meaning is not found—it is assigned. Meaning is not sought—it is delivered.” At the Ministry, every citizen was given their Lumen Pathway by the time they reached their eighteenth year. The system was flawless, or so the Ministry claimed. Each person’s psychometric profile was carefully analyzed; their neural maps scanned and cross-checked against the Collective Consciousness Index. By the end of the process, the result was inevitable: a tailored life-purpose, as precise as the color of one’s irises or the number of lines on one’s fingerprints. And yet, here was Elias. Elias Lorne, Citizen #71184-17, stood at the base of the Ministry’s grand atrium, staring at his Lumen Certificate. The holographic display shimmered faintly in the sterile air, the words inscribed in perfect golden light: "Your purpose is to tend the Reservoirs of Radiance." The Reservoirs. He had heard of them—a vast network of subterranean pools where the city’s refractive crystals were immersed and cleansed, their radiance replenished to ensure the eternal glow of Aurorium. It was honorable work, no doubt, necessary for the city’s unbroken illumination. And yet, as he stood there, holding his future in his hands, something in Elias’s chest remained unmoved. “Is this all there is?” he murmured under his breath. Behind him, a low hum of activity filled the atrium. Young citizens, fresh from their assignments, buzzed with nervous energy. Some smiled, others wept with joy at the clarity of their destinies. A girl beside him held her certificate like a talisman, her voice trembling as she whispered, “I’ll be a Vision Architect!” Another boy punched the air triumphantly, announcing to no one in particular, “Harmonic Technician. Exactly what I wanted!” Elias’s fingers tightened around the edge of the hologram. It wasn’t that he objected to the assignment—not exactly. He understood the necessity of the work. But somewhere deep in the cavernous recess of his mind, a quiet question flickered like a match held too close to the wind: Wasn’t there something more? The next morning, Elias descended into the Reservoirs. The air was cool, metallic. A faint green glow emanated from the crystal pools, each surface rippling with soft waves of light. Dozens of workers moved silently between the tanks, their movements precise and methodical. The cleansing process was simple: dip the crystal, let it absorb the liquid radiance, then return it to its casing. Elias fell into rhythm quickly. His hands moved automatically, his thoughts wandering. There was a kind of tranquility to the work, an easy hypnosis in the endless repetition. But as the hours stretched into days, and the days into weeks, he found that tranquility tightening into a noose. At night, lying alone in his cubicle, Elias began to feel the weight of the dome above him. Its brilliance, once comforting, now seemed oppressive. The endless light pressed against his eyelids, refusing to let him sleep. He stared at the ceiling for hours, his mind circling the same, unanswerable question: If meaning was assigned, then why did it feel so… hollow? Months passed. The other workers in the Reservoirs were kind enough, but Elias rarely spoke to them. They didn’t seem troubled by the same restless ache that gnawed at him. Most were content, even cheerful, in their purpose. It wasn’t until Elias met Mara that things began to change. Mara was a Senior Luminarian, one of the overseers who ensured the crystals were properly aligned before their return to the surface. She was older than Elias, with a sharp, watchful gaze that seemed to pierce through the white haze of the dome. “You’re distracted,” she said one afternoon, her voice cutting cleanly through the ambient hum of the Reservoir. Elias looked up, startled. “I’m fine,” he said, too quickly. Mara’s eyes narrowed. She stepped closer, her shadow brushing against the edge of his crystal tank. “You’re restless,” she said, not unkindly. “That’s dangerous.” “Dangerous?” “Restlessness is a crack,” Mara said. “And cracks are where the darkness seeps in.” Elias hesitated. Then, without meaning to, he said: “Do you ever feel like there’s something missing?” For a long moment, Mara was silent. Then, to Elias’s surprise, she smiled. “Come with me,” she said. That night, Mara led Elias to a hidden passage at the edge of the Reservoirs. The corridor was narrow and dim, its walls streaked with stains of rust. At the end of the tunnel was a door, heavy and ancient, unlike anything Elias had seen in Aurorium. Mara pushed it open. Inside was darkness. Not the faint, shimmering darkness of the city’s shadowless corners, but a true, unbroken blackness that swallowed light whole. For a moment, Elias was overwhelmed by it. The silence was absolute, the void pressing against his skin like a living thing. “What is this place?” he whispered. Mara’s voice was quiet, reverent. “This is where the light comes from.” Elias frowned. “What do you mean? The light comes from the crystals.” Mara shook her head. “The crystals only reflect it. But the source—the true source—is here. In the dark.” She gestured toward the center of the room. There, faintly visible, was a single point of light, no larger than a grain of sand. It pulsed softly, irregularly, like the heartbeat of some distant, unseen creature. “The Ministry doesn’t talk about this,” Mara continued. “They want people to believe the light is infinite, self-sustaining. But it’s not. It comes from here. And it’s fragile.” Elias stared at the tiny light, his chest tightening. “Why are you showing me this?” “Because you’re asking questions,” Mara said simply. “And questions can’t be answered in the light. Not the real ones.” In the weeks that followed, Elias found himself drawn back to the dark room. He spent hours staring at the tiny light, his thoughts unraveling in its faint glow. What was it about the darkness, he wondered, that made the light seem so alive? In the Reservoirs, surrounded by radiance, the light had felt hollow, artificial. But here, cradled in shadow, it was different—fragile, imperfect, and undeniably real. Perhaps, Elias thought, meaning wasn’t something the Ministry could assign after all. Perhaps it wasn’t something that could be given at all. Perhaps meaning had to be carved out of the dark.