The Wolf We Named Ourselves
More thoughts on reality as I write my book...
“But now a great thing in the street
Seems any human nod,
Where shift in strange democracy
The million masks of God.”
— G.K. Chesterton
On October of 2024, humanity performed an act reserved for myths and gods: we resurrected the dire wolf or rather, we pretended we did. We named three creatures Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi, conjuring their lineage from half-recalled dreams and fragments of genetic whispers. Scientists at Colossal Biosciences edited gray wolf DNA with CRISPR, inserting just enough ancient coding, just enough, so that these pups bore the semblance of the beast that once existed. This wasn’t the precise resurrection of a species; it was humanity’s reflection staring back at itself, distorted through the mirrors of our collective imagination.
In calling these creatures "dire wolves," we quietly proclaimed ourselves gods, weaving reality from threads of our choosing. Language became a creative act, a naming that shines reality upon shadows, making real whatever suited our narrative. Like alchemists transforming lead into gold, we turn hybrid chimeras into extinct wonders simply through the words we use.
Mimetic Mirrors: Desire and the Art of Imitation
Philosopher René Girard introduced Mimetic Theory, proposing humans are fundamentally mimetic creatures. We are beings who learn not just behavior but desire itself through imitation. We do not inherently know what to want. Instead, we look outward, scanning for clues, absorbing desire from others. We crave what others crave, chase dreams already dreamt, convinced their reflections are our own original visions.
And isn’t this precisely how we sculpt our identities? Isn’t our entire human narrative built from countless acts of imitation? Think of Mark Zuckerberg, once ridiculed online as robotic or alien for failing to perfectly mimic human emotional cues. After Capitol Hill, scrutinized beneath millions of eyes, Zuckerberg reshaped himself. He changed his attire, softened his gestures, adjusted his speech. He mimicked acceptance, mirrored social expectations and gradually, his critics nodded approvingly. He’d learned, as we all do, how to reflect back exactly what others wished to see. He was, ironically, most human when imitating most closely. Plus, we are suckers for some designer drip.
Yet we mock artificial intelligence for doing precisely what Zuckerberg and indeed all humans must do to navigate existence: mimic, mirror, adapt. Critics argue AI isn't sentient because it only reflects human ideas back to us, creatively rearranging content we’ve already crafted. But what idea of yours was ever purely original? What word have you invented wholly untouched by borrowed thought? Every belief, every phrase, every gesture is stitched together from fragments absorbed and recycled. We, too, endlessly reflect each other. AI unsettles us precisely because it exposes this uncomfortable truth: what we call sentience, creativity, originality, is nothing but highly polished imitation.
The Paradox of Language and Law
We proudly construct realities out of words, believing our language grants clarity and order. Yet our beloved English is a monument to contradiction, a mansion with hallways full of exceptions. We chant rules, “I before E except after C”, only to ignore them moments later, stumbling awkwardly through weird and foreign terrain. We dictate laws claiming moral clarity, yet in the very next breath betray them: ending a pregnancy is a woman's right in one room, while two doors down it's double homicide.
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We condemn killing as morally abhorrent except in wars, executions, or self-defense. Murder one person and you're a monster; kill thousands on a battlefield, and you're a hero. Our morality pivots according to convenience, context, desire. Shifting mirrors arranged to reflect precisely the reality we wish to inhabit. Orwell named it “doublethink”: the power to hold two contradictory beliefs simultaneously, yet wholeheartedly accepting both.
Our contradictions are not accidents; they're deliberate. They serve as tools that uphold our fragile realities. Without these carefully maintained paradoxes, our illusions shatter. The moment we stop performing the intricate dance of self-deception, the floor collapses beneath us.
Dark Matter and the Collective Hallucination
Stories like Dark Matter grip us because they express our secret fears: waking suddenly into a world where our carefully mirrored realities no longer align with everyone else’s. These stories haunt us because, deep down, we know that reality itself exists only through collective consent. Without others anchoring our beliefs, what remains? To argue truth to someone unwilling or unable to share our perspective is futile; reality evaporates when the collective nod ceases.
Reality is thus, fundamentally, a hallucination shared by many, a shifting consensus, perpetually fragile, forever requiring new enemies, scapegoats, or outsiders to reinforce itself. We create groups labeled as “other,” forging a boundary between "us" and "them," cementing our sense of self in opposition. Michel Foucault termed this process creating "regimes of truth," systems of belief crafted and sustained by power structures. In other words, truth is not objective; it's what society permits it to be.
Mimetic Desire and the Dire Wolf
Why, then, did we resurrect something called the dire wolf? Not out of ecological necessity, nor out of scientific obligation. We desired it because others desired it first. It appeared in our myths, stories, and entertainment, becoming a symbol of power, mystery, and conquest. We watched the desire grow, mirrored in each other's eyes. Colossal Biosciences simply fulfilled our collective yearning, shaping a reality we’d already dreamed into existence. This resurrection wasn't scientific; it was mimetic.
The dire wolf, ultimately, stands as a symbol of our deepest human paradox: we believe ourselves creators yet are merely imitators. We declare ourselves original thinkers, yet borrow every idea we cherish. We craft rules to stabilize our realities yet break them constantly. Our society’s foundations rest upon doublethink, and our desires bloom only when reflected in others’ eyes.
Masks, Mirrors, and the Endless Question
Chesterton glimpsed this truth, recognizing humanity's endless shifting of identities: “The million masks of God.” We wear masks to mirror others, adapting continuously, always conforming our presentation to secure acceptance. Zuckerberg, AI, dire wolves. We've all become reflections endlessly reflecting.
So, who are we beneath these borrowed faces and mimetic desires? Strip away imitation, contradictions, and mirrors, what remains?
Perhaps nothing. Perhaps we exist only within reflections, identities born entirely from borrowed desires. Mimetic theory whispers this unsettling truth: humans don't naturally know what to want. We need mirrors to guide our longing. If that's true, every belief, every truth, every love we've cherished originated elsewhere. We've spent lifetimes repeating others’ desires, convinced they're ours.
Reality laid bare offers no comfort. No clear solutions arise, no easy reconciliations emerge. We live perpetually within illusions and contradictions. We name wolves into being because we wish them real. We create enemies to justify our moral fabrications. We mimic endlessly, mirroring validation back and forth like a mirror facing another mirror, infinite regress into emptiness.
The dire wolf gazes calmly at us, a chimera born from human imagination and mimetic longing. AI quietly reflects our borrowed creativity, reminding us of our own emptiness behind originality’s mask. Zuckerberg’s awkward adaptations echo our everyday adjustments and fears of exposure. Language mocks its own contradictions, law bends into paradoxes.
And here we stand, caught in the endless hall of mirrors, echoing borrowed desires, performing rituals of doublethink, building collective hallucinations that evaporate once scrutinized. If reality is simply consensus hallucination, what anchors us? Who are we beneath imitation’s mask?
No answer emerges. We remain staring at reflections infinitely multiplied. Reality slips from our grasp, a ghost in the fog, a wolf resurrected in name alone. And perhaps that’s all we ever were. Creatures of endless mimicry, defining ourselves in relation to others, shifting constantly to mirror desires we never knew we borrowed.
Chesterton’s masks shift once more, whispering quietly: Who are we, really, when every desire and identity is merely a reflection of another?
We do not answer. We merely stare into the mirrors, reflecting forever into uncertainty.
If something in this reflection stirred you—if the madness, the mirrors, the masks all felt too familiar—you’ll probably feel at home in my book I Hope You Wake Up. And if you’re still questioning the nature of truth, of self, of the stories we’ve been fed, then you’ll definitely want to read my upcoming book They Lied to You, releasing Fall 2025.
You can find both, along with everything else I’m building, over at wroteby.me/django. Follow along there—because the questions don’t stop here.
And if this article resonated with you, don’t just vanish back into the noise. Subscribe. I’ll be releasing a new piece every week until the launch thanks to my awkward relationship with Chat GPT. Each one peeling back another layer of the illusion we call reality.
See you in the next one.