The Elusive Altar

There are costs to sacrificing nothing. And why we're seeing so many alternate-universe stories lately.

Sacrifice is a word you don’t hear much anymore. There’s no sacrifice aperture on the recycling can. There’s no sacrifice exchange in New York, Hong Kong or Frankfurt.

Sacrifice is, by definition, meaningful. If you throw something valuable away out of rage or carelessness, it’s a waste. If you lose something, but get something in return, it’s a transaction. A sacrifice is a statement. It imposes seriousness on the practitioner.

Taking the reins

The point of a sacrifice is that it’s done willingly. Time will grind on. Possibilities will close. Everything will die. But at least if you deliberately kill, close those possibilities and spend the time, you can claim some ownership of these realities. You can be something other than their victim.

You are deliberately incurring the pain of regret. You are privileging something unseen with a greater reality than tangible objects.

Never forget

In America in 2024, sacrifice is mostly a rhetorical trope, used by politicians in lieu of financial compensation. The phrase is dedicated to soldiers, firefighters and teachers. It’s said solemnly but forgotten quickly. Consider the fast-fading reverence for supermarket cashiers, Amazon delivery drivers and other essential workers since the pandemic.

Daydream, conclusion

That phony overuse of the phrase may be part of why sacrifice just isn’t what most people are about.

Rather, having it all, is something people say they want. If they say it in jest, it’s only because they believe it’s out of reach. It can mean career and family, succeeding without exploiting, wealth and integrity, eating without getting fat, fame and dignity, and the like.

It’s a state of equilibrium, where desire sated to the extent of one’s imagination. It’s a state of no sacrifice. It is also, in many ways, the opposite of being alive.

Unprotected specs with multiple universes