When I say the calm people want won’t come from restoring the old landmarks, I mean something very specific.
Those landmarks are gone.
And pretending otherwise only makes people feel unsteady longer.
The Faust Baseline™Purchasing Page – Intelligent People Assume Nothing
micvicfaust@intelligent-people.org
The calm that lasts will come from finding new fixed points—things that don’t move just because conditions do.
For me, one of those fixed points is simple. Almost embarrassingly so.
Every month, I spend about seventy dollars feeding squirrels, birds, and chipmunks.
Sunflower hearts.
Shelled peanuts.
Unprocessed seed.
I mix them in set proportions I’ve worked out over time so there are no remnants left at the end of the day. Nothing wasted. Everything eaten. The animals show up every morning, and by the end of the day, the ground is clean again.
It’s predictable.
And right now, predictability is worth more than novelty.
We’re seniors. Retired. Like a lot of people in our position, we’ve pulled back on spending. We don’t eat out much. We don’t burn gas unnecessarily. We don’t chase distractions.
That seventy dollars could easily be one meal out.
One forgettable evening.
One check dropped and gone.
But this is the one thing we haven’t cut.
And there’s a reason for that.
In a world where language has shifted, posture has shifted, and institutions feel unmoored, this hasn’t changed. Nature still operates on time. Hunger still shows up when the sun does. Life still depends on rhythm, not narrative.
The animals don’t care about headlines.
They don’t care about explanations.
They don’t care what tomorrow might bring.
They show up because today still exists.
And so do we.
There’s something grounding about that exchange. I provide food. They provide presence. I give nourishment. They give something harder to name, but just as real—continuity.
It’s not control.
It’s relationship.
This is important, because a lot of anxiety right now comes from the illusion that everything meaningful is managed by systems humans control. When those systems wobble, people feel like the ground itself is giving way.
But the truth is simpler and sturdier.
Humanity does not control nature.
Never has.
We participate in it.
That daily cycle—the feeding, the arrival, the quiet moment of watching life move the way it always has—becomes a landing place. Not an escape. A reference.
A reminder that not everything is negotiable.
Not everything is fragile.
Not everything is spinning.
Some things still arrive on time.
And that matters more than people realize.
Because when the old markers vanish, the nervous system looks for anything that holds steady. Not symbolic steadiness. Actual steadiness. Something you can watch with your own eyes and trust without explanation.
That’s what this is for me.
It’s not about charity.
It’s not about nostalgia.
It’s not about being sentimental.
It’s about choosing where to place attention and resources when uncertainty rises.
We’ve all pulled back in different ways. People aren’t spending because they’re scared; they’re spending less because they’re being careful about what actually feeds them. And feeding the soul matters as much as feeding the body—sometimes more.
This daily ritual does both.
The animals rely on the food.
I rely on the rhythm.
That mutual dependence keeps me anchored in the present, not the projections. It reminds me that life doesn’t pause because systems struggle. It continues quietly, consistently, whether anyone notices or not.
That’s what a fixed point looks like.
Not loud.
Not impressive.
Not optimized.
Just there.
So when people ask where calm comes from now, this is my answer: it comes from choosing one small, real thing that still behaves the way it always has—and showing up for it every day.
Not to fix the world.
Not to escape it.
Just to remember where reality still lives.
And to start the day there.
Unauthorized commercial use prohibited.
© 2026 The Faust Baseline LLC
