I can’t get the titles to work yet. It’s supposed to be “Jorge Luis Borges, Frank Ocean, & History.” Which is maybe way too much title and the Kubio editor is doing me a solid.

Anyway, today I read a Borges short story titled “Theme of the Traitor and the Hero.” For those unaware, Jorge Luis Borges was a 20th-century Argentine writer. He is also a nerd. So, naturally, I’ve read about ten or fifteen of his short stories. They’re fictional, but they read like documentaries; the narrator explains the complex premise, and somewhere in the final paragraphs, the picture suddenly becomes crystal clear. Usually, the stories are about 95% exposition; Borges scraps the “show, don’t tell” advice and just “tells” the whole thing. Funny part is, it’s usually pretty great. “Theme of the Traitor and the Hero” is no different, but there are better pieces from Borges: (“Funes, His Memory,” “The Circular Ruins,” “Library of Babylon” are standouts). Before I go on, I’ll shorten the title to “Theme” because I’m not saying that fifty times. Anyway, “Theme” is about an Irish revolutionary with the most Irish name ever: Fergus Kilpatrick. His great-grandson, Ryan, who is another one of Borges’ typically removed, archaeological narrators, discovers that Fergus’s assassination seemed parallel to that of Julius Caesar’s assassination. Not only that, but the recorded words of a beggar to Fergus seemed copied right out of of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Ryan’s head spins; how could real life copy fiction word for word? Turns out, it was all a setup. Ryan later discovers that Fergus was a traitor to the rebellion’s cause, but instead of executing him, the revolutionaries decided to make him into a martyr. So a guy named Nolan (“Christopher Nolan?!?” I shouted at the book) writes and directs a public series of events meant to paint Fergus Kilpatrick as a hero. The very last paragraph of “Theme” is about Ryan’s realization that the mere act of discovering this secret was also a part of Nolan’s master plan. The point of “Theme”, it seems, is about how history doesn’t always repeat itself out of coincidence; it can repeat itself because it wants to. That if you get so caught up in the facts, the dates, the events, the collision of this molecule against this other molecule, you forget that “history” is also a “story.” The only thing to separate them is “H” and “I.”

So what the hell does this have to do with Frank Ocean? It’s loosely connected. I was listening to “Monks” off of Channel Orange, and I noticed how many historical analogies Frank makes out of nowhere. By the way, do I call him “Frank” or “Ocean?” If I say “Frank,” it makes us sound like buddies, which we are unfortunately not. Anyway, “Monks” uses the imagery of Buddhist monks to describe the fans at Ocean’s concerts. So when he says “Stage divin’ Dalai Lama,” Ocean means to equate himself to the Buddhist spiritual leader. And the “Indian girl that sleeps above the temple” who’s “planning a run away” refers to a groupie he hooked up with on tour. Ocean makes more historical analogies on the track “Pyramids,” a nine-minute masterpiece that stretches across millennia. The song first puts us in Ancient Egypt, then there’s a bridge, a beat switch, and suddenly we’re in the modern day. The Pyramids of Giza become “The Pyramid,” which is probably a strip club of some kind. Queen Cleopatra becomes “Cleopatra,” or some performer that Ocean says, “for now let’s call her Cleopatra.” By now, you’ve probably recognized a theme in his songs. Listening to song lyrics is a little like meeting your hero. But these historical analogies, these odd connections are not perversions. They reveal uncomfortable similarities. The way Ocean’s fans “mosh for enlightenment” makes a mosh pit sound strangely similar to a prayer circle. Now, when Ocean mentions how “a coke white tiger woke us from our slumber” later on in “Monks,” he still means cocaine. Yet the White Tiger in Buddhist myth is said to protect those from their reality. The juxtaposition of mosh pits & drugs with enlightenment & religion reveals how they’re both gateways to escaping difficult realities—yet in current times, people would have you believe they have nothing in common.

All this about Borges and Ocean and short stories and songs makes me think of patterns. The periods these artists speak of are things that happened centuries ago, yet the same human behavior appears throughout time. Only in different fonts. And because it’s different, few stop to acknowledge the broader similarities. In Borges’ “Theme,” the director Nolan’s plan (although the event is fictional) probably would have worked in real life because Julius Caesar’s assassination and the lines from Macbeth are classic stories, and classic stories work in any time period ever. Why? They’re true to the human condition. Drugs and religion are drawn from the same well; people have used both as solutions to their difficult realities. These comparisons, no matter how polarized, illuminate us to the larger picture. And when you can see the larger picture, that’s when you can make real change. Once you see the “wheel,” you’ll know what it needs to continue spinning—and what it takes to break it.

On a partially unrelated note, I want to leave you with this: Since I mentioned the Pyramids of Giza earlier, did you know that the latitude of the Great Pyramid is 29.9792458°N, and that the speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s? Granted, the “meter” and the “second” hadn’t been invented yet. By all means, chalk it up to coincidence if you like. But if you take a second to wonder—not prove, just wonder—if the Ancient Egyptians did that on purpose and how, you might begin making the same sort of connections Borges and Ocean have. Not to be that guy, but with the advancements of AI, you have an even greater responsibility to think for yourself than ever before. Machines have replaced physical labor, and now AI is going to replace mental labor. Progress and industry always make the previous sources of energy obsolete. Your brain is up next. So get out there and do some wondering. Do some independent research. Go study history before they burn it all.