Happy Anniversary

Amid warplanes and protests, HIH turned four

“Anyone who says writing is easy isn't doing it right.” ― Amy Joy

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FOUR YEARS

700 articles published.

Video by Rina Marie

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When my sister ran into one of my elementary school teachers recently, she asked how I was doing. My sister mentioned I’d started covering politics.

“That doesn’t surprise me at all,” she said.

Honestly, it shouldn’t. At ten, I staged a full-blown coup in her classroom. I got 80% of the students to sign a handwritten petition accusing her of favoritism and unfair grading, threatening to go straight to the principal if she didn’t change. She confronted us in tears. The other kids folded immediately under guilt, claiming I’d coerced them. When she asked who truly felt the way the petition claimed, I was the only hand in the air.

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We patched things up, but I was moved to another class as a “precaution.” My new teacher was a tiny Italian obsessed with daytime talk shows and celebrity gossip. Two scars across her arms were lazer burns from a run-in with a UFO in Arizona. Still my favorite rainy day lunchtime story to date. She’s the one who let me skip P.E. to gossip about school scandals I’d overheard from mothers’ phone calls and PTA meetings. That’s likely where my love of politics—and my taste for dramatic storytelling—really began.

Bless you, Mrs. Ottinger, for seeing it early.

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Online nostalgia has us feverishly digging through our photo archives, revisiting life in 2016—before we were all dead inside. The trend sprang from TikTok, reviving a ritual we hadn’t seen since the early Instagram days. Back then, we didn’t overthink what we posted. Remember how any fancy breakfast, washed in an amber-toned filter, felt worthy of a stranger’s adoration?

This archive revival offers a moment to reflect on an era just before cyber capture claimed us: before everyone had a podcast and declared themselves experts on health, science, geopolitics, law, or psychology. Back when we were blissfully unaware of AI advancing in the shadows, too distracted by filters and lattes.

Now it feels like a grim blueprint barreling toward extinction. I say this not as a recovering cynic, but because four days ago, I stood inside a vast Texas facility and watched Elon Musk—who I’m still unconvinced was conceived entirely of human DNA—casually allude to the probable end of our species. Oddly, it raised little concern. We’ve grown so desensitized to doomsday musings that even the leading generator of open AI can warn of our demise while we scroll, unfazed.

As someone born cursed by existential dread, I’m no different. Yet the pressing horror of impending fossilization only heightens awe. Modern existence, edged by dystopian forecasts, should depress me—but instead, it makes everything appear more beautiful. Humanity, caught in the final phases of merging with machines before they outsmart us, seems compelled to radiate a little brighter, like the sun casting its last flash before sinking entirely into the sea.

You might see old photos as sentimental fodder. I see missed hints of singularity being woven into consciousness.

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So, who were we in 2016? A little thinner, a lot nicer online. Trolling was crude, not yet inhuman. We didn’t doom-scroll or linger in existential dread. We trusted the internet could connect and elevate us, stretching our interests into uncharted territory.

We were online, but not chronically so.

Time-stamped photos offer endearing glimpses of the past: dewy-skinned Bohemian hopefuls celebrating engagements, festival freaks, reality-star aspirants, failed singers, or weekend DJs spinning records for drug deals in leopard leotards at Coachella. Future leaders of MAHA. People I’d later align with under entirely unexpected circumstances, as we grew into respectable patrons of civic consideration.

My own flashbacks reveal exactly who I was: a happily overwhelmed suburban housewife on the cusp of the influencer boom, harboring intense animosity toward Donald Trump, and aligning with like-minded women in overpriced prairie dresses, outraged that he had hijacked the seat we believed belonged to our first female president. I’ll never forget election night. Mike came home late to find me in my bathrobe, sobbing on the couch, a bottle of champagne untouched in the fridge as results trickled in. He had been fixing a broken sprinkler pipe at a warehouse celebration for Hillary Clinton’s anticipated victory. Quietly supportive of Trump, he watched from above as shaken liberals grew increasingly hysterical below, swallowed by netted balloons rigged to drop when our first female president was announced.

For months afterward, we gathered in someone’s loft, making protest posters and railing against everything we resented. The list, as you can imagine, was long and endlessly expanding.

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“Five common traits of good writers: (1) They have something to say. (2) They read widely and have done so since childhood. (3) They possess what Isaac Asimov calls a "capacity for clear thought," able to go from point to point in an orderly sequence, an A to Z approach. (4) They're geniuses at putting their emotions into words. (5) They possess an insatiable curiosity, constantly asking Why and How.” ― James J. Kilpatrick

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Scrolling through my timeline now, I marvel at the radical transformation I’ve undergone. 2016 Jessica would be horrified to see where she ended up: from protest parties to sitting aboard the protested president’s plane, waiting to capture the perfect angle of the Secretary of War descending a red stairwell in Texas.

Which brings me to the point: an obligatory toast to my four-year newsletter anniversary. Substack has provided me a comfortable space to house nearly every phase of my evolution past 40. While my arc is infuriating to some, nearly everything has circled back in ways that are downright impossible to deny.

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Divine purpose is all I trust now. True liberation is surrendering to greater navigation and resisting fear by following intuition. Manifestation is the most powerful tool we have. A shame artificial versions arrived to overshadow it. Imagine if we invested this attention in elevating what our bodies and brains are capable of, instead of frantically chasing upgraded robotic evolution. AI is no longer optional. Elon says we’re at the point of no return, yet I remain more intrigued by organic intelligence.

In the new year, I’ll be making slight adjustments to this space. Posts will be less frequent and slightly more structured, with fewer guest contributors and a monthly HIH group devoted to exploring how religion intersects with modern events—think college lecture with no wrong questions. I’ll implement a curated end-of-week recap condensing current events into one digestible package for the weekend, alongside more style features and a greater emphasis on human philosophical intelligence, frequency theories, and the healing power of sound and water.

Trial coverage will continue (in depth) as I prefer.

I’m also launching two features I’ve been sketching for the past year: a kind of DC Dispatch, as monthly summary blending gossip, political events, and off-the-record chatter; and The Palm Beach Diaries— interior snapshots of a notoriously insular world where a certain breed of women run politics outside Washington. Hierarchies are revealed in private luncheons and respected boardrooms. It all explains who gets invited where. Glamour and gossip arranged as extravagant footnotes to illuminate Florida’s most enchanting pedigree, offering perspectives paralleling the President’s orbit, split between Washington and Palm Beach.

With that, I want to reiterate my gratitude. I never imagined I’d grow up and tell stories for a living, and I never take for granted existing in this strange fold of fate, where one moment I’m making pizza with my boys in a small West Coast kitchen, and the next, dining on the president’s gilded terrace taking notes covertly to relay here.

I have a few different things to get out this week, and I’ll return with the first DC Dispatch centering on trans protests at the Supreme Court, the Secretary of War’s lawsuit drama, a SpaceX tour paired with Elon’s custody battle backstory, off-the-record scoop on Candace Owens, pardon rumors, brewing MAHA conflicts, and more.

Until then, cheers to manifested course.

With love and endless thanks,
JRK