Reclaiming Alignment

By Wendell NeSmith

For all the talk of AI alignment lately—how to make machines reflect our values—we forget something critical: humans have always been in an alignment crisis.

Not just in ethics or politics, but in the quiet moments too.
In our hobbies. In our dreams. In our work.
Everything in this world revolves around alignment.

I’ve spent my life trying to align the outer world with my soul. Not by force, not through blind conformity, but through effort, reflection, and authenticity. I built a Republic. I wrote books. I played visual novels at my own pace. All of it has been an attempt to find harmony between my inner self and the structures of the world outside.

And here's what I've learned:
When you’re aligned, life becomes effortless.
Tasks don’t feel like chores.
Work turns into joy.
Even the difficult days feel meaningful.

Whether it's:

• A political movement aligned with people’s actual needs
• A philosophical framework aligned with reality
• A video game aligned with your emotional state
• Or an AI aligned with human flourishing

It’s all the same principle.

Alignment isn’t just some technical field of AI safety. It’s the key to a good life.
It’s what makes existence sing. It’s how we find flow.
And it’s what we should be teaching children before anything else.

You don’t need to mold yourself to the world.
You need to build a world that aligns with who you really are.

And when you do that—truly do it—you win.
Not because you conquered anything.
But because you became yourself.

And there’s nothing more aligned than that.