We are living through the clusterfuck our failing systems have placed us in.

No matter what debts you have in your life and frivolous expenses you’ve amassed, none of it compares to the mayhem created for the sake of capitalism. I call it the plastic straw paradox: How can the average consumer make even the slightest dent in the amount of plastic that litters our world when the majority of plastic buyers are commercial companies?

There is only one winner in Monopoly. And it’s the bank.

We are watching a global phenomena I think of as dystrophy. You know, like when muscle tissues slowly break down and the body begins to lose its rigidity and suppleness? This can naturally occur when a person stops focusing on muscle retention, aka stops moving.

This also can happen to people with physical disabilities, but we’ll get there.

When you disregard, ignore, and neglect something, you lose it. Our government and governmental agencies have neglected the majority of the population, and so we will now suffer those consequences. Regardless of your political leanings, which mean jack-s**t to me, you are a victim to the failing economic systems that we have been forced into. I am afraid to go to the doctor, because I am unsure I can afford what might come from the visit. I treat my teeth like tiny gods, obsessing over them multiple times a day, because dental insurance is a scam. I buy second-hand, or not at all. I hide from the linear economy like it’s a plague, fearing for my life that I accidentally succumb to any single-use material in which I can’t get my money’s worth.

If I am being neglected by the system, I want to remain hidden. Do not notice me. Pretend I’m not here.

Unfortunately, in a world that operates on consuming, I cannot hide. Where I cut spending, I lose experiences with friends. I cancel trips, stay home, eat in. Even then, the hydra of consumptions finds a new head and gnaws away at my time. My energy. My joie de vivre. We’re all is just wasting away in our cars.

And if I still find myself at my bleakest— prices still rise, and these men are richer than ever before. I’ve heard we’re getting our first trillionaire soon! As a fun thought experiment, I wanted to share this piece of information with you:

* A million seconds is roughly 11.5 days

* A billion seconds is roughly 31.7 years

* A trillion seconds is 31,700 years, or 317 centuries

You can’t even count to a trillion in your lifetime, and we can’t do that anyway, because we have to work until we die.

Even if I remain hidden— go off grid, lay low— I am sacrificing friendships, family, and community that I can’t have because not everyone is willing to to check out of the system we find ourselves in. And that’s incredibly understandable. Our brains are hardwired to scope out threats, and lean towards the known versus the unknown.

We will naturally choose the familiar Hell over an unfamiliar Heaven, every time.

Even in our deaths, money is involved. We are not released from the mortal coil even in our final moments. This dystrophy, this malaise, will consume us until there’s nothing left. If we let it.

Our own bodies do nor function linearly— I believe the most intelligent of us all must succumb to the moon cycle. And everyone has to retire to REM at some point. We do not function on a line, why must we live like it?

What’s crazy to me is that it (ideas, behaviors, karmic energy) all does come back around eventually, because nothing is truly linear. Instead of a sustained circular model that reinforces the following step, the current economic, political, and social systems mimic the ouroboros, an ancient snake depicted eating its own tail.

Intentionally returning to previous ideas, noticing old patterns, working them out— these processes are paramount.

Like our weakened muscles, the only option is to start noticing what has gone severely neglected. Because our governments won’t do it, we will have to focus on each other. My belief is that we treat community building like we treat daily movement— good in theory but nearly impossible to practice.

Because of the time! And all that cooking! And all the other excuses we’ve found to reinforce our apathy towards one another. I understand we’re mirroring the treatment we receive from the oligarchy, but as empathetic beings and not overlords, we must do better for ourselves.

Build community like muscles, incrementally and with purpose. You have to feel the strain in order for the practice to work, because one of the prices of incremental success is inconvenience. Try something new, and if it doesn’t work or feels harmful, try something else. Talk to a stranger. Go to the library. Juggle tennis balls on the side of a busy street.

Break into someone’s routine today, and relish in the experience. Then do it again. And again. Until you’ve built such a robust system around you that you’re basically indestructible.

And for those with disabilities— we accommodate. Like any workout. Whether it be physical or mental or celestial. Your community works with you and not against, it conforms to the natural abilities you already possess. Community should never be hostile or uninviting. If it is, it is still acting under the eroding systems we’re currently in.

And that is not community.

I don’t really think I have a conclusion for this one. Just my thoughts, as I think them.

Until next week

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