Month: September 2025

One of the problems with the violent nature of capitalism is that it has left a scar so deep on us that we cannot even imagine a world without it. Add in the police state, the surveillance, and every action that can now be documented, and it’s no wonder we struggle to get past this idea: that capitalism is not determined to live forever. When the system reaches breaking points (which we have approached), we either change course or are forced to change when the system collapses.

One of my favorite prompts I like to use with AI is presenting an idea with as much detail as possible and then ask the chat box:

Are there any logical gaps in this train of thought?

What makes sense to one person may not make sense to another.

The origins of debt come from sin and guilt. To imagine a world through this lens of capitalism without debt is also to decouple ourselves from our sins and guilt, which is not ever possible. It is fantasy to therefore imagine a world where capitalism can work for everyone.

This has become a very overrated approach to organizing your life. As any new parent will point out, your life isn’t really your to decide when you have a newborn. Finding any type of balance is difficult in a hypercharged capitalist society. The reality is that when you have free time, you will fill it. What you choose to fill it with is indeed essential. And no, we don’t get to do what we want all the time. A better approach is to understand what you are building toward. However, an even higher level is to seek a way of life that is satisfactory for living well, as you define it. The goals don’t matter. They change and evolve. Nothing wrong with having goals. The goal of going through medical school and becoming a doctor is important. But an MD at the end of your name doesn’t make you who you are. Make the goal align with you as an individual—the paths we take and the process by which we do it should be the goal (no pun intended).

When we can’t help but think of our relationships and interactions as a form of exchange (this for that), we will quickly find that we are reconciling debt. You gave me this; I returned something of equal value. But a problem seems to arise here. What a strange way to organize ourselves. Contrary to popular belief, debts are not solely economic arrangements. While anyone can understand the financial interactions, we are blind to the social and cosmic debts we create. Indeed, we flood our psyche with exchange language, so much so that we forget how to operate any other way. Which, of course, is fiction.

Underneath the collective consciousness lies a spirit of negativity. Because underneath the surface lie all of our doubts, insecurities, fears, and so on. Perhaps we could tackle these things on our own. However, the stranger phenomenon is how, as a culture, we handle these challenges. We all experience these things, yet we often struggle to be patient with them. Culture is, indeed, a strong force that. The message to me is unclear. Is it possible that we want people to suck it up and go to work? Or is it more likely, that we are all simultaneously thinking suck it up cause this situation sucks for everyone? Perhaps, neither are correct. But something has to be said of the hustle culture we have created. When everyone wants to be a millionaire instead of master the art of living, this is what we get. (Or worse, this is what we deserve.)

When we spend an enormous amount of time sorting each other out, we can’t help but highlight the differences. This is undoubtedly a product of toxic individualism when taken to an extreme—me, my rights, my ideas, and my happiness —and so on.

However, we can also switch modes quite easily to talk about the we that we have so much more in common than we realize.

The differences make us unique individuals, but within a culture and society, we can do a far better job of defining ourselves by what we stand for rather than what we don’t.

There’s something said today about the fact that “rights” are inherently given. Obviously, this wasn’t always true throughout history. But to do so is to create something separate in the ether that can be shared and understood.

I think about this. One of the things that has come to mind is that these “rights” are best understood in terms of “property.” To go deeper, we are then talking about owning our own rights (or freedoms for that matter). Which means property, by definition, can be disposed of, sold, given, used, taken away, and so on.

What I’ve been drawn to with this is how we so willingly give these rights away. Further, what is the distinction between when these rights are taken (extreme forms such as slavery) or when we trade our time for money in the marketplace (debt servitude)?

We become so accustomed to thinking one way that we forget to examine the reasons behind it.

Has a unit of measure to get everyone to understand how far something is. And yet, we use these same units to measure things that are immeasurable. “The gap between us is the size of the Grand Canyon.” Indeed, metaphors and analogies help us understand the situation.

Temperature can be artificially manipulated with outside factors. A stove can be turned up or down. But once water hits a roaring boil, there’s no making it boil any more.c

Here’s the thing: culture ebbs and flows. Violence is a catalyst for more violence. We are aware of the research that has shown the spread of these ideas, in particular, from mass shootings to suicides. The internet, while it can be a place to learn, connect, and share art, is often a place that breeds hate, discontent, and sorrow.

There’s no temperature regulation for the internet. And people are more complicated than a boiling pot of water. The “us” versus “them” culture is worth examining. For instance, when half of the voting population votes for one candidate and the other half for another, it appears to be a clear divide. And the temptation with any finite game is to “beat” the other side. This isn’t possible. 350 million people are never going to be on the same page. Not ever. The answer is to find a space that allows us to coexist.

The internet has been weaponized to shame people into compliance. Mass media continues to highlight the “emergency.” And so much more that I don’t need to tell you. Where is the off-ramp for this madness? More importantly, is there any way to control the temperature? Perhaps simply hitting the pause button to see what happens next is the right course of action.