New Becomings

  When I was around 10 years old, I somehow realized that I didn't think in words, so I asked people around me: "Do you think?... Like, in sentences, with words?" Blank stares and looking upward for an answer, friends tried to describe their thought processes - I asked again just a few weeks ago, some friends and I were hanging out - The answers, basically, were all "yes", they thought with words. I've come to understand my lack of internal wordiness, ironic for a writer, as "unsymbolized thinking." Every moment pulses with an insistence, waiting to be pierced, lifted to the mouth of my mind, and chomped with fervor; life itself is woven with subtle threads of metaphor. The world is a reflection of something more profound, yet elusive - I chase it relentlessly and never quite catch it. There's another term I came across years ago, as an adult, which is "aphantasia" - the inability to visualize. I had read about the power of visualizat...

 "A man without ethics is a wild beast loosed upon this world." ~Albert Camus In the wilds of the animal kingdom, 'survival of the fittest' dictates that those best adapted to their environment through physical strength, strategic cunning, or social cooperation, will thrive and propagate their genes. The Darwinian concept, central to evolutionary biology, underscores the brutal and unforgiving struggle for dominance and survival. While this law of nature governs the animal world, it also provides a lens through which we can examine human societies and political systems - a glimpse into how humans, even with our elevated reasoning and grandiose sense of selves, in the evolutionary cycle of things, are still just animals.   The animal world operates on a relatively simple principle: the strongest, smartest, and/or the most adaptable organisms will survive, while the weaker or less adapted perish. Whether it's a lion hunting in the savannah or an antelope evading cap...

  A disorder is rapidly developing, infecting the disaffected, festering within minds of fractured internal states, and spreading across society: Narcissism. Narcissism is a particularly insidious affliction, slithering through our lives, disguised as charm, power, and seductive allure. But beneath the surface lies something more sinister; an insatiable hunger for validation, a constant need to be admired, desired, adored, and the center of attention. For those who unwarily fall victim to narcissistic assault, it can feel like being caught in a never-ending whirlwind, spun around by someone else's need to feel superior and in control. The abusers, the aspiring puppet-masters, will leave their fragile prey crumpled in a shadow of who they once were.  In this growing societal dynamic between exploiters and victims, what's lost is the victims' sense of autonomy, its agency, they no longer recognize who they are in this world - but here is where the antidote lies... Self-Esteem...