Mastication

The greatest weapon the system uses against us all is hopelessness. This weapon is powerful. Majestic. Massive. And completely intangible. It's a concept the system made up and force-feeds you as often as you allow it.

Sometimes they sprinkle delicious toppings on top of hopelessness, to make it all easier to swallow. Television. Sex. Drugs. Excesses of a machine that wants nothing more in the world than for you to submit to it.

How does that taste?

How often do you go back for seconds? And how often does it truly fill you?

It doesn't. We still feel empty after consuming the system's delectable bite-sized snacks of hopelessness. That's the key: Always leave them wanting more. If the system actually fed you something of merit - something meaningful - you would be full and wouldn't need to swallow so much.

But the system refuses to serve you hope. Hope is for fairy tales and tree-hugging hippies. Hope is for happy endings in movies and the choruses in pop songs. And even in those settings, hope feels artificial. Scarce.

How does that taste?

We've been getting nourishment from