ryan grieves

I leverage my future ability to produce labor for debts incured now and in my past. Student loan debt is fundamentally unjust and a failure of our society. At 18 in 2008 I watched the facade finally crumble. The incredible potential we have collectively, held back like a stuck coil, just waiting for release. Debt contains us. Debt ties us to a system of servitude. It consumes and shapes our decisions. Some debt is necessary to secure investment. But it should be easy to obtain and easy to pay back. We instead are forced to utilize debt as a tool and necessity in order to afford basic goods and services at a normalized standard within society. It’s debt by design. It is all a gamble. Your pay has not kept pace with costs. Banks and financial institutions. They are the force insuring this is the case. It’s an opportunity by coersion. They *know* your pay has not kept up with costs. And they sell you a “cure” to bridge this gap. They’re betting (though it’s not really a bet),that you will not be able to pay off your costs fast enough not to incur interest. They profit from your inability to afford living in the place you were born. They know you can’t afford it, because they control both ends of the formula. They invest heavily to make sure you cannot afford to live in the place you were born.

vermilionight-deactivated202302:

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

No idea who or what I am any more. No more pretensions. Social media disgusts me, yet I am addicted to it. I feel shallow, debarked, and trimmed down to a more infantile version of who I use to be. No more music, no more friendships, no more community. I have a partner and a little home that I love, that I work hard to keep and maintain. But this is where my own identity seems to start and end. The story I once created of myself, the illusion of my ego, is gone. But with that, so is my discipline and ambition to thrive at much of anything outside of the job I’m forced to work to keep us housed and fed.

My partner, suffering from a chronic illness, lies in total darkness in the room next to where I sit. She is battling a terrible migraine. In the quiet, I think of all the ways I’ve let myself down. Yet I have so much… am I thankful for none of it?

Where is my energy? Where is my will to try? How do we thrive once again?