The newest trend in “preparedness” looks like a scene from a movie. Men sign up for weekend simulations where strangers break into mock houses so they can practice defending their families. They call it training. Tactical realism. Some even call it fun.

Somewhere along the way, we got sold the idea that our value lives in how much we produce. Not who we are, not how we show up, but how many checkboxes we tick before collapsing.

Rebellion that fits neatly into a weekend schedule isn’t rebellion—it’s theater

We live in a world that trains us not to see. Not to stare. Not to name things as they are. Discomfort is treated like the real crime, while the horrors themselves get a free pass. So we scroll, we swipe, we distract. And we call it normal.

So Trump and Pete Hegseth call a meeting with war generals. What comes out of it? Pete announces, “no fatties, no beards.” Trump points at Chicago, Detroit, and Los Angeles and calls them war zones. Translation: the enemy is not a foreign state. The enemy is us. Ordinary people. Our neighbors. Our sons and daughters.

People keep saying “All Americans want is healthcare and the Epstein files. Instead, we’re getting…”

I don’t know about you, but every time a cop pulls up behind me, even when I’m doing absolutely nothing wrong, my whole body floods with panic. Suddenly I’m sweating, are my hands on 10 & 2, did I just run over a pedestrian, was a planted bomb in the boot of my car that I somehow missed. That’s not safety. 

Are you the kind of person who warns a child the oven is hot, then lets them touch it to learn the lesson? And when they burn themselves, you act shocked? That’s what I’m seeing right now in the aftermath of a very public assassination.

We don’t live in an information age. We live in a manipulation age. And our greatest weakness isn’t gullibility — it’s fatigue. Platforms don’t need to fool us. They just need to keep us too tired to care whether we’re fooled or not.

A local police department posted an update online this week that a man in possession of child sexual abuse material had been arrested. They listed his name. They listed his street. But they didn’t show his face. And they turned the comments off.

We like to believe revolution is just a matter of will. Of fire. Of people suddenly waking up and pouring into the streets to say, “No more.”

Remember when “the future” meant hoverboards, jetpacks, and Rosie the Robot?Yeah. Instead we got:– Alexa, eavesdropping on your 2 a.m. breakdown.– Ring doorbells that narc harder than a D.A.R.E. officer.– Smart fridges that fat-shame you while tracking your groceries.

Sometimes the clearest truths come in fragments. These four lines landed in me like sparks. They aren’t slogans for a t-shirt; even though they’re pretty rad, they’re actually reminders. Anchors. Promises to myself. When I write, when I speak, when I show up in the world,  this is the ground I’m standing on.