We Are Only Human—So Why Does It Feel Like We’ve Forgotten How to Be?

Time is a trick—a made-up societal construct we all blindly agreed to without ever signing our names on the dotted line. It keeps us moving, grinding, and chasing after things we never truly wanted in the first place. Who decided that human life should revolve around work until death? That we should measure our worth by productivity? That survival should come with a price tag? Who sold us this lie, and why did we buy it?

The human condition was never meant to be this. It was meant to be filled with curiosity, connection, and creation. To explore, to love, to build—not to be cogs in someone else’s grand machine. But that machine has been running for centuries, fueled by greed, power, and the unchecked thirst of early European conquest. And in its wake? Ruined worlds, stolen lands, erased cultures, shattered spirits.

This isn’t conspiracy; it’s history. And it’s a history that refuses to let go. Even now, the same systems that enslaved minds and bodies continue to thrive under new names, new disguises. The institutions we live under were built on the backs of Black and brown people—our labor, our pain, our ingenuity—all while gaslighting us into believing this is just the way the world works.

But we know better.

So how do we undo this? How do we break free?

We start by dismantling the illusion. By rejecting the rules written to keep us small. By imagining something new and having the audacity to build it. Black and brown people have always been the architects of the future—we shape the culture, we redefine the standard, we create out of nothing and turn struggle into power.

But we can’t do it alone. The land we stand on needs healing. The institutions that thrive on exploitation need to fall. The economic structures that keep us in cycles of debt and desperation need to burn.

We need systems that nourish, not drain.
We need leaders who protect, not exploit.
We need a world where humanity is honored, not commodified.

And we need each other.

Everywhere you look, something is being destroyed—forests, cultures, entire communities. But what if we created instead? Built our own spaces, reclaimed what was stolen, set our own terms for success? What if we let go of their construct of time and embraced our own rhythm—one that feeds our souls instead of starving them?

Will we ever see a time of true peace? Maybe. Maybe not. But we’ll never know until we fight for it.

Because at the end of the day, we are only human. And we deserve better.

-Tish
(September 22, 2019 original)