Similar to how our soul or divine spark is imprisoned within a physical body, our bodies and minds are confined by overlapping social structures such as empire, criminal cabals, oligarchy, kleptocracy, technocracy, deep state, police/surveillance state, banking/monetary systems, and multinational corporations (including corporate media). These archonic forces have collectively manifested a dystopia the likes of which we’ve long been forewarned by visionaries such as William Blake, Mary Shelley, Yevgeny Zamyatin, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Ray Bradbury, Margaret Atwood, and Philip K. Dick among others.

Leaders of the more destructive social structures are invariably the most venal and sociopathic personalities who typically thrive and rise within such systems. Recent revelations from the Epstein files (as limited and heavily redacted as they’ve been) offer a glimpse of their depravity and rapaciousness. It’s no surprise the various institutions now corrupted, captured and controlled by the Epstein Class have strayed so far from their original functions. Conversely, those who typically do the worst within the systems and/or the most harmed by them tend to be the most law-abiding and economically disadvantaged.

Now, just over two years after my injury, my body has become more heavily locked-down. While still in the hospital the sensation of muscle tightness started with my hands feeling as if they were swollen and holding phantom objects. By year one it felt as if my forearms and abdomen were confined by tight metal shackles. Today the muscle tightness encompasses my body below the border of my paralysis near my shoulders. Having been still overnight and before a caregiver is able to stretch out my limbs, I often wake up feeling tightly mummified and squeezed by a giant hand.

As painful as my condition can be, it pales in comparison to the lives of countless innocent victims in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Iran, and elsewhere, either targeted or collateral damage in geopolitical conflicts motivated in large part by racism, money and power. If anything positive can be imagined resulting from these multiple tragedies, it’s the growing realization of the true nature of the world and the people profiting most from the destruction of it’s life and natural habitat.

Despite feeling disconnected from the world, in a sense, the timing and consequences of my injury seem to reflect global events and trends in microcosm. For example, just as my injury forced me to leave my job, waves of workers have or will soon be leaving theirs due to obsolescence from AI automation and economic turbulence caused by war in the Middle East and resultant fuel and trade disruption. I also struggle with a major health crisis and accompanying insurance and social security issues as a large aging generation have or will soon face greater or lesser struggles.

Just as my mind has lost control of limbs and some internal functions, the body politic has lost control over government and associated institutions. Despite a majority of citizens being against funding genocides, provoking wars, protecting pedophilic human traffickers, transfer of wealth to the Epstein Class, cuts to basic human services, etc., U.S. government continues to do so regardless of majority opinion.

The only way my life and health are sustained is with the help of systems (as dysfunctional as they can sometimes be) and a community of people who care (led primarily by my wife, friends and family). As for national and global communities, it will take a mass domestic and global effort to implement substantial and permanent changes. For this to happen a global gnosis is needed; an awareness of the true nature of systems of control and the nature of ourselves, which are spiritual beings containing a divine spark (as suppressed or diminished as it may be within some). From these realizations, people will more clearly see the futility of attempts to reform thoroughly corrupted institutions. More immediately essential and effective are mass organization towards mutual aid and resilient, human-scale systems to replace the institutions which no longer serve us.