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All Animals Were Wild Once

This piece first appeared in the  November 2025 issue of The Sun , a nonprofit, reader-supported magazine known for its long-form essays, interviews, and personal narratives. Its mission is to connect readers and writers through honest and courageous writing that often grapples with social and political realities. That month’s issue featured reflections on wild animals, and the work below was my contribution to that theme. ALL ANIMALS WERE WILD ONCE.  Then we got clever and fenced some of them in. We built a system that rewards stillness and submission and called it agriculture. We bred out their wildness, and with it, all the parts of them we found inconvenient. Now we have cows that can't run, pigs that can't turn, and chickens so top-heavy they collapse under their own weight. Yet we revere wild animals for the very things we have bred out of the creatures we eat: autonomy, unpredictability, resilience. Whales and wolves and hawks follow their own rules. So we fund them, f...
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Bowie Doesn’t Need Enlightenment (But I Might)

Or, Why the Canine I Live With Is Already Winning at Life. The canine I live with—Bowie—doesn’t wake up burdened by metaphysics. He doesn’t sit by the window wondering if his life has purpose. He doesn’t feel unfulfilled if he skips a walk or question whether he’s actualized his full potential. He stretches, blinks at the morning light, and waits calmly for breakfast. No drama. No narrative. Just life, as it is. Meanwhile, I’m over here, blessed with a prefrontal cortex and a tendency to overthink, wondering if I’ve made the right choices, if I’m doing enough, if I’m being enough. Bowie? He’s being. Fully. Consciousness: The Double-Edged Gift Somewhere in our evolutionary story, humans developed self-awareness. Congratulations to us. Now we can worry about fulfillment, legacy, and meaning. We invented gods, productivity hacks, and social comparison algorithms. We’ve turned life into a problem to be solved. Dogs didn’t. Dogs just live. Bowie isn’t optimizing his morning routine. He’...

Off the Hamster Wheel: How We All Got Suckered Into Running in Circles

You ever notice how people treat their bodies like disposable razors? Just use ‘em up, dull the blade, toss ‘em in the garbage, and move on. That’s me. That’s you. That’s everyone. Because we’ve been trained to run ourselves into the ground like overworked donkeys. Somewhere along the line, somebody sold us this idea that you always have to be achieving something. Gotta hustle! Gotta grind! Gotta make the most of every single second! Why? So some rich asshole in a skyscraper can make a few extra bucks off your stress? Because last time I checked, the only people who benefit from you running yourself ragged are the ones cashing your paycheck. But we bought it. Hook, line, and Starbucks coffee. Now, we wake up every morning, pour caffeine down our throats, sprint through our days, stay up too late binge-watching television, and then wonder why we feel like human garbage. I got news for you: The game is rigged. It’s always been rigged. You’re not supposed to win—you’re supposed to spen...

Cutting the Crap: A No-Nonsense Elimination List

Alright, so here’s the deal. I gotta start cutting some sh*t out of my life. Why? Because life’s already overwhelming enough without piling on a bunch of unnecessary crap that makes me feel like garbage. And let’s be honest—most of the stuff we consume is just us trying to distract ourselves from the fact that we’re all eventually gonna die. But hey, let’s at least feel decent on the way there, right? So this list? This is my way of telling all these useless, toxic, life-draining things to pack their bags and leave my mind, my space, and my life for good. Keeps me focused, keeps me from turning into a bloated, foggy-brained disaster, and, you know, makes me feel like I have some control over my existence. Plus, I’m a minimalist, which means I’m actively trying not to be one of these hoarder psychopaths with six blenders and a garage full of expired protein powder. Alright, let’s break it down: Nutrition – Things That Are Dead to Me 1. Grain and Wheat – Yeah, because apparently, my body...

Why We’re All Screwed, But At Least There’s Snacks

You ever just look around and think, “This can’t be the best humanity has to offer.” Like, we’ve had thousands of years to figure this out, and somehow, this is what we landed on? A society where half the people are screaming like lunatics and the other half are too busy scrolling their phones to notice? Let’s break it down: The Loud Idiots (aka The ‘I’m Right Because I Said It Loudly’ Brigade) These people? Oh, they love democracy. They love it so much, they’ve decided rational discourse is for losers and the only way to win is to yell the loudest. Facts? Science? Reality? Who gives a shit! It’s all about confidence. They just plant their flag in an opinion—doesn’t matter how dumb it is—and def end it to the death like it’s the last bag of Doritos at a Super Bowl party. And God help you if you disagree. If you even suggest they might be wrong? Boom! You’re the enemy. Suddenly, you’re a communist, a fascist, a snowflake, or some other word they don’t actually know the definition of. ...