11 MAY 2026 - MONDAY

look everywhere except around you

The commute to work for me is a bit over an hour. During this commute, we pass from being in a well-to-do suburban community with families and retired individuals to potholes, cracked roads, broken infrastructure with abandoned individuals roaming its streets, moaning for help or for their next high. I'll see the nicest looking senior citizens quickly change their demeanor the moment someone dirty or other, exotic, different enters our bus. People scrunch up their noses, pull their bags closer, look at each other distrustfully because of this or that trait. That, or people pull out their headphones, put on their sunglasses, or focus entirely on their phones.

In a bus full of people, they all either hate each other or would rather be somewhere else. No one is present in there, really, its a space that we have to share with so-called undesirables, and if people could kick certain individuals out of the bus, they totally would.

In a bus full of people, they would sit there with their phones in hand while someone gets dragged out for smelling too bad, they may even record the person and put it on TikTok or X just to get that dopamine rush of people liking, sharing, and commenting on someone's misfortunate. Now, unfortunate situations are no longer just things that can sometimes happen and be seen in public. They now can be accessed and viewed repeatedly on the internet - and anyone involved or in the video or photo or whatever will just have to be okay with having their profile posted without their consent or knowing they were recorded.

In a bus full of people, we're quick in keeping to our own existence

Every time I go to work I'm reminded that we are ruled very much by whatever makes us feel, no matter if its good or bad. The orgasmic rush of being viral or trending or popular, the tantalizing feeling of relevance, the captivating pull of engaging with whatever gives you the most dopamine. Who cares, we're all going to die! And people use that to excuse turning the other way or sticking to themselves. In this modern day, despite all the advancements we've made technologically or socially, it still feels like they're all distractions for us to look at instead of the issues present around us. If we're looking down at our phones and away from each other, we won't notice the billionth pothole on the road or another dead person rotting on the street.

Part of me wants to be angry, angry at the complacency around me, angry at myself for being the same, angry that the existence that I have, that my mother has, that my father has, my siblings, my friends, etc. - its all because we've gotten used to things being the way they are. We aren't interested in toppling over the entities above us, we just want to graze in our manufactured grass until we're taken for the slaughter. Look into your phone screens, get angry at the political commentator on TV, do the new drug, watch that show everyone is on, join the 120USD a month gym. Anything, literally anything, but actualizing change for a better future.

In a bus full of people, there are souls waiting to be freed from their fenced in portion of life. Maybe, on our own as individuals, we can cry into the void about how we wish so desperately to not work until we die, to breathe fresh air, to give the next generation something worth living for.

In a bus full of people, I am alone, and I stay quiet.