Rip the vine

I just want to rip out this nonsense way of living.

The cost to exist.

The cost to need.

The cost of being human.

Trading nearly all of our time for what? One more month? One more week? Groceries until the next shift? A few hours of relief before the cycle begins again.

It doesn't feel worth it.

Sometimes it feels like modern-day slavery dressed in nicer clothes.

One year of loyalty...

**$0.80 more an hour.**

A **$3 differential** announced like it's generosity.

Someone's laughing and its not me

Giving **divine people** crumbs and calling them opportunity.

Tiny incentives.

Tiny raises.

Tiny hopes.

Less than a one percent improvement while the cost of existing keeps climbing.

This is nonsense.

This is selfish.

This is savage.

How could this become normal?

How did generations before us endure this?

Did they simply know less?

Or do we know too much?

Every notification.

Every headline.

Every comparison.

Every expectation.

Technology has connected the world, yet so many minds feel more disconnected from themselves than ever.

Our brains are fried.

Thinking.

Thinking.

Thinking.

Searching for a solution inside a system that rewards exhaustion.

Sometimes it feels like self-destruction masquerading as productivity.

And what are we paying for?

Shelter?

Food?

Safety?

Or permission to continue existing?

We work to afford the energy to work again.

We buy convenience because we no longer have time.

We trade presence for productivity.

We mistake surviving for living.

Somewhere along the way, we accepted that life should be earned instead of experienced.

Yet something innate keeps whispering that this cannot be all there is.

That we were not created merely to clock in...

Clock out...

Pay bills...

Repeat.

The Verdant Vine has always represented growth.

But growth is not always gentle.

Sometimes growth is the moment you stop watering beliefs that no longer deserve to live.

Sometimes growth is questioning the very soil you've been planted in.

I imagine two hands pulling the same verdant vine in opposite directions.

One lighter.

One darker.

Not because race is the point.

Because it never was.

For generations, history has pulled us apart, convincing us that the color of our skin carries more weight than the content of our spirit.

Yet beneath every shade is the same innate longing:

To live.

To belong.

To be free.

To grow.

The vine does not ask who is pulling it.

It simply tries to keep living.

Maybe that's us.

Sometimes growth is questioning the very soil you've been planted in.

Maybe that's why I already ripped the vine from its roots.

Not to destroy it.

To see what's underneath.

Because something feels buried.

Maybe the vine is protecting us.

Or maybe it's hiding something.

I don't know.

But I do know this:

The cost of knowing has always been expensive.

Just ask Adam and Eve.

One bite, and humanity inherited awareness.

Maybe that's why we fear pulling too hard.

Because once the roots are exposed...

There is no pretending we never saw them.

Until next time, my Vines.

— A. Vale