Surreal
Unreality
Incongruity
Moral vertigo
Uncanny Dissonance
These are the words that come to mind a I sit here this morning, looking out the window at the rain.
There is something deeply calm and peaceful about being inside on a cold, gray, rainy day. About not having to be out in the noise and motion of the city. The clouds are still. The rain falls slowly, because this isn’t a monsoon storm. The rain doesn’t care about power or wealth. It just falls. That is nature doing her thing.
And yet, as I look out, I can’t shake an underlying sense of dread.
There is a massive disconnect between what I am seeing and the world taking shape through human systems. Something feels off. Dislocated. I am peacefully watching rain fall on a winter morning while knowing there is a ruthless, violent, psychotic authoritarian regime tightening its grip on the United States.
I’m trying to put words to the feeling. It’s as if everything appears normal, but nothing is normal. Everything is uncanny. Not in an “uncanny valley” sense, but in the way things look the same, feel the same, yet something fundamental is wrong. There is a dissonance between what my eyes see and what I know is happening in places like Minneapolis, Gaza, Ukraine, Syria, Iran.
I find myself wondering: when will I look out my window and see ICE terrorists—sorry, they call themselves agents. When that happens, I don’t think this feeling will resolve. I think it will become even more surreal.
I wanted to write a detailed piece cataloging everything that has happened recently. But I’ll be honest: I don’t have the energy right now. I have spent so much time focusing on the regime and trying to fight back that my days have blurred together. I haven’t written the way I used to. Sometimes I don’t even know how I had the energy to write so much while also building a website from scratch and creating an archive.
I am doing what I can while watching human systems, which were originally meant to help people, being used to harm us.
Technology is an incredible tool. But it is also dangerous when it begins to exceed the understanding of its own creators. I think that is what we are starting to see, especially with the rapid implementation of AI into nearly everything.
What is real anymore, and what is fake? Have you noticed how difficult it’s becoming to tell whether a video online is even real? There are no hard limits on AI right now, despite how powerful it is. And I’m not sure humans are ready for it. We did not evolve for this. I don’t know that we are mentally prepared, as a species, for a world saturated with artificial intelligence.
The world is becoming increasingly artificial and less natural.
So you can sit inside your home and stare out the window at the rain. But I wonder how much longer we will be able to do even that without interference. Maybe one day the rain itself won’t be real anymore but just another illusion.
I don’t know exactly where I was going with all of this. I only know I needed to put it somewhere instead of carrying it alone.
I thank you for taking the time to read this.
01/24/2026