Living Normally While Everything Is On Fire

I am going to be honest in a way that feels slightly rude to the morning. I do not want to be writing this. I do not want to be making something neat or meaningful or digestible. I woke up anxious, the kind of anxious that sits on your chest like a bad houseguest who refuses to leave and keeps asking unsettling questions.

Anxiety and I go way back. We were introduced early, practically childhood friends. When I was small, five or six, my nervous system decided that feelings were not enough and demanded a visual aid. I pulled my hair out. Not metaphorically. Literally. Enough of it that my parents eventually had to shave my head to hide the bald spots. That is not a poetic exaggeration. That is the level of fear my body carried before it had the language to explain itself.

I am telling you this so you understand that anxiety is not a new character in my story. It is not an unexpected twist. It is a recurring theme. I know its habits. I know how it knocks. Most days I treat it with a kind of tired compassion, like an old dog that growls at shadows because it once had good reason to. I earned this anxiety. I lived through things that taught me the world could turn sharp without warning. Some of those things were my fault. Many were not. My anxiety has always been fear doing its best impression of protection, whispering that pain can come back if you are not careful.

But lately something has shifted. The fear has picked up an edge. I am not angry at my anxiety. I am angry on its behalf.

Look around. The world is loud and unhinged and deeply unserious in the most dangerous way. Governments stumble through crises with all the grace of a drunk uncle at a wedding. People vanish. People die. Officials smile into cameras and tell us not to believe our own eyes even when there is video, even when there is proof, even when the truth is sitting right there asking to be acknowledged. It is fascinating in the way a burning building is fascinating. You cannot look away, and you know you should be running.

And still, we are expected to carry on. Pay the rent. Show up. Smile politely in meetings. Because if we do not, the consequences are immediate and brutal. Miss a payment and you are out. Miss enough and you are invisible. We all know how society treats people once they fall through the cracks. We are told to be grateful for the opportunity to work in offices that do not make us more productive, but do make spreadsheets happy and property values stable. We are told this is normal. We are told this is freedom.

It feels less like freedom and more like a very polished cage. Produce. Earn. Generate value. Not for yourself, but for the entity with a logo and a mission statement. Fail to comply and the floor disappears. Everyone knows this. We joke about it because joking is cheaper than revolt.

So yes, in the middle of all these operatic global disasters, I find myself deeply stressed about my job. The one that pays for cameras and plane tickets and long hours chasing light. The one that also feeds my family and keeps the heat on. The one that, if it vanished, would take a lot of safety with it. I am angry that survival is conditional. I am angry that work is mandatory even when the world feels like it is actively malfunctioning.

I am angry that housing is not a right. That food is not guaranteed. That warmth and electricity are treated like luxury add ons instead of basic human needs. I am angry that speech is filtered and throttled and sold back to us through platforms, institutions, algorithms, executives, and politicians who insist they are protecting us while tightening the rules. I am angry that we pretend this is normal and call it adulthood.

And here I am, writing posts on Patreon and my blog, wondering what any of this is for. A handful of people. A small corner of the internet where I share photographs and try to build something that feels like community. Some days it feels tender and important. Today it feels absurd. Like setting the table while the house is on fire.

It is hard not to conclude that we are not as free as we are told. That rights exist mostly on paper and disappear quickly when they become inconvenient. That we answer to governments, corporations, and belief systems that care very little about the actual beating heart of a human being.

I am sorry if this week feels heavy. It is heavy for me too. My anxiety is loud today. It is pacing the room, tapping on the windows, asking me what I plan to do about any of this.

And yet, despite everything, I remember the photographs. I remember standing in front of mountains that did not care about quarterly earnings. Sunsets that arrived without permission. Beaches, streets, faces, moments that existed whether anyone monetized them or not. A beautiful world, stubbornly beautiful, even under all this noise.

I hold on to that. I hold on to the hope that maybe within my lifetime we figure out a better way to live. A way that values people more than profit. A way that lets us rest without guilt. A way that does not require fear as an entry fee. Until then, I keep making images. Not because it fixes everything, but because it reminds me that something worth saving still exists.