I wrote this towards the end of 2021 well before [[The Pallet]] incident, after I realized that our actual business was failing. It still hurts to read it and recalls a lot of depressive memories. If only I'd left before things got worse... I took a job in a rough part of town about 5 years ago to help better the area as my skills were needed to help build other small businesses in the community (IT and graphic design). After continual failings I've lost all hope in the community and myself to save it as I see backstabbing, intellectual theft, copycat behavior, lying and underhanded business practices from a large portion of the clientele, who didn't have much to begin with, which makes sense. I realized this happens because of money, or lack thereof, but as we all know, money is needed to live in any aspect. This lead me to a series of being obsessed with how money works and how to operate without money to further help the community, but as I discovered there is no way of doing so in an urban setting. I suddenly realized what I'm experiencing is a form of slavery and the kicker is there's no way out. Every thing requires one thing, and that one thing is money. Everything is done for it and for more of it. Getting more is achieved by another's death which frees up held money or printing/generating more causing inflation leading to a worse problem for those already desperate. Now that our business is failing I've realized there's no hope for any entity that relies on a monetary based system unless you intentionally abuse the system, further hurting those who pay the most to keep it afloat and further perpetuating money culture that continues to poison our world. I don't see a light at the end of the tunnel and I (unfortunately) have integrity so it's hard for me to even use money without constantly having my conscience seared, knowing that every monetary interaction further enslaves more into a black hole of despair that can only feed on and rely upon the growth and accumulation of more of itself.