Last night, Natalee and I finished watching, with delight, the mysteries of the wintry world in the second season of Severance. If only Seth Milchick's dance moves could make everything in this reality more palatable—a fruit or waffle party might help. As the credits faded, we sat quietly, reflecting on how eerily its surreal premise—workers surgically splitting their identities into isolated "Innies" and "Outies"—mirrors the fractured reality we've inhabited since the election. Fiction has a truth-telling ability when reality becomes too harsh, overwhelming, or abstract, clarifying the genuine harm inflicted upon the next generation.
Like characters trapped inside Lumon Industries, we too feel literally and metaphorically disconnected from truths we once took for granted—basic government functions, transparency, accountability. Our reality resembles something Kafka might imagine: absurdity normalized into policy, cruelty openly embraced, and institutions decimated without consequence. Empathy is mocked, justice denied, leaving communities engulfed by fires of our own making.
We have become hollow versions of ourselves, stripped of empathy, reason, and basic decency, replaced by calculated cruelty. Republican efforts to dismantle education, normalize ecological destruction, and undermine human dignity reflect an infestation designed to breed instability among the most vulnerable.
Central to this infection stand billionaires like Elon Musk—celebrated as "the world's richest man," as though immense wealth signifies inherent virtue. A more honest title would be "the world's greediest man." The existence of billionaires itself points to democratic failure and institutionalized greed, legitimizing a political criminal class unaccountable to society. Perhaps billionaires themselves should be illegal (they should not exist).
Yet, even in this dark spring, we can search the empty corridors for light and truth. Reconnection doesn't need to compete with self-preservation. Reclaiming truth, empathy, and shared humanity is how we restore sunlight to a society that's been deliberately severed.
