Mr. Vines has written a truly stunning piece published by the ever-affirming New York Times. He reminds us how the queer community dares to remain a broad, undefined, sinful, umbrella collective, shame on them indeed! (Where is Hannah Waddingham and her bell?)

Do ‘they’ not realize the peril they invite when they wander beyond the rigid, heteronormative definitions of 2026 conservative America? Perhaps if they adhered strictly to actual, traditional, Biblical marriage, that our amateur scholar cherishes so dearly then he would finally be satisfied. Or perhaps the queers take up polygamy like Abraham and his descendants, or even secured a formal concubine arrangement, then this brilliant scholar would have kindred feelings to all the colors in the non-biblical rainbow.

Mr. Vines describes two options presented by his holy scriptures: Yes, they are the lustful and exploitative practices, or lifelong love and commitment. I ponder whether our author has even begun to examine how his description of a “covenant designed to reflect God’s self-giving love for humanity through the sacrificial love of spouses for each other” is displayed through straight marriages and their divorce rate. Perhaps the vast amount of straight divorces are all reflections of God’s love for them? And certainly he feels that straight divorce, prostitution, straight swingers, and fornicators are all discoloring the sanctity of and jeopardizing the holy institution of marriage for straights! Nonetheless… we must demand queers be paragons of “sacrificial love” just to be tolerated by their straight counterparts.

One can only pity the tragic nearsightedness of a Bible scholar who forgets the very foundation of his pontificating privilege. He enjoys the sanitized institution of marriage today for one reason only, a riotous, rebellious group of queers flatly refused to remain quiet. But historical realities are terribly inconvenient when you are busy seeking the approval of your oppressors.

Just examine the audacity of these queers who foster such a repugnant “us versus them” mentality! Thank goodness we have this scholar to meticulously mansplain and pinpoint why they are wrong, masterfully doing so by pitting the ‘good moral gays’ against the ‘bad repugnant queers’ to forge his very own, highly sophisticated “us versus them” paradigm. These brilliant intellectual gymnastics on display are a modern marvel.

But we must, of course, prioritize his safety above all else. He wishes to reside comfortably in a red state as an assimilated, respectable gay in his community. Naturally, his right to blend in unequivocally certainly supersedes the fundamental human rights of any rational, self-accepting queer, transgender, or polyamorous individual. Their survival or rather erasure is simply a small, necessary tax to pay for his neighborhood barbecue invitations so that he may forget his sinful state and frolic in the love of his retrofitted heteronormative union and clearly ‘accepting’ congregation.

And this is apparently Christ’s love? Perhaps he forgets that love is to be selfless, rather than costly and selfish. Our scholar’s expressions can best be described as a fear that his right to marry is sinking like the Titanic, struck by a rainbow iceberg. Unfortunately, the ‘first-class gays’ are the only ones boarding the lifeboats, and we certainly cannot expect Mr. Vines to be anything like a Molly Brown, instructing the boat to turn back for the queers just barely surviving in the frigid waters. There isn’t even room on Mr. Vines’ floating door, but don’t worry, he will ‘never let go’ of the Godly love he harbors for the rest of us.

What a brilliant strategy to promote a culture of respectability by blaming the victims of oppression for their own marginalization. Since his superior, patriarchal, masculine brain is in such an accepting state perhaps he would like to address rape culture next? With this logic we indeed can conclude those girls shouldn’t have dressed like sluts, they had it coming.

But we bemoan: if only the marginalized weren’t so flamboyant, so rebellious, so stubbornly refusing to fall in line with patriarchal views of what a man should do and what a woman should aspire to, perhaps the bigots would finally be kind?

So, kudos to him for showing such validating, heartfelt concern for conservative Christians. His rights are undoubtedly safe in their benevolent hands, as he certainly won’t be needing the help of any of us rebellious queers anytime soon.

We see in legends of our shared past those slaying monsters and wild beasts. Journeys down dangerous paths. Ships navigating troublesome waters. We used those stories because, at one time, they were very real challenges. A stormy sea that ships traversed long ago is no greater challenge than our mind gives us today. Our fears and challenges have only changed shape as time passed, morphing into complex webs of human interaction, alliances, ego, and soul.

Where we could find a peaceful world of harmony, we find a hostile place that continues in its want to devour us. Monsters and stormy seas have not disappeared; they have just moved inside of us.

The pen and the written word build worlds we could not possibly imagine, not just for us, but for the growth of humanity itself. When we write, we understand; when we understand, we conquer.

As a gay man living in the Midwest who slowly began to come out and understand who he actually is, my answer has slowly developed alongside my understanding of both the world and myself.

My concept of masculinity was defined largely by religious indoctrination. I was supposed to be level headed. I could show emotion, but not in the same way as a woman. I was expected to be the head of the household and family. As a man, I was supposed to make the ultimate decision for the family at the end of the day. These were things I learned to follow like an act. I played the role and hated every moment of it, though I could not understand why, or rather, I did not want to admit why.

Looking back, my attempt to understand where the lines of sexuality and gender trait expression intersect and diverge helped me see why I rejected the idea of embracing masculinity at a younger age. I was disgusted with the men around me. I found them hypocritical, unethical, lacking values, and lazy. I wanted nothing to do with them. I refused to resemble them in any way. I had identified toxic masculinity without even being aware of what it was and understood it to be masculinity in general.

The Male Body

I simultaneously found the male form attractive and arousing while I also hated many aspects of my own body. I can even say that masturbating and watching porn hurt my conscience, not because of my religious upbringing, but because I was attracted to what disgusted me. It symbolized power and dominance, control within a hierarchy, and all the negative qualities I had come to despise. I was attached to that which I could not reconcile with who I was being told to be. The male form had been incorrectly defined for me as something beyond strength and athleticism. It meant dominance, and belonging to a club I was not interested in or supposed to be invited to. My inner self did not match my exterior’s potential. I felt counterfeit.

Beginning in my late teens, I spent a considerable amount of time researching and understanding my spiritual and emotional state, fine tuning who I was inside, while just as faithfully neglecting understanding and knowing my body’s potential. I worked hard to keep my body slim, but not muscular. I eventually became skinny fat and depressed in my twenties and early thirties. In many ways, I hated my body. It reminded me of the struggles around my sexuality and attraction that I was so strongly resisting.

Though not muscular, I was often referred to as a beautiful man, a handsome man in my youth. I was very aware of how much influence my looks could have on the circumstances I found myself in. Yet I hated feeling weak. I hated being out of shape. I also hated the idea that straight men had something over me, as if they were blessed with a special strength that I lacked. I knew in my heart that was not true and I refused to feel inferior, and with my mind and wit, I learned to put those who intimidated me in their place within the scope of power that I possessed and had honed; tactics, logic, strategy and diplomacy.

Yet this has not been enough for me as I have continued to grow into myself. Refusing inferiority meant charging toward something I not only hated, but had never embraced: my body and its potential. I have already engaged my fears and inner demons. So I became determined to engage the demons that spill over into the physical and embrace becoming muscular and embody my own concept of masculinity, while remaining congruent with that vision in mind, body, and spirit.

I have noticed that as I have grown more comfortable with my sexuality and who I sleep with, I have also grown more comfortable with my gender expression and masculinity. I am no longer resisting my masculinity and displaying it externally the way I once did, but I’m learning where the boundaries of toxicity live. In order to accomplish this I also no longer resist appreciating my feminine qualities. In the present, I am discovering who I am in full, and for me, that has meant understanding and knowing the entirety of my mind, body and soul’s potential.

What I later came to realize is that the men I respected and truly knew as good men did not share the qualities I hated so much. I learned that I was attracted to them not because I was broken, but because they did not display the toxic qualities that I found repugnant, and this realization helped me separate my attraction between my sexuality and their gender traits and expression even more. My masculinity as I am continuing to discover and understand is my self acceptance of my entire being and self, my desires, my actions, my mannerisms, my beliefs and my body.

My masculine and feminine traits are not different aspects of me; I simply am, and it is with that acceptance that I continue this journey of discovery and learn to love all of myself.
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In my next article, I’ll continue to explore masculinity and further questions. Since it was once something imposed, policed, and resented by me, what does it mean that I now want it in another man?

When I changed my beliefs as an adult man, I realized sacrifice would be involved. I realized that it would be a journey and may take time to see joy again in my life. But I believed something better awaited me, freedom.

The world around us, it scares me right now, I’m not ashamed to admit it. How we see fellow humans treating each other, this isn’t normal. Humanity as a whole is better than this, but we can rise to the challenges around us with hope and compassion.

I’ve written about Pluralized Individualism before and the need to grow beyond tribalism. This is yet another opportunity for humanity to do so. We must move towards an agree to disagree mentality as it is pertinent to peace. We must aspire to always place the value of human life above our own personal desires and wants. If we do not value life, how can we possibly love? If we do not respect the universal rights of our neighbors, can we call ourselves a neighbor, or even a good person? What I hope for humankind is that we grow and begin to prioritize peace, even if we aren’t always harmonious in belief. Until we unshackle and respect everyone’s universal human rights, none of us can say that we are truly free.

Everyday so many of us wake up and look around and wonder how we arrived where we are today. More importantly, we wonder how we can make change in a world that doesn’t seem to respond to our cries and concerns.

Humanity has seen darker times than we have currently, and with each darkness and enlightenment we have experienced, strengthening communities has been key to finding brighter futures.

We will not change the world with one demonstration; we will not convince someone in one conversation. Changing minds and hearts takes much time and energy, like the growth of a magnificent tree or the wearing away of a riverbank reshaping a landscape.

One of the most powerful actions a person can do right now to change the world is to have a cup of coffee with our neighbor, express our own personal journey in life, explain how we became the person we have become, and share why we feel the way we do about the world now and where we are headed.

Yet the very most powerful thing we can do is to listen intently to the person across from us as they tell us the path they have walked themselves. Listen to their fears, listen to their wants, needs, and concerns, not in a transactional way, but by holding their thoughts in compassion as if they were our concerns.

Morning will always come, but it is up to us as individuals how we spend the dark night, and what we do to protect those we care for, our loved ones, our community, as this world shifts around us.

We must build a world where compassion prevails, where the most vulnerable are safe, and where we show that we love our neighbors.

It is imperative that we love our neighbor for our own ability to thrive, whether they are rich, poor, homeless, regardless of their gender or race. We must find empathy and understanding somehow, even if we disagree, even if they disagree. We cannot retaliate in kind, we must rise above and grow somehow. We must find a way to love each other without causing injury.

The world is obsessed with defensiveness, debate, and division. We have a choice to get off that ride and do something radical: to sit not across from one another, but to sit NEXT to each other as we share a meal and listen with true intent and care. Not to win with our view, but to understand and to be vulnerable.

The first step toward peace in our community is not agreement. It is observing and understanding our mutual needs.

The objective here is for people from wildly different backgrounds to come together not as opponents, but as humans. We may never share the exact same views, but what we do share matters: We all eat. We all bleed. We all love. We all fear. If we can remember those areas first, we can begin to remember what connects us and our communities.

We can all begin and contribute to this or similar community projects. With just one shared meal, one conversation, and the very courageous act of listening first.

If you would like to learn more or have interest in participating in some of the upcoming meals that I have been able to help facilitate, please contact me.

I’m finding more and more that great things happen when our feelings, thoughts, words, and actions are congruent. When these aspects of ourselves align, happiness is found.

When my internal dialogue is in turmoil I often find that one of these: my feelings, my thoughts, my words, or my actions has deviated from the others and harmony has been lost in my mind and if enough time passes my life.

In my opinion the journey towards congruence begins with acknowledging feelings. Emotions are often the first warning system that guide us through life’s complexities. By understanding and respecting our feelings, we can make choices that truly resonate with our outlook. This emotional honesty is the foundation upon which we can build a life of authenticity.

Our thoughts are powerful forces that shape our perceptions and realities. When our thoughts align with our feelings, we can achieve a sense of clarity and purpose. This alignment is crucial for making decisions that reflect who we truly are and what we genuinely desire. It is about having a harmonious internal dialogue where our thoughts echo who we truly are as a person. I imagine our thoughts as the love child of our desires but tempered with logic and awareness.

Words are the expressions of our inner world. They have the power to manifest our thoughts and feelings into reality. When our words align with our internal states, they become tools for authentic expression and powerful communication. Speaking truthfully and respectfully, in a way that reflects our true thoughts and feelings, strengthens our relationships and enhances our integrity.

Finally, actions must mirror our feelings, thoughts, and words. This is where the heart and soul of congruence lives. It’s about actually walking our talk. When our actions are a true reflection of our inner self, we live a life of integrity to self and respect of others. This congruence in action ensures that we are not only true to ourselves but also to the world around us.

The congruence of feelings, thoughts, words, and actions is a path towards self discovery and true authenticity. Each area plays a necessary role in shaping a life of happiness. As we align our existence, we not only find inner peace but also bring a positive impact to those around us.

I thought I had no love left in my heart to grieve for those who do not love me in return. I had committed to reserving my grief for those who did so. Yet, you proved me wrong in my understanding because you stopped loving me, but I chose to grieve your departure with love, not hate. I misunderstood what love was and subsequently grief as well.

I understand now that my grief is the endurance my love has for you, not yours for me. And while I could choose to view you as a monster because of how you acted towards me, I refuse.

Instead, I thank you for teaching me up until the very end, not only this lesson regarding my ability to love without reciprocation, but for providing me with a map that I will use again as my own parents age. If it wasn’t for you, I would be less complete and less prepared for future life experiences.

Thank you for loving me when you did, and for showing me the beauty you were capable of, because it has taught me that I am capable of loving without anything to look for in return. I wish you peace, and I hope that includes finding and spending eternity with Grandpa.

I have missed you and will continue to miss you. I will always have room in my heart to love you, Goodbye Grandma

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In 2015, I began exploring an idea that had been forming in my mind, a project focused on philosophy, religion, and universal concepts. It stemmed from the realization that much of my thinking had been shaped by the JW framework I was exposed to as a child. I wanted to understand these concepts more deeply and objectively.

By 2016, I started gathering data, organizing my thoughts into spreadsheets to make sense of the patterns I was observing. Over time, this evolved into several large files. What I have now is a pared down, consolidated version, a proof of concept that represents only the most coherent pieces of that initial work.

The table I have created attempts to show how certain concepts are built upon more foundational ones. In some cases, these relationships form feedback loops, leading to the development of entirely new beliefs. While this draft has been polished to some extent, it remains highly subjective, riddled with errors, and far from complete, if completion is even possible for something like this.

My goal is to move beyond subjective interpretations and toward a more objective, fact based framework for understanding universal concepts and perspectives. Ultimately, I envision this project as a kind of Rosetta Stone to help understand philosophy, a tool that bridges concepts of understanding and fosters deeper insights. I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on this work in progress.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kk5_9ywIK1cK3ObkKyVAMJ4PTyNvn8S1kJxYzyJ8W0w/edit

Depression and anxiety, coupled with disquieting thoughts, guilt, and trauma, often feel insurmountable for many including myself, like a constant obstacle where relief is always elusive.

Talking openly, and at times very publicly, about mental health challenges is actually quite uncomfortable for me. I grew up in a hyper conservative, patriarchal community where admitting struggles with mental and emotional health was seen as a sign of weakness, as well as a lack of faith or spirituality.

Success doesn’t always feel like joy.

The stigma surrounding mental health remains a powerful enemy when searching for answers and relief. Yet being open about the challenges faced while forming community and connections with those who also face similar obstacles is empowering and inspiring.

If you suffer from depression or anxiety, know that there are others out here who understand others who also feel fear, others whose hearts are bruised, yet we are not broken.

I constantly must remind myself when I’m tired of living is that, even in the deepest moments of pain and despair, I’m successful because I haven’t given up. Success doesn’t always feel like joy. Success can be as simple as opening our eyes and looking to tomorrow for hope and relief.

It takes courage to ask for help. It takes courage to get out of bed, it takes courage to get dressed, and it takes courage to step out in public. Simply put, it often takes courage to live.

Logically, I understand no miracle cure exist to solve everything. That would be amazing, but I don’t expect therapy or a pill to completely make my problems disappear.

I do expect that those things can help me smile more, that perhaps I will be able to help make the world a little less painful for myself and others, and that one day the joy behind my smile and in my heart will surpass the pain that currently resides there.

The overall goal of social consequences for behavior says much about the person who desires them. If justice is sought, two wrongs cannot make a right, and two deaths cannot bring back a life. Two wounds cannot heal a heart.

We bind our soul when we seek justice not for ourselves but to protect the future and community. When we focus on responding to our own injustice, we walk closely to vengeance.

The desire for vengeance may seem as though it will remove the pain from our heart, but the pain does not cease to exist; it is merely passed on to someone else, as if we handed them a dagger, where it is honed and incubated until, once more, it is plunged into an enemy’s heart, like the weapon it is.

Vengeance, though certain to bring a reckoning, will never reconcile the pain in one’s soul.

Values, morals, and ethics are so intriguing to me. Religious indoctrination especially captures my attention because of its power over people. In my case, I have found that if I allow my thinking to go unchecked, it is easy to develop a certain special type of hate and intolerance towards those who, in my opinion, are hateful and intolerant themselves. What paradoxical and even hypocritical thinking, which leads to a cycle of disunity and division.

Hate within our hearts exists as a strong, powerful emotion and acts as an effective motivator to free oneself from circumstances that we feel strongly about and want to escape, such as an abusive relationship. Yet it is also very destructive. Responding to hate with hate produces even more hate as a byproduct.

I believe hate is the chemotherapy of emotions—perhaps in some circumstances it gives a desired result, and we free ourselves from our circumstances like a cancerous growth that is an abusive relationship, but the damage it can also inflict on our soul is often irreparable or very difficult to come back from.

I don’t know how to function and live successfully right now without having some hate in my heart for intolerant individuals who harmed me and others like me in the past, especially when I feel that someone is prioritizing an organized religion over their family. It’s hard not to feel hate and disgust in my heart.

So, while I freed myself from others’ oppression, I then proceeded to give birth to bias, stereotypes, and prejudice towards those I didn’t know but who resembled my family and those who abandoned me because of their intolerance. My tolerance for others is depleted because I have so little to give as I’m healing from profound wounds. I’ve overcorrected, and I don’t know exactly how to get back on track yet I’m determined to do so, because not only am I off course a bit, but I also feel that I’m out of fuel. If I’m correct, this is the time I watch and learn from those who faced battles of their own and are still left with love in their hearts. After all we can choose to love and grow, or we can choose to hate and teardown, I choose to love and grow.

I love to people watch and study others and reflect, like today as I’m writing in this beautiful hotel lobby. When I think back over the last couple of decades to my earliest memories, I realize that while many of my fears have become reality, many of my dreams have also come to fruition. Gratitude is an interesting thing. So often, when we are at our lowest, we forget to be thankful for what we have, and when we are at our best, we also forget to be thankful for what we are experiencing. This suggests that the relationship between gratitude and circumstances is not necessarily indelibly linked. Gratitude is not the result of circumstances but rather a chosen mindset of resilient champions who see the entire picture, with the path to joy winding around this journey.

I am laying here on my couch, and I just fired up Hulu to watch a show for at least the 100th time. I’m scrolling back 11 seasons to restart Modern Family as the last episode concludes seemingly quicker each time I watch it from start to finish.

This has been a very full week. I celebrated Pride, I traveled all over Washington, DC; New York; New Jersey; Connecticut; Rhode Island; and DC. Tonight, I turn on Modern Family because it is familiar; it’s the middle of the night, and I’m sad and lonely.

I have many happy and exciting things going forward, but at this moment, all I can think about is that I’m alone and have no one to talk with right now. So I turn on this virtual family because, while I can’t talk with them, I feel I’m vested in their lives.

I’m comforted by all of these characters. They inspire me, they warm my heart, and they have a history of being there for me when no one else was. They are not escapist; they are where I have escaped to find a version of life that I deserved to have, that I never thought was possible to experience. I wish I had a grandpa who understood he had tendencies of a bigot but still chose his family over his ideology. I wish I had experienced a mom and dad, or dad and dad, who always chose their children over their own comfort. I wish I had siblings and cousins who would talk with me and see their value and understand when they were repressed and deserved to be free. But because I don’t, I live for a moment inside a show that captures my heart because the creators of this show knew what I needed before I ever watched an episode. Unconditional love from a family.

Like the rest of America, I’ve been considering the ethical nature of the choices made by Gypsy Rose. Her story resonates with me, and I think with others, because those closest to her caused so much harm and she took a stand in an extremely dramatic and violent way. Both she and her mother invoke feelings of rejection, frustration, anger, sadness, forgiveness, injustice, and vengeance.

While on completely different levels, we all understand at least some of those feelings in some way or another. Many of us have faced an abuser, many of us have faced family difficulties, many of us have had to mold ourselves in the image that our parents wanted for themselves.

Growth is something that, in my opinion, Gypsy Rose wasn’t able to experience. She was trapped, and when we are unable to flourish and are repressed, it’s possible we begin to make decisions that don’t turn out well and at times have consequences that are lasting in ways we may have never expected.

Another captivating aspect of her story is how we often assign the roles of villain and hero to her. We are captivated because it echoes our own struggle with ethical values. We grapple to make sense of this, and as a result, we are drawn to stories like these that resonate with our emotions and make us ponder and question our own judgment.

My family will always bring a smile and a tug at my heart simultaneously. This is not a post about anything I hold against them, on the contrary. Oftentimes, it’s so easy to still love those that hurt us so deeply, to feel the effects of their harm and still feel what we perceive or hope or perhaps even is Love.

While looking through my 250,000+ pictures, I saw these pictures form a road trip from 21 years ago, and I love these. While I have deep feelings of frustration towards my grandfather for being a Jehovah’s Witness elder and guiding the family as a patriarch into the religion long before I was born, I also saw him as a loving grandfather, someone who loved adventure, someone who loved to study and research and grow, someone who dreamed and taught me how to be passionate. I’m thankful that I have beautiful memories that preceded the pain I feel today.

Navigating the complexities of relationships has been an intriguing and often challenging journey for me. My upbringing in a conservative Christian community deeply influenced my understanding of love, embedding a notion of conditional affection that hinged on strict adherence to certain rules and norms. This form of love was like a double edged sword, it offered warmth and belonging as long as I walked the perfect path, but turned cold and distant the moment I strayed.

This early exposure to conditional love has significantly shaped my approach to relationships in adulthood. As I wade into the world of forming new friendships and relationships, I often find myself in a state of constant fear and over awareness. This vigilance manifests in two conflicting ways: an over sensitivity to the dynamics of my relationships, leading me to question their authenticity at every turn, and, paradoxically, a tendency to miss or overlook critical signals that should capture my attention.

The process of unlearning the principles of conditional love and embracing a concept of unconditional love is similar to navigating a maze(I know I love comparing life to a maze). Each interaction becomes a lesson, a step towards understanding that true love and affection aren’t tied to a set of conditions or expectations. Instead, they are unmovable, not falling in the face of choices or actions that go off the path only slightly.

This time has been about discovering that genuine relationships are built on a foundation of trust, understanding, and acceptance. It’s about learning that love, in its purest form, is about giving without the expectation of receiving something in return. It’s a gradual realization that while the love I knew in my youth was contingent on compliance, the love I seek now is about mutual respect and understanding.

Each day presents a new opportunity to understand love and relationships better, to distinguish between the conditional love of my past and the unconditional love I aspire to both give and receive. This ongoing evolution of my understanding of love is not just a path towards healthier relationships but also a journey of self discovery and growth.

Reflecting on it now, it seems rather astonishing that I was taught by a religion that we are inherently sinful and wicked, and that we need someone else to make us whole. This teaching emphasized our flaws and imperfections. It’s understandable why so many people feel unable to meet such incredibly unattainable standards.

Just a reminder: you are amazing just as you are. You are enough. And you don’t need validation from those who don’t appreciate you for simply doing your best.

The blue screen of death, the universal sign of a system failure, strikes a particular chord with me. It takes me back to my own internal system crashes, those of belief, expectations, and self identity. There were many times when I felt like a computer crashing, overwhelmed by demands and tasks that I simply couldn’t process or fulfill. This blue screen of emotion was something I was familiar with. It signified a state of my well being.

Growing up in a high control environment, I was often seen more for my function than as an individual. My value was tied to my performance, to how well I adhered to the expectations and roles laid out for me. I was expected to operate smoothly, to comply without question, to be a cog in a larger machine. When I couldn’t meet these demands, when I “malfunctioned” because I was trying to be something I wasn’t, it was like hitting an internal blue screen of death.

The frustration wasn’t just my own. It spilled over from the people around me, those who couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just ‘reboot’ and run the program as expected. Their impatience was a dangerous force, it was a pressure that compounded the sense of isolation and failure.

I still have that blue screen of death pop up from time to time.

What happens in that blue screen of death in my mind? Chaos, that’s what. My brain tells me that a situation is not sustainable, it activates rapid coding of a need for emergency response, it tells me that there is imminent danger and threats to me that I have no way of navigating. It’s a system failure that bypasses fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses.

When my internal blue screen of death pops up, I simply want to turn off the computer permanently. The blue screen represents a total shutdown of my internal code. It acts as a self destruct mode when there is no apparent escape. That’s a scary realization when we think of what that means for a person rather than a computer.

Except when we do face the blue screen, we have to remember we actually have a choice and a healthy positive escape.

Here’s the thing about the programming of humans, life can be rebooted, and sometimes, it needs to be. Sometimes, the only way to fix the problem is to start fresh, to build something new that doesn’t crash under the weight of old code and outdated operations. That’s what I had to do. I had to leave the system that was never really designed for me, to stop being a computer malfunctioning under others’ commands, and start being Matt, a person with his own will and desires, ready to write a new program and code for his life.