We arrive alone.

They teach us to obey.

We learn to follow rules we didn’t make.

We never question who made those rules.

We never ask why currency exists.

We never wonder who profits from our labor.

We accept systems that existed before we were born.

We compete with everyone for everything.

We worry who’s faster, stronger, richer.

We care what others think.

We measure success by what we own.

We chase status that means nothing.

We work to make other people rich.

We function like worker bees.

The people at the top profit from our labor.

Competition is another distraction.

Status is another trap.

We follow the same clock as everyone else.

We face the same end as everyone else.

Money can’t buy us more time.

Success can’t change our overall trajectory.

We pick careers to pay bills.

We follow schedules someone else created.

We wake up at times that serve the system.

We retire when the system allows it.

We marry people who also learned to obey.

We have children because that’s what we do.

We think raising them is our life’s purpose.

We focus all our energy on feeding and protecting them.

We mistake reproduction for contribution.

If everyone just raised children, humanity would achieve nothing.

Progress comes from individuals who push boundaries.

Progress comes from people who ignore the pack.

We confuse making money with making progress.

Real progress requires breakthrough ideas.

Real progress means questioning everything.

But breakthrough thinkers are still part of the machine.

Even rebels serve the system somehow.

We buy things we don’t need.

We stress about money, that just won’t matter in the end.

We argue about politics, that just won’t change.

We worry about what our neighbors think.

We compare ourselves to people who are just as lost.

We postpone dreams for obligations.

We sacrifice our present for an imaginary future.

We pretend we’re not aging.

We avoid thinking about death.

We fill silence with distractions.

We mistake being busy for being important.

We confuse having opinions with having wisdom.

We believe what the pack tells us to believe.

We’re weak when we're alone, but lose ourselves in groups.

We need the system to survive but the system needs us more.

We rarely question why things are the way they are.

Years pass without us noticing.

Our bodies break down.

Our memory fades.

Our children leave.

Our spouses leave.

Our friends start dying.

We realize we followed someone else’s plan.

Most people never question any of this.

Most people never realize they’re being controlled and used.

Most people accept their role as providers and consumers.

Most people think about the meaning of life but never find one.

Most people settle into a comfortable niche.

Most people choose existence over purpose.

Most people focus on dinner plans instead of their legacy.

Most people avoid the big questions because they’re scary.

Scientists and philosophers think about the big stuff.

Everyone else bike sheds.

We live on a rock spinning around a star.

Our star is one of billions in our galaxy.

Our galaxy is one of trillions in the universe.

Our entire lives are less than a second in cosmic time.

Nothing we worry about matters in the grand scheme of things.

We are insignificant.

We will be forgotten.

But we’re here anyway.

Against impossible odds.

We are conscious.

We can love.

We can wonder.

We can choose.

Most of us waste this.

Time is running out.

What are you going to do, to make your time matter?

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Transmission ends.