bro, do I even have my own thoughts?

like, for real.

is anything I think actually mine?

or am I just a walking collage of every tweet I liked, every podcast I half-listened to, every convo I wasn’t even a part of but still absorbed?

I tell myself I see the world differently.

but do I?

or is this just the illusion of individuality?

like, think about it -

I didn’t choose my name.

didn’t choose the first language I spoke.

didn’t choose the rules I was taught to follow before I even knew what a rule was.

I was just placed into a system,

handed a playbook,

and expected to make it work.

school taught me how to find ‘x’

but never once made me question why x even mattered.

and work?

it’s just school but with a paycheck.

they don’t ask, what do you want?

they ask, how can you be useful?