Take a step back and realize that your fear levels are calibrated by 1's and 0's on a computer screen. Go outside.

Freedom is a decision -- albeit a decision with much friction until is is finally, truly made on a personal, then collective level.

We have outsourced all empiricism. We do not trust our own senses if they conflict with what our screens say. Most of the fear injected into you is phantom -- its underlying threat doesn't even exist, in reality.

We do live in a matrix, albeit still a hybrid.

It comes from all sides. It comes in the form of viruses and the threat of nuclear war. Of tensions in the Middle East and economic doom. Of the UN at our doorstep and the world ending tomorrow.

None of it is really real. It is only "real" because we keep watching our screens.

These things are all wishes until WE make them a reality. With our attention and our deep concern. Our empathy is weaponized. Our fear is injected into our neighbors until they, too, contribute to the hydra of our own creation, terrorizing the worlds in our minds.

Your mentality is the food of the system. You are asleep in barely-metaphorical pods that suck all mental nutrients and hope out of you.

In a trick of the mind, the plug appears out of reach. But if you just tried, you could pull it right out, and the fake world evaporates.

Inside, a torrential vacuum sweeping you along and out of control. Outside, a tree that has been there for a century is still there, moving in tandem with the wind -- the same air that has been here since the beginning. Nutrient-rich fruit growing from the Earth.

It is a choice. It was always a choice.

In truth, the greatest trick of the Devil was convincing you that it wasn't.