It is the real, and not the map, whose vestiges persist here and there in the deserts that are no longer those of the Empire, but ours. The desert of the real itself.

‘It’s a circus’, ‘it’s a theatre’, ‘it’s a movie’; all these old adages are ancient naturalist denunciations. This is no longer what is at issue. What is at issue this time is turning the real into a satellite, putting an undefinable reality with no common measure into orbit with the phantasma that once illustrated it”

I don’t remember the last time I tried to write something. To be honest, I long ago gave up on literature; anything symbolic or poetic. For some reason, I even struggle with just ordinary texts in messengers. 

I try to avoid being part of linguistic discourse: I can’t talk, not literally, but it seems I can’t reach others; it feels so hollow. Everything is so post- or meta- that I don’t even bother myself to try.

It’s actually painful not to be able to take part in any decision being made. But this is how it is. 

Whatever I’ve been fighting for is meaningless. I’ve lost. My hometown is nowhere to be found, it’s just ashes. The war threat is no more than real. It visited me, attacked me, broke my bones and left me soulless. 

I thought I was a fighter, an activist; that I would spend all of my resources protecting the ideology that seemed right at the time. Now I’m in Berlin and I’m facing the existential psychosis that long awaited me. 

Was the fight I started in 2019 even worth it? I don’t know. As a Kafkian character I’m just being thrown into the circumstances, and see no exit. 

Who am I? What is the actual fight? What is my role in that? Questions never to be answered, as I’m no one with nothing to be worthy of attention of capitalistic best-selling binary-coded machinery.

What did I do wrong? Was there any chance to alter the reality? I really doubt it. The policies get harder; and you have no vote from the senate to change it at least slightly.

Being weak is a synonym for describing human beings nowadays. I know that I am weak. And the others didn’t go any further. At least I see it this way. No matter what we do as a community it’s overshadowed by governments that only pretend they care for you.

‘Liberté, égalité, fraternité’ is no more, it’s just fake; it’s something that no longer exists. We can pretend it does but is it really so? No further revolution is possible. No more change.

Engulfed by overproduction, we’re barely human; alone and synthetic. Better. Faster. Stronger. A perfect media product with enhanced 4k quality.  24/7 live stream and people are unpaid actors. Smoothed, blurred, retouched – reality distorted entirely. 

I see the world as a big desert. It’s us, concrete and never-ending ads. 15 seconds before a YouTube video starts, a billboard across the street, a voiceover – a cheap replica of long gone centuries. Perfectly shaped, ideally white, muscular, happy, smiling – anything to make you believe.  But the world is in agony. It’s decaying. Parts falling apart. Breaking into pieces. 

I wish I could make a change. I wish I could’ve protected my home. I wish war was not real. At some point I really believed people could change things. I thought voices were heard and mattered. 

Everyone is put into a fitting bubble; each is given a branch of altered reality. It’s not good but bearable. Not a lot, yet at least enough. Whatever scenario you try to follow, it is already predicted. Far-right, far-left, vegan, feminist, poet, junkie, artist, soldier, manager –  you stick to your role and the system keeps running. Everything is scripted: every little detail, errors, inaccuracy – included and expected. 

Protest? It is already foreseen. And it will happen the way it is ‘supposed’ to happen. You won’t be first. And you won’t be last. Every miscalculation, every attempt to go off the shore is foretold.

All is put into numbers, ones and zeroes. Calculated. Foreshadowed. That is why I accept the impossibility of breaking or changing the order. I don’t like it. I don’t have a solution for that. I can’t fight it. It scares me. Dead end.

Catastrophes, hunger, poverty and other struggles are made into aesthetics, directed as a TV show. Homeless people are entertainment. Crackheads are part of the subway exhibition. I look around and I feel helpless. I feel defeated. I try not to see. I learn to ignore. Look through. Even if I help, it won’t change the whole picture. The struggle will not end for anyone or anything. All of these are solid components of the hyperreal monstrosity that flourishes from systematized oppression. 

It lets us go out on strikes and marches, so we think we’re free and can change the world. It agrees with us, so we think we can cooperate. It clouds our minds, so we provide it with nutrition. 

Yet again, I don’t have a solution. I’m not a mastermind. I don’t even think there is a solution. It’s just a reflection; my thoughts; my point of view; my perspective. It may just be my mental state, and these observations are false. I’m not sure. Though it’s indeed a good attempt at diving into discourse analysis and reclaiming textual back. 

Real became vague; and defining ‘real’ is a challenge today. We are surrounded by endless copies, low resolution duplicates, AI-generated doppelgängers – that are just an imitation of the world. I hope that we can make it through the digital jungle and finally break the code that infiltrated and poisoned our lives.