22d • WRITINGS
Upstream Logic
They say salmon swim upstream
against bone-breaking current,
muscle screaming,
purpose louder than pain.
No applause.
No audience.
Just instinct dressed up as destiny.
She dies when the work is done—
never meets her children,
never questions the river,
never asks
who decided this direction?
And we call that nature.
But here’s the glitch in the system—
humans weren’t coded like fish.
We were born unfinished.
Upgradeable.
Dangerous.
Free will wasn’t a gift—
it was a risk.
So they centralized learning.
Standardized truth.
Put God on a schedule
and freedom behind a desk.
Church said: follow.
State said: comply.
Corporations said: produce.
And suddenly choice came with a price tag
most people couldn’t afford.
They trained us to swim upstream
toward money,
toward titles,
toward borrowed dreams—
then blamed us for drowning.
See, the salmon never questions death
because death is part of the program.
But humans?
We trade eternity
for a paycheck
and call it maturity.
Here’s the part they don’t teach:
If a salmon ever turned around—
ever rode the river instead of fighting it—
she wouldn’t be a failure.
She’d be a myth.
And that’s why they hate deviation.
Because one thinking individual
infects the water
with possibility.
“All for One” is control.
One story.
One ladder.
One acceptable life.
But “One for All”?
That’s dangerous.
That means I master me
so thoroughly
that my freedom becomes
your permission.
I’m not here to swim where you point.
I’m here to ask
who built the dam
and who profits from exhaustion.
I don’t want instinct in a suit.
I want consciousness in motion.
Because the real tragedy
isn’t dying after purpose—
it’s living
and never choosing it.
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Upstream Logic
