I didn’t drop the boulder. I just stopped pretending it mattered.

The myth goes that Sisyphus was condemned to an eternity of pushing a rock up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, over and over. Camus dared us to imagine Sisyphus happy. But what if, instead, Sisyphus shrugged?

What if he looked at the boulder–the job, the bills, the rent, the empty promises of “progress,” the demands to smile and reproduce under capitalism–and said, “Nah.”

Because here’s the truth no one wants to admit: the system is absurd. The wealthy are absurd. The idea of building a family on a dying planet is absurd. Apartheid Clyde tweeting like he’s the Oracle of Mars while workers piss in bottles? Absurd. Trump resurrecting fascism in a McDonald’s wrapper? Absurd.

We’re living in a pyramid scheme where life is the product, and the only way to win is not to play. They tell us to dream of owning homes we’ll never afford, to hustle in jobs that don’t care if we live or die, and to have children just to hand them the same existential debt.

But absurdism isn’t despair. It’s clarity. It’s rebellion.

To shrug like Sisyphus is not to give up–it’s to opt out, it’s to refuse the assigned meaning and create our own. It’s saying no to the wealthy, no baby cults, no to the grind–and yes to solidarity, sabotage, and stolen joy.

I’ve been doing more reading on revolutionaries such as Vladimir Lenin and Che Guevara. Most of Americans were taught that these people were mass murderers and nothing else. If that’s the case then I argue that America’s Founding Fathers were too.

If we’re judging historical figures by the same moral yardstick, especially one centered around violence, authoritarianism, or the cost of revolution, then the Founding Fathers don’t get a free pass.

George Washington led brutal campaigns against Indigenous people.

Thomas Jefferson owned hundreds of slaves and upheld a system of racialized violence.

The American Revolution was steeped in bloodshed, repression of loyalists, and economic exploitation.

The American Founding Fathers launched a war that killed tens of thousands, built a country on the backs of enslaved Africans, and expanded westward by slaughtering Indigenous people and stealing their land. They violently crushed uprisings like the Whiskey Rebellion and created a political system designed to protect the wealthy elite.

Lenin and Che? They were revolutionaries in the truest sense–men who took up arms against brutal empires, fought for the poor, and tried to uproot centuries of aristocratic exploitation. Their revolutions weren’t clean or perfect–no revolution is–but they were aimed at liberation, not profit.

Yet we’re taught to worship the Founding Fathers as freedom fighters and condemn Lenin and Che as tyrants. That’s not a moral judgment, it’s a political one. The Founders fought for capitalism. Che and Lenin fought to destroy it.

Violence in the name of empire gets a statue. Violence in the name of emancipation gets called terrorism.

If we’re calling one side murderers, then let’s be honest: the blood is on every set of hands.

The presidency, in all its grandeur and symbolic weight, often serves as the crown jewel of a system that feeds on hierarchy, spectacle, and obedience. We’re taught to look up to presidents, to CEOs, to gods of the free market. But real power should flow horizontally, not vertically.

Still, within a capitalist nation-state, presidents remain a functional necessity: someone to sign laws, to direct agencies, to act as a figurehead for national policy. But this necessity is not noble. It’s a byproduct of a broke structure, a structure that props up inequality, rewards charisma over justice, and reduces collective agency to a once-every-four-years ritual.

Libertarian socialism doesn’t just critique the office of the president, it critiques the entire system that makes such concentrated power seem normal. The goal isn’t to replace one “better” president with another. It’s to build a world where we no longer need one.

I believe capitalism is a scam. It’s a pyramid scheme that exploits labor, commodifies life, and rewards sociopathy. It needs to go.

I believe the state serves capital, not people. Real power lies with the rich, and the state protects their wealth–not our freedom.

I believe direct action matters. Real change comes from disruption, not politely asking for crumbs.

I believe mutual aid>charity. We should build systems of care that don’t depend on billionaires “giving back” stolen wealth.

I believe hierarchy is the problem. Bosses, cops, landlords, or tech bros pretending to be geniuses–power concentrated in the hands of a few always leads to abuse.

I believe in organizing locally to disrupt globally. We need tight, local networks and chaotic energy aimed at breaking down systems everywhere.

I believe electoral politics is a tactic, not a solution. Voting might buy us time, but it won’t save us.

I believe life is absurd. When reality feels like a joke then fight back with humor, mockery, and meaning-making of your own.

I believe anti-natalism isn’t nihilism. Refusing to create new life in a broken world can be an act of radical empathy.

I believe revolution isn’t just possible–it’s necessary. It doesn’t have to look like the past. It can be weirder, funnier, more chaotic, and more human.

I’m re-watching the show “The Wire” and when I first watched it years ago, I felt that it played out like a really good book. That’s exactly what it is: a book that happens to be played out on screen.

There’s dense, literary writing. The dialogue isn’t dumbed down. It trusts the audience to keep up. Characters speak in their own rhythms, slang, and dialects without exposition dumps. Like in a novel, you have to infer meaning from the context. It also unfolds slowly, like layered storytelling. There are so many details that pay off later. Threads from earlier episodes or seasons come back in meaningful ways–like motifs in a novel.

The huge ensemble cast presents multiple POVs just like in a novel. There’s no single protagonist. You jump between characters on different levels of society–from cops to kingpins, teachers to kids, journalists to politicians.It’s not about “what happens next.” It’s about why systems fail–the drug war, education, the media, capitalism. It’s about institutions grinding people down.

There’s also the moral complexity. There are no good guys or bad guys. There are just flawed people trying to survive. Like in a serious novel, everyone is both protagonist and antagonist, depending on the chapter.

It’s one of those rare shows where the more attention you give it, the more it gives back. Much like in a good book, it wants you to sit with it, rewatch it as I’m doing right now, and pick it apart.

“You come at the king, you best not miss.” -Omar Little