FIRE MIX

CONTRIBUTE TO THOSE AFFECTED

Above is a mix I created while the 2025 Los Angeles Fires raged around us, meant to convey how it felt to be in the city at that time.

The fires of 2025 will go down in history as the beginning of the end. The end of it all, or the end of the something else remains to be seen. I hope that we’ll recover, but if the last few months have taught me anything, it is that the world is indifferent to right and wrong. When natural disasters happen, it seems common for people to start considering whether the victims deserved it. Of course they didn’t. Or maybe some of them did. The universe does not give a shit. One thing that I never really felt comfortable with was considering what it is that people deserve. As a society, somehow we’ve (or enough people) have decided that we as humans are equipped to decide what other people deserve. If you kill someone, depending where it is, many people have decided that you deserve to die for that. Can you imagine? God says to you “This person has sinned. You decide whether they live or die.” Imagine being responsible, not judging whether someone is guilty, but whether they should die for what they’ve done, or even how much should they endure to atone for their sins. Do you feel that you, as a fellow human, just as flawed as the offender, have the supreme moral authority to decide how much a person should suffer for making a mistake (consciously or not)? That is insane to me. We don’t let school children decide how to punish their classmates. What changes as an adult? Have some of us earned the right? Have we learned all there is to know about morality such that we should wield this power?

Rehabilitation is another thing. Protecting people is another thing. These things can be thought about rationally, practically. But punishment? That is strictly subjective. There can be no black and white. We can’t even approach it. And what about the wrongfully accused? That’s for another day.

This is the world we live in. We are children. And we decide to hurt people simply as payback. You could say it is a deterrent, but you are vastly more likely to commit a crime if you go to prison, so what is it deterring? Clearly it is an accelerant. It feeds the egos of the folks in charge as they flex their authority over the less advantaged—literal modern-day slavery. How have we made it so far and yet we are still cavemen? Fear.

Bad things happen to us all, whether we “deserve” it or not. So don’t start thinking that bad things happen to you, or anyone, because you deserve it. Maybe you do. Maybe if you walk down a street late at night you’ll get robbed. Maybe you should expect bad things to happen to you if you take certain risks, but they don’t happen to you because you deserve them. The person who gets taken in by a scam may have increased their chances by making a mistake, but they are still the victim. And they don’t deserve to be scammed. It’s scary for some to think that there is no clear moral authority. But I guarantee that if you took away the laws and the religions, we would all know what is “right” and what is “wrong” nonetheless. Laws and rules and religions and principles only serve to control the people willing to follow them. And those who only pretend to be “good” will have any power at all.

A person caught with a pound of weed breaks the law. Not any law I agree with, but laws. And yet a person can continuously exploit and destroy vulnerable populations by extracting wealth and hoarding resources, but because they do it within the confines of the law, they are deemed successful instead of criminal. Of course, the laws were created by those in power only to maintain that power. We all understand these things. I’m not breaking any new ground here of course. My point isn’t that laws are bad—I think they are, but that’s not the point. My point is that our willingness to accept evil and to actively hurt our fellow humans is entirely dependent on laws and rules created by someone else. Someone who’s entire agenda was too exploit and control the people who follow those rules. This is how people can justify oppressing people they might otherwise consider family or friends. And these people can’t wait to do it, simply because they’re on the “right” side of the law, or the religion, or the rules. In this way you can consider yourself a good person as long as the law allows you to be a monster.

I created this mix during the LA wildfires of 2025 in an attempt to preserve what I was feeling during this horrific moment in time. The world was literally burning. A historically black community that, despite a system designed specifically to prevent exactly this, managed to build generational wealth through home ownership was burned to the ground. People from other parts of the country practically cheered. Evil, hateful, despicable monsters. They tried to make it political. They embraced lies and ignored the facts while thousands suffered and lost everything. They felt that, because these people lived in a state that they determined was not aligned with the values they bought into wholesale from the people actively exploiting them, that they somehow deserved to lose it all. Insanity. I am far from perfect, but I cannot imagine the hate and the pain that someone would have to feel to cheer for the destruction of thousands of lives. People are afraid. They’re afraid of each other because it makes them easier to control by the people who benefit from ruling over them. "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

It seems clear now that we will never overcome this hatred of each other unless we overcome fear itself. We are all afraid. How you treat other people is just a manifestation of what you’re afraid of. If you’re unwilling to think for yourself, you will easily be convinced to fear your fellows. And you will be the pawn of the ruling class. Humans have the ability to solve most problems by this point. Food, shelter, energy—the technology to maintain a comfortable existence for all of mankind has been available for decades. But actually solving problems would leave no leverage for the beasts among us to control us. So whatever you believe, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. Be brave to the extent that you can be brave and love the fearful. Hate is extreme fear and should be reserved those who are sowing fear.

You can help your fellow humans whose lives were destroyed, who could not have possibly deserved this destruction, by helping them rebuild. Charities are rightfully suspect—if it involves money, you can bet that it is being used for selfish purposes to some extent—so I am including a link to a GoFundMe directory specifically for black families who lost their homes.