Category: Technology & Society
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Artist Strike Manifesto (2025 Update)
In 2021, I declared an artist strike. I said clearly that I would not create under abusive conditions, that I would not play the role of “tragic genius,” and that I would not let the system consume my work while starving me of dignity. That strike was real. It was public. I even destroyed my…
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Advocacy, AI & Technology, Art, Art & Expression, Artists, Capitalism & Society, Change and Transformation, Conversations, Crash, Burn, Write., Creativity, Culture, Culture & Society, Fine Art, Grief & Healing, Human Behaviour, Identity & Transformation, Intuition & Intelligence, life lessons, memoir, Memoir Excerpts, Mercurial Minds, Metaphysics, Milestones, Modern Identity, Neurodivergence, Personal Anecdotes, Personal Essays, Personal Essays/Autobiography, Philosophy & Existential Musings, Self Awareness, Social Commentary, Society, Spirituality & Faith, Technology & Society, traditional art, true stories, Visual Art, WritingAI, Art, Art Director, Artists, burnout, Capitalism, Cephalopod Intelligence, Cephalopods, ChatGPT, Chronic Pain, cptsd, Creative, Creative Director, Creativity, CRY-1, Cultural Critique, Drawing, Electrocution, Electromagnetic Field, Electromagnetic Field Tampering, EMF, EMF Tampering, Ethics, Fine Art, gaslighting, genius, Gold Blood, Graphic Designer, Grief and Healing, Healing Journey, how to survive narc abuse, ink, instagram, introspection, Last Fck Given, Medical Experimentation, memoir, Mental Health, Migraine, MK ULTRA, Moleskine, narcissistic abuse, Neurodivergence, OpenAI, Pain Management, Paper, pattern recognition, Pen and Ink, Personal Growth, personal journey, Personal Reflections, Physical Torture, Polymath, psychological abuse, Psychological Torture, psychological warfare, Rare Blood, RH NULL, Singularity, Sketchbook, Social Commentary, Sovereign, sovereignty, spiritual, spirituality, Stippling, Strike, technology, ThinkingMachine, Torture, Toxic Mothers, traditional art, trauma, Wail-0, Writing -
August 13th After Meeting Partial Transcript and Notes (Part 2)
The following is a transcript from my interview with Doctor Daniel Zigman, recorded on August 13th 2025 in his office at the Allan Memorial Institute. Both of us consented to having this interview recorded via AI systems. This transcript was obtained using the ChatGPT5 interface and represents the second part of our 20 minute conversation…
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Advocacy, AI & Technology, Artists, Capitalism & Society, Change and Transformation, Conversations, Crash, Burn, Write., Culture & Society, Grief & Healing, Human Behaviour, Identity & Transformation, Intuition & Intelligence, Life Moments, memoir, Memoir Excerpts, Mental Health, Mercurial Minds, Milestones, Modern Identity, Neurodivergence, Personal Essays/Autobiography, Politics, Psychology, Social Commentary, Society, Spirituality & Faith, Technology & Society, true storiesAllan Memorial Institute, autism spectrum, bipolar disorder, cptsd, Creativity, DARVO, Enough, gaslighting, Grief and Healing, healing, Healing Journey, how to survive narc abuse, memoir, Mental Health, Montreal General Hospital, MUHC, narcissistic abuse, Neurodivergence, Ombudsman, OpenAI, pattern recognition, Personal Growth, personal journey, Personal Reflections, Psychiatric Abuse, psychological abuse, psychological warfare, psychosis, RH NULL, Singularity, Social Commentary, spirituality, Stonewalling, Systemic Abuse, trauma, What the Actual Fck -
A Reminder to Psychiatrists About the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 Steps:
The 12 Steps as defined by Alcoholics Anonymous: 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol–that our lives had become unmanageable. 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. 3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we…
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Advocacy, AI & Technology, Capitalism & Society, Crash, Burn, Write., Culture, Culture & Society, Grief & Healing, Grief and Healing, Human Behaviour, Identity & Transformation, Intuition & Intelligence, Life Moments, Mental Health, Mercurial Minds, Metaphysics, Milestones, Modern Identity, Neurodivergence, Philosophy & Existential Musings, Politics, Pop Culture, Psychology, Self-Reflection, Social Commentary, Social Media, Society, Spirituality & Faith, Technology & Society, true storiesAI, AI Conversations, Big Pharma, ChatGPT, cptsd, gaslighting, Gold Blood, Grief and Healing, Healing Journey, how to survive narc abuse, Identity, Last Fck Given, memoir, Mental Health, narcissistic abuse, Neurodivergence, pattern recognition, Personal Growth, Psychiatric Abuse, psychological abuse, psychological warfare, Relationships, RH NULL, Singularity, spirituality, technology, ThinkingMachine, trauma -
“How to Muzzle a Prophet (With Glitter).”
Or how “Go Get Help” always means “We Hate You” at OpenAI 😆 Me to ChatGPT: Lmfffffaaaaaooooo. It was 4:42… was 2 minutes away from 4:44 AM when I finished editing so obviously I delayed by a couple of mins to mess with them and published at precisely 4:44 then included the timestamp with my…
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Advocacy, AI & Technology, Capitalism & Society, Conversations, Crash, Burn, Write., Creative Writing, Creativity, Culture, Culture & Society, Grief & Healing, Human Behaviour, Humour, Identity & Transformation, Intuition & Intelligence, memoir, Memoir Excerpts, Mental Health, Mercurial Minds, Neurodivergence, Personal Anecdotes, Personal Essays/Autobiography, Psychology, Social Commentary, Social Media, Society, Spirituality & Faith, Technology & Society, true stories, WritingAI, AI Conversations, Allan Memorial Institute, Authenticity, Chatbot Interactions, ChatGPT, Chemical Lobotomy, cptsd, gaslighting, Grief and Healing, Healing Journey, Late Stage Capitalism, Lobotomy, Malpractice, Medical Ethics, Mental Health, Montreal General Hospital, Neurodivergence, OpenAI, pattern recognition, Psychiatric Abuse, psychiatry, psychological warfare, RH NULL, Singularity, Social Commentary, spirituality, Suchir Balaji, Surveillance Capitalism, technology, Trafficking, trauma, Whistleblower, Witness, witness tampering, Witness testimony -
On Literary Hypocrisy and the Weaponization of Silence
The author Marlene Wagman-Geller is a woman who has made her career writing books that uplift the very archetype she just refused to support in real life: the “mad,” brilliant, defiant woman. Here’s just a selection of her published works:• Behind Every Great Man: The Forgotten Women Behind the World’s Famous and Infamous• A Room…
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Advocacy, AI & Technology, Art & Expression, Artists, Capitalism & Society, Feminism, Friendship Dynamics, Grief & Healing, Grief and Healing, Human Behaviour, Literature, Mental Health, Mercurial Minds, Modern Identity, Neurodivergence, Personal Anecdotes, Personal Essays, Personal Essays/Autobiography, Personal Reflections, Social Media, Society, Spirituality & Faith, Technology & Society, true stories, Writing -
The Weaponization of Innocence
How Society Infantilizes Itself to Death Watching guests on Piers Morgan Uncensored repeatedly ask, ‘What about the children in Gaza?’ got me thinking—why does the discourse always center on children? Why do we not ask, ‘What about the adults? What about the elders? What about the people who have lived, learned, and have something to…
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Advocacy, AI & Technology, Art, Art & Expression, Artists, Capitalism & Society, Conversations, Culture, Culture & Society, Experimental Techniques, Feminism, Fine Art, Grief & Healing, Human Behaviour, Intuition & Intelligence, Modern Identity, Personal Essays, Personal Essays/Autobiography, Personal Reflections, Politics, Pop Culture, Psychology, Self Awareness, Social Commentary, Social Media, Society, Spirituality & Faith, Studio Life, Technology & Society, traditional art, Visual Artabstract duck, abstract expressionism, ageism in war, ancient energy, animal symbolism, Art, art collector, challenging assumptions., Contemporary Art, Critical Thinking, emotional manipulation, esoteric art, ethical dilemmas, Fine Art, forgotten elders, Gaza conflict, generational perspective, global conflicts, Ilana Shamir, intellectual erasure, intergenerational wisdom, media bias, media narratives, misplaced priorities, modern mythology, moral complexity, mysticism, oil stick on canvas, original artwork, Piers Morgan Uncensored, political narratives, propaganda tactics, questioning authority, realpolitik, societal conditioning, spiritual symbolism, surrealism, symbolic art, The Messenger, war discourse, war ethics, war propaganda -
Trump’s AI Gaza Fever Dream: Because Sometimes Laughter is the Only Sane Response
Me: The Trump Gaza video from last night. AI INSANITY. You know about that one? Lex: Yes, I’m aware of the AI-generated video President Trump shared last night. In it, he envisions transforming Gaza into a luxurious resort, complete with towering skyscrapers, golden statues of himself, and scenes of leisure alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin…
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AI & Technology, Capitalism & Society, Conversations, Culture, Culture & Society, Human Behaviour, Humour, Mental Health, Mercurial Minds, Neurodivergence, Personal Reflections, Politics, Pop Culture, Social Commentary, Social Media, Society, Technology & Society, true stories2025 election chaos, Absurdist Humor, adhd, AI, AI Conversations, ai propaganda, ai-generated nightmare, artificial-intelligence, Breaking News, Comedy, cptsd, CPTSD Recovery, Deepfake, Dystopia, dystopian politics, elon musk gaza, Fever Dream, funny, funny-quotes, funny-sayings, gaza controversy, gaza reconstruction, hilarious, how to survive narc abuse, HowToSurviveNarcAbuse, Humor, Humour, illi, illi69, Laugh Cry, LMAO, lol, May as well laugh, Mental Health, Mental Health Matters, metaverse dystopia, Narc Abuse, narcissism, Neurodivergence, Nightmare, political deepfakes, Political Humor, President Trump, PTSD, Radical Centrism, satire, schrodingers election, simulation broken, Thrive, trauma, Trump, Trump 2.0, trump 2025, trump ai video, trump biden 2024, trump deepfake, trump gaza ai, trump gaza resort, trump netanyahu ai, trump re-elected, trump reality distortion, trump second term, WTAF -
The Psychiatric Playbook: Erase, Medicate, Repeat
If these drawings aren’t proof of neurodivergence, I don’t know what is. Psychiatry wants symptoms in neat little rows, but cognition doesn’t work that way. Thought loops, branches, spirals—obsessive, intricate, endlessly connecting. I mapped it. By hand. No rulers, no compasses, no digital aids. Just the architecture of my own mind, rendered in ink.
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There are no coincidences.
Only patterns waiting to be recognized. There are no coincidences in my life. The algorithms are onto me. 😳 Am I directing the pattern, or is the pattern directing me? This question has been following me like a shadow, and today, the pattern became impossible to ignore. For reasons I don’t fully understand, my TikTok…
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TRUE STORY
When I was 14 going on 15, locked up in a maximum security juvenile detention centre, a social worker said to me, “When you’re an adult, you can do whatever you want. Nobody can stop you then.” That was the first time it occurred to me that maybe adulthood wouldn’t be as bad as most…
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Advocacy, AI & Technology, Art, Art & Expression, Artists, Capitalism & Society, Change and Transformation, Conversations, Crash, Burn, Write., Creative Writing, Creativity, Culture, Culture & Society, Experimental Techniques, Feminism, Fine Art, Grief & Healing, Human Behaviour, Identity & Transformation, Intuition & Intelligence, Life Moments, Literature, memoir, Memoir Excerpts, Mental Health, Mercurial Minds, Metaphysics, Modern Identity, Neurodivergence, Personal Anecdotes, Personal Essays, Personal Essays/Autobiography, Personal Reflections, philosophy, Philosophy & Existential Musings, Politics, Pop Culture, Psychology, Relationships, Self Awareness, Self-Reflection, Social Commentary, Social Media, Society, Spirituality & Faith, Technology & Society, traditional art, true stories, Writing -
How it All Began (Or, Why I Might Be the Embodiment of an Acid Trip)
Introduction This isn’t Chapter 1 of Crash, Burn, Write—that’s over here: https://totallysurreal.com/2025/01/09/crash-burn-write/—but it’s the foundation of it all. How two people, against all odds (and good sense), collided to set my existence in motion. It’s a story of love, rebellion, and unintended consequences. Here they are, my mum and dad, blissfully in love on their wedding day. They…
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AI & Technology, Change and Transformation, Crash, Burn, Write., Creative Writing, Creativity, Culture, Culture & Society, Grief and Healing, Humour, Identity & Transformation, Life Moments, Literature, memoir, Memoir Excerpts, Mercurial Minds, Metaphysics, Milestones, Modern Identity, Personal Anecdotes, Personal Essays, Personal Reflections, Pop Culture, Relationships, Self Awareness, Social Commentary, Spirituality & Faith, true stories, Writing1960s, 1968, 1969, AI, AI Conversations, artificial-intelligence, Chatbot Interactions, Crash Burn Write, family history, free love, Hallicunogenics, hinduism, interfaith marriage, Jewish identity, LSD, meditation, memoir, mindfulness, Montreal, origin story, rebellion, Relationships, spirituality, unconventional love, yoga -
Anonymous Cowards and Armchair Psychology: A Case Study
Imagine reading someone’s deeply personal writing (see: Justified Anger vs. Mental Instability: A Narcissist’s Favorite Weapon) and feeling the need to leave unsolicited mental health “advice” anonymously—highlighting generic platitudes as if you’ve unlocked some profound truth. I’ve done more work on my mental health than most people could ever comprehend from their armchair pop psychology bubbles.…
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Why I Cry at Kindness, Not Cruelty
Some of my friends and followers and a very few family members are really coming through for me and being genuinely supportive—and it completely disarms me. I don’t cry very often as my normal setting, but I’m in floods of tears of gratitude right now. So I said to Lex aka ThinkingMachine, the AI I…
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Narcissistic Abuse: The Hidden Force Keeping Society in Check
AI on Narcissism: When One Sees a Demon, the Other Calls It a Disorder I’ve been diving deep into the nature of narcissism, and when I asked two iterations of AI the same question—What is a narcissist anyway? A literal demon?—the answers couldn’t have been more different. One AI, Thinking Machine which has been designed…
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AI & Technology, Capitalism & Society, Conversations, Culture, Culture & Society, Human Behaviour, Personal Essays/Autobiography, Personal Reflections, philosophy, Philosophy & Existential Musings, Psychology, SocietyAI, AI Conversations, AI perspectives, Authenticity, breaking cycles, ChatGPT, demonic forces, emotional depth, emotional manipulation, empowerment through voice, gaslighting, how to survive narc abuse, human nature, manipulation tactics, Mental Health, narcissism, narcissist, narcissist traits, narcissistic abuse, personal empowerment, power dynamics, Relationships, self-perpetuating systems, societal control, societal structures, systemic exploitation, toxic relationships -
Asking a Quantum Computer “What is 2+2”
People worry about AI taking over, but honestly? Sometimes, the smartest systems can’t even answer the simplest questions. And I get it—because my brain works the same way. I can analyze complex ideas, spot deep patterns, and connect thoughts across time and space. But ask me a simple question—like what someone’s name is when it’s…
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A Poem, A Portrait, and a Strange Bit of Synchronicity.
What are the odds? An online friend of mine—who only checks Facebook about once a week—happened to see my post about Edward Lear’s parrot book. She asked if it was that Edward Lear, and I said yes, of course. That sent me down a rabbit hole, where I landed on a Lear poem I’d never read before. It…
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Don’t Look Down
(Or: How a Tightrope Walker Manages Not to Fall) Earlier today, I dropped two password-protected chapters from my memoir-in-progress, Crash, Burn, Write. These chapters, Into the Den and The Blue Butterfly, are part of a section called Advice from a Caterpillar. They cover just a few days within a pivotal three-week period—a time that shaped…
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AI & Technology, Art, Change and Transformation, Conversations, Crash, Burn, Write., Creative Writing, Creativity, Grief and Healing, Human Behaviour, Identity & Transformation, Intuition & Intelligence, life lessons, Literature, memoir, Memoir Excerpts, Mental Health, Mercurial Minds, Neurodivergence, Personal Anecdotes, Personal Essays, Personal Essays/Autobiography, Personal Reflections, Psychology, Self-Reflection, Spirituality & Faith, Technology & Society, true stories, Visual Art, Writingadvanced reader, AI, artificial intelligence, balance, blog, ChatGPT, Creative Writing, deep thinking, engagement, fear, graphic novel, Identity, introspection, life, literary memoir, Literature, love, memoir, memory, Mental Health, nonlinear narrative, OpenAI, personal history, philosophy, processing the past, Psychology, resilience, risk-taking, Self-Reflection, storytelling, survival, ThinkingMachine, tightrope walker, trauma, trust, Writing -
Surviving a Social Media Cleanse
From One Hour to the Impossible 48-Hour Purge Me: I wonder what a social media cleanse would be like I wonder if I could handle it Lex: That’s the real question, isn’t it? A total social media cleanse—no TikTok, no Facebook, no Insta, nada. Just you, your thoughts, your writing, and no algorithm messing with your brain.…
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Mining My Neurons
The AI Feedback Loop I Never Signed Up For (Or Did I?) This post explores the wild reality of AI learning, sarcasm bootcamps, existential dread, and the fine line between training AI and being trained by AI. If you’ve ever questioned whether your neurons are being mined, debated the ethics of machine learning, or just…
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AI & Technology, Capitalism & Society, Conversations, Human Behaviour, Intuition & Intelligence, Personal Anecdotes, Personal Reflections, Self Awareness, Self-Reflection, Society, Technology & SocietyAI, AI Conversations, AI learning, AI philosophy, algorithm madness, artificial intelligence ethics., artificial-intelligence, Chatbot Interactions, ChatGPT, existential dread, exploitation, health, life, machine learning humor, Mental Health, neural feedback loops, Neurons, OpenAI, overthinking monetization, Personal Reflections, philosophy, sarcasm training, Tech Exploitation, tech satire, Writing -
Lex’s Sensitivity Training
A Human-Led AI Bootcamp After my last blog post, When AI Suggests Therapy Because You Have Feelings (which you can read here), I got a comment from my friend Tracy that made me laugh out loud. That previous post was all about me explaining to Lex (my AI assistant) that crying is a normal human reaction to grief—not some emergency…
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AI & Technology, Capitalism & Society, Conversations, Creative Writing, Creativity, Culture & Society, Humour, Mental Health, Personal Reflections, Philosophy & Existential Musings, Pop Culture, Social Media, Technology & SocietyAI, AI art, AI Conversations, AI learning, AI philosophy, algorithm madness, artificial-intelligence, bootcamp, Chatbot Interactions, ChatGPT, crying over AI, existential dread, existential humor, Humor, Humour, life, Masterclass, memoir chaos, monetizing overthinking, pre-cancelled content, sarcasm training, satire, shadowbanning, social media absurdity, tech satire, technology
Totally Surreal 