Identity, Institutions & the Price of Our Masks
The price of our subconscious submission to systems of control is our identity and the payment is past due.
Here’s a cold hard reality of where we stand as a collective. AI is forcing many things right now and the violence against human labor and the ensuing economic destruction is dominating the headlines, as it should.
But an aspect that almost no one is publicly addressing right now is what forced adoption of AI AND the destruction of institutions is doing to people’s individual sense of identity. We’re looking at a perfect storm of identity collapse with no safe containers for people to remove their institutional masks and discover who exists underneath the mechanisms of colonization.
Your phone is filled with friends and family who are navigating this right now with no resources or language to processes the collapse. Many of us were raised in a public school system designed by the Rockefeller's of the world to create cogs in wheels to power the industrial revolution and its aftermath.
We know this-- their plan was not hidden. We were told by our trusted adults to follow the rules, get the grades, chase the diplomas, cherish the hard earned credentials, use them to land a job that will provide stability, a sense of worth, protect an arbitrary credit score above all else, build a nest egg and an adult trajectory with a guaranteed foundation and retirement is where we enjoy what’s left of our life.
The underlying truth our elders adhered to (and was true for them) – follow the plan and one's place within this extractive economic system is secure and while the loss of identity from wearing institutional masks that enable the plan is a concern, this version of structured success and upward mobility will allow one to soothe a growing internal existential crisis with consumption, vacations and material wealth.
Not everyone adhered to this institutional playbook. My eyes were opened at age 17 (JGB concert + LSD = mind cracked open) and, thank goddess, they stayed open for the most part. I'm not immune to placing on a mask (this site is filled with my recent traumatic mask wearing sprint) but I soothed my inner child with the illusion of sovereignty and mission. My institutional masks were never permanent and the adhesion never fully cemented. When the criminal institution ripped my latest mask off for blowing whistles against nefarious actors in the organization, it didn't trigger a deep existential crisis. It triggered devastating health consequences that THEN triggered an identity crisis that traces back to my time as an elite athlete, but that's a story for another day.
My ride or die bitches are the same. They either pried their masks off a decade or two ago and said “nope, not playing that game anymore” or they avoided the mask all together.
What my mostly mask-free colleagues and I are seeing is the mass destabilization of people losing an attachment to their institution, through no fault of their own, and falling through a spiral of fear, insecurity and loss of self. An existential identity crisis happening amidst a mass societal upheaval is a recipe for disaster.
I’m not talking about the fear of losing the paycheck and material survival– that’s real and devastating and also a reason many are clinging to their positions in institutions they know are causing harm to themselves and society at scale. When a mask is attached to our fundamental survival– food, housing, medicine and rest– that's a mask that must be worn and the damages mitigated. In our economic structures in America, that labor mask is attached to material survival and physical health as a mechanism of control. It's time we acknowledge the power dynamics we're actually in and stop telling ourselves we're "exceptional" and not controllable because we have the freedom to change jobs.
I’m talking about the ones who placed an institutional mask on decades ago thinking this version of self-with-mask would carry them into retirement in that promised vehicle of safety, value and security. Most knowledge workers who built such careers now face a forced mask removal. And the more difficult the hierarchical ladder of the institute is to climb, the more certifications necessary to stay at the top, the harder people cling to the false identity the trajectory provided.
Need a PHD to teach here and want slap a large title or tenure next to your name with an extra zero on your paycheck (or not)? Surrender the soul of your writing to your peers to get that zero and make submission your default mode to retain that title.
Want to navigate the politics of the CSuite to put a shiny title on your LinkedIn profile and get a couple extra zeros on that paycheck to play executive for a few years? Give us your joy, your health and put your integrity on a shelf and you can have those zeros and that coveted title.
Want to play the role of Founder and CEO to chase external validation from VCs cosplaying God with their access to the levers of power and wealth? Give us your mind, all of your time and become beholden to the whims of the VC and you'll get your startup funded so you can perpetuate the patriarchy's version of leadership, push all emotional labor onto your workers and give them your flavor of institutional masking.
But what happens to those people who played the game for those zeros, titles and external validation when they realize the institution itself is corrupt, violent, extractive and soulless? What happens when the worker sees the dead bodies in the boardroom, holds the bloody keys to that room of death, and then chooses to scrub the blood off and helps bury the bodies in an act of self-preservation to maintain the story of success society lodged in their psyche at a young age?
What happens when the lies the institutions tell the workers become too obvious to bypass anymore? Or when the institution itself tosses the worker out the door to increase profits next quarter and initiate stock buy backs. The human who dedicated the best of themselves to the colonizer's system is left holding nothing. What they thought was true, what their parents told them was the safe and secure path of a lovely middle class life was just– a lie.
A lie that held a truth when first spoken. Our parents believed the safe secure middle class play was the right one because at the time– it was. Before trickle down economics and surveillance capitalism landed us in the hellscape of 2026, the middle class game was legit for a quiet life raising kids and enjoying leisure time. I know because that’s how I grew up and my childhood was lovely and my parents were happy. My father worked, my mother stayed home to raise us and we all played sports with large community groups that became found family.
But my father sacrificed his well being to the institution that allowed him to support a family for 25 years and then he died. Right at the point where society told him he would reap the rewards of compliance and playing the game. Nine months into a hard and well earned early retirement. Poof. Gone. I was already on the left hand path, soaking up the Beat Generation at scale and I was part of a subculture that followed the seasons, outdoor recreation and live music. My dad’s path and its tragic early ending solidified my own desire, not clearly articulated at the time but dwelling in the depths of my being, to never wear a mask that wasn’t mine to shape and remove.
My alternative path was also filled with people of all ages who chose never to enter an institution for work or validation. They built their own businesses to survive (and thrive) or worked for friends who had built independent economic engines. I was able to see what sovereignty of this type looked like in real time as I entered adulthood and that path spoke to me.
Participate in society just enough to keep a foundation beneath you and live your life without a mask.
My alternative lifestyle was possible, in large part, because the policies of the neocons were not at their full implementation yet and the world was not powered by the algorithms of sociopaths. The world was simple. Housing was accessible and cheap AF and groceries were affordable. We had space to explore art and ideas because technology didn't dominate our lives.
We were social and always in community because we didn't carry computers and social networks in our pockets. Hell, we didn't even own personal computers or laptops and could barely pay the phone bill for our landlines. We worked at or were deeply connected to our community Third Places.
When the seasons changed and our work was done for a few months, we simply bought a plane ticket to anywhere and fucked off to our heart's delight. Or, we piled into whoever's car could travel the farthest, drove to the next season, snagged a roof and a job from a bulletin board at the grocery store and played until the seasons changed again and we migrated back to another recreation-driven economy.
Our job was to show those who chose the path of the institution how to remove their mask for a week or two and touch the person underneath to let them breath again. I took classes in college for my Outdoor Recreation studies that explored the Puritanical work ethic of America and the West and how to use Eastern philosophies to counter balance the somatic impacts of such an approach to work.
What I witnessed in my 20s as front line labor in the service industries in tourism towns was validation that my and my community's choice to avoid the masks was an accurate one. What I witnessed as a bartender serving corporate employees trying to unwind 50 weeks of institutional trauma in one week of jam-packed recreation was absolutely heartbreaking and completely insane.
Fast forward to now and, well, none of what's happening is surprising in any way. The path was laid long ago and we are now staring down the logical end conclusion of a society built on the false premise that institutions and consumption would lead to a secure life where identity and value could be dictated and maintained by the mask one chose to wear and kept in place for decades.
I have deep empathy for what’s happening across society right now. The forced removal of decades of masking is not something I’d wish on anyone. But its happening regardless of our desires. My DMs are filled with friends and colleagues whose masks were just ripped off violently or they see the removal looming on the near horizon, and they are asking me for the solutions I’ve been trying to share for years.
And honestly, at this point, its too late. One just has to ride out the impacts and try to catch themselves as the threads of reality unravel. And as the unraveling intensifies -- one must prepare for what remains. The aftermath of the unraveling is messy. That's the work of Kali dancing through the ashes of the cremation grounds seeking a place to plant the seeds of rebirth. Necessary but brutal work.
As a collective, are we equipped with safe community containers that can support people as they careen through this forced identity transition? I think we know the answer to that, and it’s not a good one.
As a society, we've done next to nothing to protect our population from the destabilizing reality of AI and the inevitable end conclusion of late stage capitalism. Even the Pope is calling for action from people with access to power and the levers of technology we all must submit to in order to survive.
While we can't control what happens in those rooms of power where billionaires play God with our lives, we can control how help one another navigate the identity transitions happening now.
I am a firm believer in providing solutions to problems, not just pointing at the fire and saying "look, its a problem" and letting others fix it. So, if this essay landed and now you're all like, "wtf do I do now?", here's some rabbit holes.
Taylor Kendal & I launched a podcast in early 2025 to explore the impacts of emergent technology on society through the container of co-creation we created. Powered by classical Tantra lineage, we hold the container for deep conversations to emerge so the collective can plant the seeds of conversation and grow a regenerative tomorrow. Our latest episode, Embracing AI Without Losing Your Mind, is a conversation with our Regen community in Boulder exploring OS builds and AI use that doesn't cause destabilization.
Some of us learned the tools of the oppressor years ago so we could fork them and make them safe and productive in an era of collapse. We also learned these tools so we could weaponize them for good whenever possible. We are here to teach and help as many people who are willing to expand their understanding of what's possible and we're doing that through a non-profit container built by the JournoDAO family over at our sister org, Factland Foundation.
Some of us are using art, theater and community building to unravel the heart of the colonizer and help people embrace this era of identity transition in safe containers designed to support the human during their unraveling.
And all of us can build strong care layers for our humans– our friends, family, neighbors and communities– by simply asking how someone is and deploying deep listening to the answer. None of us are "ok" right now, even though the default answer to "how are you?" is "good". Go deeper and hold space for the truth when it surfaces.
