Politics and Self
January 17th, 2026
I think when I approach politics I become emotionally dysregulated.
I feel a sweat and my spine stiffen. I feel my ego starts to get under attack and my amygdala starts activating.
I think that's more important to recognize than any words I will begin to babble off and say. Politics is the sort of thing that threatens us existentially. I am not particularly concerned about that, it's true, my whole life experiences have colored my perception of the world to that.
Perhaps it's a gift of showing me where I come from. Of where I am going. Of where I am and who I am at this moment, and at points of life where I deeply do care.
I don't want to be wrong about these things, but I still recognize that I can be wrong.
More important than my moral values and belief system, what can I do in this very moment to better my life?
I am practical, and I believe in practicality, perhaps I am self-centered, but it's important to do what serves me best at the bare minimum. It's my emotions that I'm taking care of, and I think if I were to focus on that, I would tell myself: don't think about politics at all.
Perhaps I should ask, why do I feel so much fear and emotion talking about politics? Perhaps it's because it's existential. I do feel a bit dangerous holding right-leaning or right-sympathetic views on both the internet and in California, I do feel like I could be socially persecuted (not politically) very, very easily for my beliefs. In other words, I don't feel safe expressing my views and stances.
But that's okay. That's just life isn't it? Similar to how in China you could be politically persecuted, here you can be socially persecuted. Funny, isn't it? I find myself agreeing with Sam Altman's views that Beijing allows for more freedom of ideas than America itself.
Why, there area always ideas out there that can get you persecuted for having lived a life that led you to believe that. It's true. We trust one another with our feelings, but not with the deepest corners of our consciousness.
There's always something darker out there. Someone more sinister. I feel it in my bones, that the deepest darkest depravaties of the human soul live in every single one of us—I still believe that anyone of us human beings could have been Hitler had we walked his shoes.
The choices we make are deterministic. The lives we follow are led by chance—it doesn't absolve us of responsibility to take control, but to realize that we are bound by the circumstances that we exist in.