The Reward System
Escaping the reward architecture we inherit. No more deferred tomorrow's.
Older now…
nothing grips.
Not absence or want.
Everything loosens at once.
Irregular wiring on a half-century of voltage,
asking why
the circuit never closes.
Load learned release.
Hands open.
Still asking…
what the fuck
was supposed to land.
Young, I hungered to know,
to matter, to crack the code myself.
Decades sharpening, building, becoming…
only for them to consume more,
take it for granted, dilute it, ignore.
I ran on my own reward loop:
work this hard, something must wait at the end.
Then the shift—slow, subterranean.
Rumblings. Discontent.
Pieces click at the intellectual level,
then sink lower, darker.
The system I’d built
was already in fault.
Death arrives anyway.
The more I learned of endings, decay, care…
the less I wanted to know.
Life’s an unwinnable game.
Why grind if the prize is maggots?
Society scripts it from the womb:
checkpoints to the grave.
Creche → tick [system online]
School → tick [installing core]
Smart & privileged → degree [upgrade]
Smart but poor → good luck [paused]
Job → tick [reward $]
House → eventual [reward $]
Marriage → tick [reward $]
Kids → 1, perfect ❤️ [bonus]
Insurance → error: zero-sum
Grandkids → IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
And then?
Blue screen.
Reboot.
For the first time, I see the draw of sky fairies…
manufactured certainty against the void.
Can’t fake belief. Can’t prove it.
So I stay honest.
No more deferred tomorrows.
No pension dreams, no palliative waiting.
I pull the future into now.
I will execute this breath.
Love who I love—now.
Speak the unfiltered heart (unless it wounds needlessly).
No more kicking cans down the road.
In the silence after the crash,
I reboot.
And begin.
- UpsilonA