Bryckosphere

Nothing is quite as claustrophobic as the shell you build around your heart.

I believe that every human being that lives and that ever will live will get a place in Heaven. The measure of your life on Earth isn't whether or whether not you get in, for Heaven is ultimately inclusive , it is in how much you contributed to it's construction and curation, the ability to take humility in the work, to know the contribution you made to the world and to find contentment within it. Though contributions will vary from person-to-person, only you can judge the measure of your own contentment when you witness Heaven's final form, and even then, the reality of Heaven is Everchanging. To have missed out on the contribution of this beautiful project, or to have not maximized your potential towards it is to experience the ultimate FOMO. Therefore, find the work that needs doing, the work only you can do, not to get to Heaven, but to bring Heaven to us.

The antidote to Envy is Gratitude The antidote to Wrath is Forgiveness The antidote to Greed is Charity The antidote to Lust is Purity/Chastity The antidote to Gluttony is Patience/Temperance The antidote to Sloth is Diligence The antidote to Pride is Humility

I mean the title really explains everything. I'm quite in and out with this blog, that's the nature of depression and identity. But I've recently done some serious reflection and I want to bring the blog back, as a way to organize my thoughts, share them with whoever ends up reading, and to open myself to the world while being semi-productive.  I have a lot of thoughts, I do. And recently, I've had some serious reflections about my personal identity, which to be honest I totally lost track of over the course of COVID and have really struggled to maintain since my depression began and especially since I first came to university. I cried to like 3 different sets of people. It was super liberating and emotionally validating. Granted waking up has kind of put me into a state of "oh shit" and given me a lot to process. I realize I kind of need this outlet again for my thoughts because I don't have anywhere to put my political rants and other thinky thinks. One ...

When people think about White Supremacy in the United States of America, rightfully so, they most likely think first to the most overt images stored in their memory: the confederate flag, the KKK, slavery, countless instances of white police brutality, the faces of proud white supremacists, perhaps even the current president. They might think of angry white men marching with tiki torches in the night. In instance of a racial slur being thrown. We default to these images because they are powerful and carry significant semantic value in American culture as a whole (though of course in very different ways). You can't be an American and not experience some kind of gut emotional reaction to these images. It's why we remember them.  What most people don't think about, and what they often don't see are the smaller but equally powerful and fundamental systems that structure our everyday lives and that perpetuate the ideology of inequality driven by institutions.  I'm talkin...

Alright. So the system is broken. Issues that have been piling up the closed door of the democratic system have boiled over. America isn't simply protesting, it's revolting.  We need to keep the protests going. We need to make meaningful change.  As Trevor Noah put it, the "social contract" has been broken with society, and the results are protesting, looting and passion in the streets. This is GOOD. We need to keep this going, and we can, now that we have nothing better to do, with the economy at a standstill.  But we need to make sure that these protests count for something. That we make lasting change to the system, and for that to occur, this protest needs to be different, be more. If we're going to protest for change, we need to make sure that we're doing it right, so that we can take hold of the power that we need to make a lasting difference in this country. Collective protest is the most basic form of democracy, and if we do it right, can become the ba...

Get ready to start hearing that term alot, because your kids are gonna be reading about it in history books. The dominos are starting to fall. America is getting a reality check from it's Coronavirus performance. We're in the deepest recession in recorded history. People are paralyzed at home while the one time stimulus check has come and gone. Unemployment is reaching record highs, with people unable to pay food or rent. And now a quick succession of events of racial violence that cannot be ignored by the now disrupted day to day of Americans is rippling across the US. Who knows what the next domino to fall will be, or when they will stop falling. 2020, rather prophetically, got off to a bad start, with forest fires sweeping across Australia. Oh and in the midst of all this catastrophe Brexit went through, although it's hard to believe that that was ever the center of attention. Change is in the air, and no matter how hard the institutions fight to prevent it, the contract...

[Originally published/Sent Jan 23rd] Dear Greta Thunberg, I need your help. But first, I need to explain it to you. You can skip to my point (marked with an arrow, à ), but I implore you to listen to my story and what I have to say. I believe it could be greatly beneficial, maybe even vital, in the collective fight against Climate Change.  First things first; My name is Bryce Wagner (a.k.a Ben Brycko). I’m a 20-year-old American-Swiss student currently studying at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, USA. The sad truth is that I’m only a mild activist (I showed up and gave a speech for the March For Our Lives in Geneva, Switzerland in 2018, but that’s about it) and that I’m hardly the greatest example when it comes to advocating for action against Climate Change (so far I’ve missed all of the Climate Strikes, not by choice but by circumstance). But I did grow up exposed to nature more than the average kid, hiking, skiing, camping in the mountains and vall...