“Life itself is ESSENTIALLY appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation.”

I saw this truth clearly when I watched a healthy oak tree grow not by begging for space but by pushing roots deep into the soil, crushing what stood in its way. We call this violence, yet without such force there is no height, no canopy that shelters anything else. The vine does not ask permission to climb; it wraps its arms around the trunk and forces the world to support its ascent. To deny this nature is to wish for a garden where nothing grows because nothing takes from another.

Now, before you sleep tonight, look at your own hands and admit what they have done today. Did you merely serve others, or did you shape them? If you claim to be good while refusing to overcome the weak, you are not moral but sick. I ask you to stop pretending that a society without exploitation is possible, for it would be a graveyard of spirits who never dared to live their full measure. Embrace the struggle, for only through it does life become worth the breath we draw.