This Charged Moment. Your Uncharted Brain.

When the world feels like it’s falling apart, our brains scramble for answers. But what if this isn’t chaos… just a wild compost pile?

Even while traveling abroad this past week, I could feel the heat of my city.

Again.

Here in Los Angeles, we started the year with wildfires and renewed calls to “harden” our landscapes.

In March, I wrote an op-ed for Planetizen titled Don’t Cement Our Future, sharing a lesson from working at the intersection of finance and social impact:

We need to embrace the fragility of our environments — not as a problem, but as a benefit. We cannot simply fortify our land and expect people to endure. It’s this fragility that makes us human; it’s what connects us to one another, to the environment, and to the cycles of nature.

Now, we have troops on the ground—hardening the landscape in a different kind of way.

So whether the flames are literal (smoke in the air, homes lost) or political (rare domestic military deployments, righteous resistance), it’s easy to feel like our social fabric is shredding even faster. Not to mention the escalating global conflict—from ICE raids to bombs dropped before diplomacy even begins.

I’ve felt the unease. The precariousness.
How do we keep up with all this chaos—from AI taking our jobs to bunker-busting bombs cracking the sky?

The is this really happening? of it all.

🧠 This Is Your Brain… on Trickster

When things break, our brains scramble for the nearest explanation.

We seek blame. Find enemies. Fabricate heroes. Hashtags trend.

Negativity bias kicks in. Fear hardens. We get fried in our own resistance.

A page from the Trickster’s Zine

To be clear—this doesn’t take away from the real pain happening on the ground. But maybe the Trickster brain can help us separate negativity from grief or righteous anger?

How? It pauses. Looks high. And low.
Tilts its head sideways and asks questions. Maybe even offers a longer timeframe or a deeper perspective.

Not to escape the moment—
But to meet it with curiosity instead of fear.

🌱 The Practice of Not Knowing

Years ago, I was in the Arctic Circle for the World Wilderness Congress. A gathering of suits and scientists. Policymakers and Very Serious People.

And then—intentionally—they gave the keynote to an 18-year-old. Her clear voice shifted the room…and my life trajectory.

She said:

“The connection between the youth and the wilderness is that both are uncultivated.”

That line lodged in me like a seed. It didn’t need more data. It just needed room to grow.

In that moment, I knew I wouldn’t be young forever. Waiting to “know more” wasn’t the answer.

Not-knowing was the answer.

So I quit college sports. I joined the fight for immigrant rights and affirmative action. I slept on the school administration building steps for two weeks. In solidarity with activists on a hunger strike, I fasted for three days.

And yes—we lost at the ballot box that year in California.

But now?

Our blue state is back on the frontlines. Only this time, it’s not just students.
It’s U.S. Senator Alex Padilla, thrown to the ground and arrested for asking questions in a federal building.

And in the streets, thousands more march—calmly, determinedly—carrying signs and stories.

One chant echoes louder than most:

No kings.

👑 No Kings, No Maps

No kings isn’t just a protest—it’s a remembering.
A reminder that we already left that age behind once.

That we, the people, aren’t subjects—but sovereigns.
Sovereigns learning how to live in balance with one another.
Sovereignty and interdependence in tension.

The Trickster hears that chant not as rejection, but as invitation.
An invitation to unglue ourselves from the fantasy of control.
To question the illusion of separateness.
To compost the crown—and plant something wilder.

I keep returning to that 18-year-old’s words:
Youth. Wilderness. Connection. Uncultivated.

When grown-up systems are cracking…
When ideals no longer match the social contract…

When the brain screams for certainty—but the heart whispers: Loosen your grip.

We don’t need stronger rulers.
We need better questions. A different future story.

🌀 What if this moment isn’t collapse… but compost?

The Trickster doesn’t run from disorder.

It dances where definitions haven’t hardened yet. It knows that labels like “peaceful,” “violent,” “right,” and “wrong” are often carved by those holding the sharpest tools.

But when the world feels like it’s collapsing, the Trickster whispers:

Good. Now we can begin.

This is your brain… on Trickster. The part of you that doesn’t need to fix it all.

That’s not afraid of the wilderness.
That’s wild enough to imagine a future not yet claimed.

So don’t ask: How do we restore what was?
Ask: What wants to grow here now, in this uncultivated soil?

Maybe your brain isn’t broken. Maybe we’re just remembering how to dream again.

In my lifetime, California shows we can change.
Kingdoms can be composted.
And the future remains uncharted.

👉 If you haven’t seen my zine yet, here’s your link to read it.

A Gift for the Road

A stranger-turned-friend shared this with me in a restaurant in Quito last week.
It’s a closing stanza by Edna St. Vincent Millay, written in 1911, just a few years before the world would spiral into the chaos of World War I.

Then, as now, the soul can still split the sky.

The world stands out on either side
No wider than the heart is wide;
Above the world is stretched the sky,—
No higher than the soul is high.

The heart can push the sea and land
Farther away on either hand;
The soul can split the sky in two,
And let the face of God shine through.

But East and West will pinch the heart
That can not keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.

Gratefully,
🐒 Omar

p.s. Need help finding curiosity? Here’s the

Gratitude Blooming

card to help you invite curiosity in through the art, prompt and theme.

p.p.s. Next week, I’ll be sharing another piece — Practice is Anything That Disrupts Habit, featuring a potent line from Zen Master Norma Wong.

For now, I hope you notice where your brain wants to run away — and give it a gentle tickle.
Because even your fear is part of the cosmic dance.