Up the lift, take a left. Cross at the lights, pass the old abandoned house with graffiti on the walls and roof collapsing, duck under the branch from the red-brick-house-that-never-does-their-gardening, and take another left.

Over the hill, the road leans home to a comfy bed and phone charger, winding past a mosaic of memories in the distant city lights.

I don't stop walking as memories of freedom, late nights, and flashing lights swirl around me, each step as rhythmic as each night that preceded it. Some memories, almost magical, euphoric, colour the road before me as they do my early adult life. They contrast the calmer nights, a fresh sponge soaking up the nights and heights of the people and places around me. Freedom in sight, never alone.

So every evening on the way home, I walk down memory lane- filled with the scenery of summer nights. Without fail, I cannot help but to smile, remembering the memory of what those lights mean to me.

We are creatures of emotion; living to maximize positive energy, hits of dopamine.

We know we have the capacity to do better; to do what we want to or aught to do. But, almost simultaneously, we are slaves to a system we cannot control, a system which drains that capacity without diminishing our free will.

We are living out of anticipation; craving the future but not appreciating the present.

We are slaves to a sense of belonging; willing to compromise huge parts of ourselves just to fall in line.

Our whole selves are slaves to a system which we cannot ever hope to understand.

What does that make us?