On Immortality, Societal Systems, and the Little Death: A DACA Dreamer’s Reflections

Introduction

Many people in my private life have been asking me about my opinions on current affairs—topics ranging from what happened with Luigi Mangione and the healthcare sector to the public discourse around immigration, work, race, and education in America. Because the United States is a political and cultural leader on the world stage, and I am an immigrant in limbo, it often feels like I’m caught in the middle.

I had refrained from sharing these opinions publicly because I have been exhausted from worry. Yet, in discussing them privately and at the encouragement of friends and family, I realized that: as a DACA Dreamer—someone who grew up in America as if it were my own country—I might be able to offer a unique perspective that helps cultivate excellence for its people. So I decided to share my thoughts through this post.

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On Overcoming Physical Death, and the Little Death of Apathy

I firmly believe that, with humankind’s many advancements in computing and engineering, physical death itself can and will someday be overcome. But this is only half the battle. Because what happens to a body if it loses its humanity? What happens to a person who falls into apathy, toward themselves and others? What I think of as the “little death” of fear that leads towards apathy is what leads many to madness. A house divided against itself does not truly live.

I know the feeling from personal experience. As a teenager, I was terrified of finishing high school because, as an undocumented kid, the future offered no clear path: I wasn’t eligible for a career and my parents, who had overstayed their visa, resigned to honest low-wage work offered by compassionate Americans who simply understood that we needed to eat and sleep safely. Yet even that was better than returning to our home country, where owning something meant it could be taken away by corruption or violent jealousy. We stayed because we believed, and continue to believe, in the American pursuit of liberty and happiness—values we hold in our own hearts.

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Confronting Broken Systems

We barely made enough to get by. Ironically, that’s what saved us when I jumped off a building, driven by depression over the degrading language I heard in the political sphere about people like me. I required extensive hospital care; had it not been for NYC’s charity-care policies, the cost alone would have bankrupted my family. I wouldn’t have been able to live with that guilt.

Since then, after DACA provided a framework for me to build a career and thanks to the opportunities around me (starting with folks at Pursuit), I’ve been lucky enough to see—and contribute to—the country’s progress. Through these experiences, I can say with confidence: America is a gorgeous land, filled with exceptional people, but many of its systems are broken. These broken systems harm countless individuals, often for the financial benefit of a few. This “paper cruelty” can turn people cruel against themselves and others, propagating an unnecessary cycle of suffering that hinders our collective humanity.

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Healthcare, Philosophy, and Value

Lately, I’ve been reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. I wonder what he would make of the American capitalistic empire. Personal experience has shown me the flaws in our system. There was a time I was told by a psychiatrist that I might always need experimental pills to overcome depression—pills they themselves benefited from prescribing— without ever questioning or listening to my motivations, or physicians that said I might not walk again properly without ongoing use of expensive painkillers.

It made me question how we assign value. How the “logos” we instinctively understand in childhood—that empathy and curiosity for the world—gets lost in translation as we learn how difficult survival can be if we don’t provide tangible “value” to a system that demands it. A system that can breed indifference for the self and others in the name of survival. How this has become normalized as if it were our only nature and not an implemented societal notion, like any other.

Had I not known about neuroplasticity, philosophy, or the body’s power to heal, I might have become permanently hyper dependent on a deeply flawed healthcare system, caught in an expensive cycle of suffering that drains resources from everyday Americans and lines the pockets of those who influence policy. It’s a system in which people’s lifetimes—indeed, their very well-being—are traded for profit. It is unethical and harmful in many ways towards all of its participants.

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On Violence and the Act of Luigi Mangione

I don’t believe the road to immortality needs to be paved with violence. I strongly advocate against it. Yet in this light, I see Luigi’s act as a form of public retribution or self-defense against a system that systematically benefits from the suffering of others. I don’t believe Thomson was the true target of his actions. Rather, like many patients who get coverage denied by the richest country in the world, reprehensible collateral. The real target was the system itself, which is shaped by flawed incentives and run by imperfect people twisted into deadly rapacity by their fear of poverty, and corporate self interest. In my view, Luigi's actions were a cry from humanity for liberty and freedom from unnecessary suffering brought about by ignorance from decision-makers who do not need to think about how to pay for their own care yet profit from those who suffer for it.

Violence is not an elegant way to real progress, I also think his actions forces us to confront a real conversation about class and societal effort. Universal healthcare in other countries largely prevents this sort of desperate outburst, because fewer people are forced into economic devastation just to survive. There is a reason why many Americans fly to other countries—like Turkey—for more humane or more affordable care.

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Expertise, Empathy, and America’s Future

This sparks crucial questions about expertise: how do we cultivate good empathic, ethical doctors, engineers, and mental healthcare professionals if our country’s systems are either too expensive, overly restrictive, or incentivized by profit alone?

If we subsidize merit-based training for healthcare and technology, and provide holistic, bias-free medical care for all—regardless of race, economic or immigration status, or creed— including equitable pay and quality education for everyone in society, would we still face mass suffering?

If we can build an efficient self-sustaining system with a single, unifying goal of cultivating the capacity to reach a person’s soul in order to truly help them and integrate them into a benevolent society, it might be possible to unlock excellence in people that maximizes existence for everyone in society. I pose that without cruelty in our systems, we could harness the talents of all individuals, enabling society to scale and prosper.

This isn’t far removed from the discussions Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Sam Altman are having about fostering engineering excellence in the country. For too long, the American advertising model has treated people merely as consumers and less as people, bombarding them with “entertainment” that excites without edifying. Although helpful as an occasional respite,—emotional intelligence, empathy, and emotional regulation—are themes often overlooked in media messaging, yet they're keys to unlocking innovation and mental health in the country. Gateways to true gnosis and self awareness, yet they are notions many American still fail to cultivate.

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Free Speech and Emotional Consequences

Free speech is essential, as important as it is to be allowed to speak freely, it is also just as important for Americans to understand the repercussions of their speech. Toxicity breeds toxicity and in doing so it poisons the mind and blinds the perspective to empathy, leading the person towards apathy and suffering, however small. To rewire the mind towards true experience means to cross that chasm into emotional regulation, the type that leads to curiosity and better questions.

President Trump has spoken on abolishing the department of education, if anything I think it imperative that it be efficiently streamlined with all the nuance necessary for Americans to develop the emotional regulation necessary to see the person behind the race as another mind, another human with whom they share existence with, in doing so society might be better equipped to see others less as enemies and more as brethren that can help us survive the emptiness of existence, especially if we are to ever overcome the gravity of our own biases to become efficient enough to become an interplanetary species.

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Kindness: The Path Away from the Little Death

I've seen folks ask when did Musk become a bully and a supervillain, and I remember an interview in which his heart broke in being dismissed by his own heroes for wanting to play with them in space, and I remember in the psychotic breakdown I experienced more than a decade ago which led me to jump off a building, while I was half naked and disheveled in the street, how a passerby mentioned in passing to their companion within earshot how I should just kill myself and rid society of my burden, and how I listened, when I simply just wanted to play peacefully in space too.

It is this that reminds me how important language is, how important kindness is, and how as much as free speech, it should also be cultivated in America, because in ridding ourselves of toxic language, the brain frees up processing cycles for problem-solving, learning, processing, and creativity. It is a way to emotional regulation and true mastery of the self. I believe this is why folks like Jesus preached kindness, because it was a way to true strength and power over self-inflicted madness. I believe this is how we overcome the little death, how America can grow efficiently by investing in its people, to teach and help others integrate, to truly see and experience beauty in its full glory, collectively, such that we may someday overcome with reverence and respect, death itself.

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Closing Thoughts

In closing, if we are to ever create the means for the body to become immortal it is imperative to preserve the best of our soul along with it, and this means cultivating in our selves and others the mental models that we carry with us throughout our generations, such that we do not continue to spiral into greed-induced self destruction. To do so we need systems that cultivate kindness and empathy along with technical and tactical prowess, lest we fall into the type of self destructive ignorance littered throughout history.

Let us invest in seeing humanity as a unit whole, such that all merit care and education and let's build our systems and businesses around that, let our north star be the experience of beauty for everyone throughout the stars, as difficult as it may be to build such a system, let that be the good fight. Let's work towards the reformation of a system that works well for everyone.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story here. I invite you to share your thoughts or highlight people or organizations doing good work necessary to ensure we can overcome these system inefficiencies towards collective prosperity, feel free to comment, or continue the conversation, I welcome you to do so.

You can also find this piece on Medium. My hope is that by adding my voice to the growing chorus of people seeking change, we can cultivate a kinder society—one better equipped to address our most pressing challenges, from universal healthcare to interplanetary exploration, and everything in between.