The Rhythm Switch
Breaking Free from the Corporate Beat
I teased last week, but here is the official cover to Harvesting Game. And we are having a launch event on 7/29 at 7pm at Whose Books to celebrate the launch and discuss the book in person. If you’re in Dallas come out, if not, we’ll stream it online via Instagram Live.
5 weeks until "Harvesting Game" launches… Every Pre-Order receives a color illustration from the book. And a Special Edition Full Color Hardcover version will be available HERE.
Ever feel like you're dancing to a beat that's slowly killing you? You're not alone. Millions of us are hearing a different rhythm underneath, one that flows with life instead of extracting from it. This is about making the switch.
Life has a rhythm. A flow, a beat, a soul that moves life along. Actually, it has two.
There's an organic rhythm underneath it all: breathing with the seasons, flowing with natural cycles, and moving in harmony with what bodies and communities need to not just survive, but flourish. Plant in the spring, harvest in the fall, rest and restore when winter arrives, or adapt crops throughout the year to match the seasons. Share when abundant, conserve when scarce. Make things to last seven generations. Honor the web connecting all living things.
Then there's the imposed rhythm on top: violent, extractive, noisy, and artificial. It pounds like a machine that's forgotten it was ever alive: buy, work, buy, work, buy. Quarter after quarter, growth at any cost. This rhythm demands we work harder to pay more for things our ancestors got for free.
The Kurobans in "Harvesting Game" are intimately familiar with both rhythms. Forced to live amongst a mountain of trash created by the technotropolis below, they've had to sync up with the organic rhythm to survive. They reuse, reinvent, and revive everything, not because someone told them to be sustainable, but because waste literally means death when you have nothing.
Here's what I'm realizing: we're living through a massive rhythm switch right now. In hip-hop, when an MC completely flips the flow mid-song, the whole energy changes. But this switch isn't happening in a studio; it's happening in society.
And just like in rap, we need some slant rhymes and ancestral beats to get from where we are to where we need to be.
The Corporate Beat: A Orchestra of Oppression
The imposed rhythm isn't random. It's the latest collaboration between every oppressive system in history:
White supremacy provides the bass line (some people matter more than others)
Patriarchy adds the drums (rigid, punishing, no room for flow)
Capitalism brings the addictive hooks (accumulation equals worth)
Colonialism handles the sampling (stealing innovations, erasing origins)
Ableism controls the tempo (everyone must move at the same pace)
Homophobia/transphobia police the harmonies (punish any deviation)
Together, they create a rhythm so artificial, so caustic, that this abrasive noise literally overrides and destabilizes the planet itself. Let me breakdown the elements of this rhythm running the show.
How They Hijacked Your Mind
Picture your mind as a garden. The corporate rhythm comes through like industrial farming. It clear-cuts diversity, plants monocultures of desire, and sprays chemicals that make you crave what you don't need.
The techniques are sophisticated brainwashing:
Scarcity Programming: Create artificial drought, then sell bottled water. Can't afford healthcare? Work harder. Can't afford housing? Side hustle. They broke the systems that used to flow freely.
Dopamine Hijacking: Every notification triggers slot machine reward pathways. Your brain craves the next purchase hit. They study brain scans to make shopping more addictive than cocaine.
Time Compression: Everything is urgent and disappearing soon. Black Friday becomes a year-round event you’re always chasing. Perpetual panic, so you can't think clearly.
Memory Erasure: Delete ancestral knowledge. Your great-grandmother's songs of preservation got labeled "primitive," so you'd buy modern "solutions" instead.
The Great Work Lie: You Don't Need to Earn the Right to Live
Here's the biggest lie: that we have to earn the right to exist.
Every tree gets sunlight without a job. Every bird builds a nest without paying rent. Every river flows without clocking in. But humans have to prove worthiness by making someone else rich?
Work, as we know it, is a recent invention. For most of history, people contributed meaningfully: grew food when needed, made tools when needed, cared for children and elders because that's love in practice, created art because humans need beauty like air.
Now we have backwards priorities:
Growing food for your family = "unemployed"
Raising children = "not contributing to the economy"
Creating beauty = "starving artist"
But destroying the planet = "economic growth"
The only scarcity is artificial. Earth produces enough food for everyone. The sun provides enough energy for everything. Human creativity is infinite. As long as we operate along the organic rhythm of the planet, not the one that the dominant culture has blaring throughout the planet. The desperation is manufactured to keep the machine running. This becomes crystal clear when you look at how they've turned the simple act of feeding ourselves into an extraction nightmare.
The Grocery Store as Extraction Theater
Here's what feeding ourselves looks like under the imposed rhythm:
I walk into a fluorescent cathedral the size of an airplane hangar, engineered to maximize temptation. For one sandwich, I need:
Bread wrapped in plastic that will outlive the bread by centuries
Stepped on, super smashed, and reengineered flesh from a factory farm of fat and forlorn fowls
Tomatoes from 1,500 miles away, picked green, gassed red, tasteless
Lettuce from workers in 100-degree heat for poverty wages
All triple-wrapped in petroleum products
$25 later (for $4 worth of ingredients), I drive home in my metal capsule to prepare food designed to break after planned obsolescence kicks in.
Contrast: This morning I picked tomatoes from my patio, lettuce from a $20 garden bed that's fed us all summer, got bread from a local baker a 5 minute walk away. And a fresh egg collected from the henhouse out back. Five minutes, zero packaging, $4 total, tastes alive because it was alive this morning.
One rhythm connects me to life. The other profits from disconnection.
The Rules Are Made Up… And So Are Their Enforcers
Every law, every rule, every "that's just how things are" was made up by people who benefited from those rules existing.
Think of a DJ. They control the club. They make the rules that only they can choose music, and everyone else pays for the privilege of dancing. Through their temporary sonic supremacy, they convince everyone that these rules are unchangeable natural laws.
Property laws let people "own" land, water, seeds. Things that existed millions of years before humans.
Labor laws force people to sell their time to survive while making it illegal to exist without paying someone with blood, sweat, and heart.
Drug laws criminalize plants but let pharma companies get rich selling synthetic versions.
Revolutionary truth: Unjust laws have no moral authority.
When rules serve oppression, breaking them becomes a sacred act. The humanity of Black folk: "illegal." Women voting: "illegal." Labor organizing: "illegal." The rhythm-switchers weren't criminals; they refused to dance to beats demanding their degradation.
Police: The Beat Cops Keeping Corporate Time
Police are culture curators as well as domination enforcers for the wealthy. They don't keep us safe; they serve their masters and enforce an illusion. The Copaganda is rich and ubiquitous, starting early and reinforced at every moment. They seem like normal people, providing a fundamental service to society, but the culture in which they inhabit and the role they play reinforce their true purpose.
Think of them like bouncers at a club where the music hurts people's ears. They're not there to turn down the volume or change tracks. They ensure nobody leaves, nobody complains, and nobody touches the sound system.
Let me run through this in reality for you: Winter in any major city. Someone experiencing houselessness breaks into an abandoned building to avoid freezing. The building's been empty for years a forgotten corporate real estate investment crumbling while housing prices skyrocket.
Police arrest the person for existing without paying rent. They don't arrest the corporation for leaving livable space empty during a housing crisis. They don't arrest politicians who made houselessness inevitable.
They arrest survival itself.
But here's where it gets really sick: That arrest becomes the beginning of an extraction cycle designed to never end.
Prison: The Ultimate Extraction Point
Once you're in the system, you become a profit center. Private prisons get paid per prisoner, literally making money from human cages. Even "public" prisons extract wealth through (this is but a small snapshot):
Phone calls: $15 for 15 minutes to talk to family
Commissary markups: $8 for a $2 pack of ramen
Labor: 20 cents/hour making products sold for market price
Bail bonds: Keeping people caged until they pay for freedom
Probation fees: Monthly payments to avoid going back to prison
The brilliant evil: Make sure people can't vote once they have felonies, so they can't change the system that imprisons them. Because clearly people who've experienced the "justice" system firsthand are the least qualified to have opinions about it. (That's sarcasm, they're actually the most qualified.)
And the recidivism racket? Nonprofits get millions to "help" people reenter society, but they're designed to fail. If recidivism actually dropped, the funding disappears. So they provide job training for positions that don't hire people with records, "life skills" classes that don't address systemic barriers, shaming until the ex-offender follows the “rules” and assimilates fully, and finally case managers with caseloads so high they can't actually help anyone.
The cycle continues by design: Desperate person commits survival crime → gets arrested → loses job/housing → becomes more desperate → commits another survival crime. It's not a broken system, it's working exactly as intended. That is how one of the artificial rhythms flows and interacts with many facets of life and oppression.
"But what about rapists and murderers?"
Here's the thing: police don't prevent sexual violence. They show up afterward to arrest someone (maybe). Most grapes are never reported because survivors know the police response is often more traumatizing than healing. Meanwhile, community-based prevention and transformative justice programs (MORE) address the root causes and create accountability without relying on cages.
We keep each other safe. Real safety comes from communities where everyone's needs are met. Most "crimes" happen because people lack access to basics: food, housing, healthcare, community connection, and the list of human needs being deprived goes on. Address the roots, and most harmful behavior simply doesn't happen.
Your Moral Compass: Life vs. Death Rules
Simple test: Does this rule help all beings thrive, or concentrate power in few hands?
Life-aligned rules:
Protect commons (air, water, land, knowledge)
Ensure everyone has access to the basics
Support community over corporate control
Death-aligned rules:
Turn necessities into profit commodities
Criminalize poverty while protecting wealth
Prioritize property over human rights
Practice discernment. The more you align with regenerative values —growing food, building community, and creating beauty— the clearer you hear which rules serve life versus extraction.
Why the Powerful Won't Switch Willingly (And Why That's Actually Good News)
Here's the uncomfortable truth: the people currently in power aren't going to hand over the aux cord voluntarily. They're not going to wake up one day and say, "You know what? Let's stop extraction and start caring for everyone."
Why? Because they're the most traumatized people in the system. Think about it, you don't become a billionaire or a police chief or a prison warden by having a healthy relationship with abundance and community care. These are people so disconnected from their own humanity that they genuinely believe their worth comes from dominating others (or whatever euphemism they tell you).
They think they "earned" their privilege. However, here's the systemic reality: Billionaires utilize public roads, internet infrastructure (created by public funding), an educated workforce (educated in public schools), and legal systems (maintained by tax dollars) to build their particular extraction engine. Then he fought paying taxes on the wealth created by collective human investment. That's not "earning," that's extraction with PR.
And they're terrified. Deep down, they know that if they stop extracting, they'll have to face the emptiness where their souls used to be. They're addicted to the feeling of power because it temporarily fills the void where genuine connection should be.
Here's the beautiful irony: Their trauma response is creating the conditions for their own obsolescence. Every act of extraction pushes more people toward the organic rhythm. Every police killing creates more abolitionists. Every climate disaster creates more regenerative thinkers.
They're literally composting themselves. Like how forest fires clear dead wood to make space for new growth.
The real question isn't how to convince them to change, it's how to build something so much better that their systems become irrelevant. When communities can meet their own needs, provide their own safety, create their own abundance, the extractive systems simply... wither.
Like Blockbuster video stores, when everyone started streaming. You don't reform the dinosaur… You build the future and let natural selection do its work.
The Rhythm We're Remembering
Before corporate beats, humans had real rhythm. Connected to seasons, community needs, and actual life cycles. We understood that existence itself was a contribution. Your breath feeds plants, your presence blesses the community, and your perspective adds collective wisdom.
Work was expressing gifts, not justifying existence.
That rhythm is still here:
Community rhythms: Mutual aid, tool libraries, community gardens, skill shares
Repair culture: Fix instead of replace, honor materials and labor
Seasonal living: Eat what's in season, rest/save/commune in winter, plant in spring
Time sovereignty: Protect rest, reject hustle culture
Resource sharing: Treat abundance as default, scarcity as a collective problem
Community safety: Create security through care, address root causes
Start with one: Pick one rhythm above and try it this week.
The Hip-Hop Switch: How Societies Change Flow
In hip-hop, rhythm switches transform songs. MCs flip the flow mid-verse, tapping into a different cadence, rhyme scheme, energy, and emotion. Jarring at first, then exactly what the song needed.
We're mid-switch right now. Some are locked into the corporate beat, others hear a new rhythm underneath, the rhythm that was always there, just drowned out by the blaring noise the wealthy and powerful use to keep us toiling away.
Our slant rhymes (transition strategies):
Use corporate platforms to organize against corporate power
Work within the system while building alternatives outside it
Support resource-sharing businesses over hoarding ones
Build community safety while refusing to call the police
Follow some laws while breaking others that serve oppression; in fact, break a rule today. The more you practice, the easier it becomes.
Corporate Beat: Work all day, spend all night / Credit maxed, ads say "buy" /Police patrol the beat / Keep poor folks in their seat
Transition: But wait... something's shifting in the beat / People talking 'bout community / Question every rule they made / Eyes wide open to the games they played
New Rhythm: Plant in spring, harvest fall / Share abundance with us all / Born with rights, born with worth / Children of this living Earth / Keep each other safe and sound / Healing justice all around
How to Actually Make the Switch (Without Going It Alone)
Week 1: Find Your Rhythm Partner. Start with one trusted person feeling the call to switch. Share this post and practice together:
Share one tool instead of buying new
Fix one thing instead of replacing it
Plant something, even in a pot
Break one small oppressive rule (feed someone where it's "illegal," plant food in empty lots)
Weeks 2-4: Find Your Local Beat. Every community has rhythm-keepers already dancing to new music:
Search "[your city] mutual aid," "[your city] community garden," "[your city] tool library"
Check local bookstores, coffee shops, and community centers for flyers
Look for people organizing, creating, and repairing instead of just consuming
Month 2: Practice Small Switches Daily
Choose repair over replacement
Share resources instead of hoarding
Rest instead of hustling
Follow conscience over compliance
Support community healing over calling the police
Month 3+: Coordinate Bigger Switches
Join or start collective boycotts of extractive companies
Participate in community safety alternatives
Support worker organizing in your area
Vote with your dollars for regenerative businesses
When You Want to Give Up: The corporate rhythm is addictive. When stressed/tired/overwhelmed, you'll crave familiar patterns. Plan ahead:
Keep your rhythm partner's number handy
Remember why you started switching
Trust that millions are switching with you
Know that your ancestors survived on organic rhythms for thousands of years
The Power We Have Right Now
The corporate beat only works if we keep dancing. They need us more than we need them.
Look what's happening when people coordinate:
Target stock drops when communities boycott —keep the boycott going!
Local businesses thrive when people shop local
Every choice is a vote:
Every dollar spent votes for the world you want
Every hour worked feeds energy into systems
Every unjust rule followed gives permission for oppression
Every call to police strengthens corporate enforcement
In "Harvesting Game," Kurobans seem powerless against Lux's technology. But they have what Lux doesn't: real relationships, regenerative practices, and knowledge of creating abundance from scarcity. They protect each other without relying on Lux's enforcers.
They remember: they don't need permission to exist, create, or thrive.
Choose Your Rhythm, Change Everything
Two rhythms. Two worlds.
Imposed rhythm: Work harder, buy more, compete constantly, earn your right to exist, call police when scared, trust systems to protect you.
Organic rhythm: Share abundantly, repair lovingly, rest deeply, exist by right of being alive, protect each other through care, build the safety you want to see through relationships.
The switch is happening. Stars aligned, old systems cracking, people hearing a new rhythm underneath corporate cacophony. Communities remembering collective power.
This is your moment.
What rhythm calls you? When you hear that organic beat underneath… flowing with seasons and genuine needs, with life and connecton, saying you deserve to exist simply because you're alive, knowing we keep each other safe through care…
Will you switch?
The music is already playing. You have to choose which beat to dance to.
Dancing to the rhythm of liberation
The rhythm you choose shapes the world you create.
"Harvesting Game" drops July 29th. Pre-order HERE to support independent publishing that challenges extractive systems.
For more thoughts on collective power and regenerative culture, visit heyitsmaxime.com. Come join the rhythm revolution with further musings on this topic HERE (I implore you to check this out. There are truly some gems). More games, books, and updates coming soon.
Next week I will dive into “Blooming Brilliance from Broken Systems.”