I made a decision today to no longer serve as a respectable citizen of the urban society. In the Lockean view of the world, I should deserve to now be treated like an animal. Then it dawned on me that I am already treated like an animal, or at least a domestic animal. In fact, by freely choosing to not act in accordance with society, am I free from being treated like an animal? And so, having been born within 20 miles of John Locke’s birth place, I set out to reconcile his view with mine. Of course I suspect that this, like almost everything I do, will result in complete criticism and disdain.

But let it be known that I seek only to speak my mind as a mathematician living in America, albeit one raised in a British culture where the Orwellian narrative is widely appreciated. My work principally appeals to abstraction to factor out the main story line. And so I will switch over to using satire as the instrument, instead of math, for sharing my thinking. I have lived mostly as a complete recluse for the last 15 years, surfing, running in the wilderness and thinking myself to the point of insomnia.

Unlike an artist or a musician, I can not share my art with everyone outside a tiny group of people — an incredibly isolating and frustrating experience. I am an outcast for following my passions. I have discussed the irrationality of London street numbering with John Nash, tried to apply AI to invest some of George Soros’s funds, written war games for the UK ministry of defense, developed math for climate prediction and tried to beat the financial markets with AI. Yet, I am treated like a nobody everywhere I go and I flattly refuse to sell myself.

If I get a fashionable hipster haircut, wax my mustache, tattoo myself, manicure my beard, then I may get some affection from strangers like a dog fresh out of a parlor. I may scruff my coat in a superficial display of non-conformity. To give a false sense of being in control of my life, I could casually toggle between tattoo-out-buttoned-up, tattoo-in-buttoned-up, tattoo-in-hipster-out or tattoo-out-hipster-out. You can leave my tail docked or undocked. I could usher a little trite trickery in the form of likes on my tweets and Facebook updates every few seconds, like Pavlov’s puppy frantically peeing everywhere with some expectation of a reward.

I could at all times carry around my battery powered toy, gnawing it and oblivious to others who don’t play with me or it. I might ritualistically move back and forth from my dog bowl to my basket — head down, oblivious to the world outside me. I’ll probably decide to reserve my charm for those that can give me something in return, a dog biscuit, more ego strokes, perhaps a new dog toy with more features. I might even join a loyalty rewards program in an attempt to elevate my social status.

The city breeds these domesticated animals. They fidget in cubicles perched high up in the corporate trees tops tweeting away with the occasional expletives when it’s time to be released from the cage. Their brain is active only where response to sensory stimuli is required. Like a factory farm animal, cognitive dissonance is the de-facto state. Distraction and temporary relief can be found in chewing cud, self-cleansing and beautifying before instigating mating rituals around watering holes. Some of the animals play with their rolled up dung, acrobatically kicking it about and using it as an excuse to be primal.

Socialization, or ‘training’ from TV has brought about canned behavioral and social patterns to particular events or social cues. Many receive a formal training so that they can serve in some of the more ‘responsible’ roles in these tree-tops. Referred to as ‘managers’, they drop byte size and pre-digested information packets into the mouths of starving vulnerable chicks who are called ‘interns’. These ‘better’ animals, known as ‘yuppies’ frown on being conscientious, empathetic and self-aware. They are the least aware that there is a life beyond the fish bowl and the possibility of escaping from this society.

But looking from the outside, why would anyone poodle up to this society? That societal life revolves around very limited habitualizations, often resulting from the use of stimulants such as coffee, sugar, alcohol to reinforce the pattern and black out an otherwise hollow, destitute and lonely state of being.

These domesticated humanoid animals are fed factory food, often made up of other ground up animals which are in turn fed ground up animals. Some of these, often fatter, humanoids enjoy being perceived as topping this ‘disease chain’, waxing lyrical with Darwinist elitism, ritualizing the capacity to exploit the other animals in the chain as a sign of superiority. ‘The custom of tormenting and killing of beasts will, by degrees, harden their minds even towards men’ said Locke.

And so today, I am going to categorically reject this society. In doing so, I realize that in many ways I have more in common with a coyote than a yuppy. In my next article, I will poke at the mindfulness coffee table book culture and the proliferation of escapism and self-absorption.