Selling My Soul
The price per piece has increased over the path of my life. Why is one’s soul so cheap in youth? Is it the age-old rule of supply and demand? The more you sell, the less you have.
Last week I generated this image with AI. It stopped me cold.
A white rabbit in a torn pink onesie hangs crucified on a rough wooden cross atop a barren hill. Blood stains its fur and clothing. Below, a crowd of ragged anthropomorphic rabbits gathers in the dirt. Some clutch their chests in grief, others cover their eyes in denial, one raises a fist in quiet rage. Shattered Easter eggs — symbols of innocence, fertility, and childhood myth — lie scattered like broken promises. A torn pink ear rests among the fragments. The sky burns blood-red at the horizon while heavy storm clouds loom above. It is grotesque, blasphemous, and disturbingly accurate.
This is not just dark art. It is a mirror held up to something primal in all of us.
At its core, the scene captures an immutable fact I have come to accept about human nature: the evolutionary drive for survival rules the day. Everything else — dignity, principles, red lines, self-image — becomes negotiable when staying alive is on the line. Most people who believe they are above certain compromises are simply one serious mishap away from discovering how flexible their morality can become.
I learned this lesson the hard way.
Before prison, I had one bright red line I swore I would never cross: I would never shit in public. It wasn’t some grand moral stance. It was simpler than that — a quiet, stubborn declaration of basic human dignity. “No matter what happens,” I told myself, “I will not lose that.” It felt like a small but important piece of who I was.
Prison has a way of stripping illusions. The first time the situation left me with no choice, the red line vanished. Not because I suddenly wanted to cross it, but because survival demanded it. The concrete floors, the constant eyes, the lack of privacy, the raw need to relieve myself without waiting for a guard’s permission — all of it rewrote the rulebook in real time.
In that moment, sitting there exposed, I felt something inside me shift. It wasn’t just embarrassment. It was the quiet collapse of an ideal I had carried about myself. I had believed I was the kind of man who would never do that. Turns out, under the right pressure, I was exactly the kind of man who would.
Life deals these situations with ruthless efficiency. A job loss. A medical emergency. A bad relationship that turns dangerous. A financial collapse. A moment where the options narrow to “do this or cease to function.” Suddenly the noble principles you preached in easier times feel like luxuries you can no longer afford.
Does the idealism of youth make each piece of soul cheaper to sell?
When you’re young, the future stretches out like an endless highway. Consequences feel theoretical. Failure seems temporary. You operate with a kind of reckless abundance — there will always be more time, more opportunities, more chances to rebuild. That mindset lowers the asking price dramatically.
You sell pieces of yourself more willingly. You take the degrading job because “it’s just temporary.” You stay in the toxic relationship because “I can handle it.” You compromise your values in small ways because the big dream still feels possible. The drive to “just get on with it” — that raw, unlimited ambition of youth — acts like a discount. You trade dignity for momentum. You trade principles for progress. You tell yourself you’ll make it right later, when you’re stronger, when you have more resources, when the pressure eases.
But every transaction leaves less of you on the table.
The buyer always seems to know the true value of what they’re getting. Whether it’s an employer, a system, a relationship, or society itself, they understand exactly what they’re purchasing when someone sells a piece of their soul at a bargain rate. They see the desperation, the ambition, the fear of falling behind. They know the seller is undervaluing the cost.
The seller, blinded by youth or immediate need, often does not.
I’ve watched this play out far beyond prison walls. Young people entering the workforce accept exploitative conditions because they believe hard work and loyalty will eventually be rewarded. They trade weekends, health, and personal boundaries for a foot in the door. Later, many realize the door led to a cage.
Others sell pieces of their integrity in relationships, staying silent about mistreatment because leaving feels scarier than enduring. Still others compromise their beliefs in social or political circles, mouthing words they don’t fully believe just to belong.
Each time, the price seems low in the moment. Each time, the ledger quietly records the loss.
As years accumulate, something changes. The future no longer feels infinite. You start to see the pattern of what you’ve given away. The body aches more. The mind carries heavier scars. The supply of “future you” who will fix everything starts to run low. Suddenly the price per piece rises — not because the market changed, but because you finally understand the scarcity of what remains.
This is where the language of freedom gets twisted.
When personal freedom becomes nothing more than a casual avoidance of personal responsibilities — dodging the natural consequences of one’s actions — it cheapens the price of your soul even further. It turns liberty into license. “I’m free to do what I want” morphs into “I’m free from having to deal with what I’ve done.”
Similarly, when individual liberty is redefined as escaping the reality of your decisions by defaulting to external forces as the motivating initiative — blaming the economy, the system, your upbringing, society, or “circumstances” for the results of your existence — the price drops lower still.
Both moves allow the seller to pretend the transaction never really cost anything. The soul piece was taken from them, not willingly sold. The compromise wasn’t a choice; it was forced by powers beyond control. This narrative preserves the illusion of innocence while the ledger continues to bleed.
But survival doesn’t care about narratives. Evolution wired us to adapt, to bend, to do what is necessary when the alternative is extinction — literal or figurative. The drive is ancient, deeper than culture, deeper than ideology. It doesn’t ask permission. It simply demands continuation.
That is the uncomfortable truth the Easter Bunny crucifixion forces us to confront. The innocent symbol — pure, fluffy, associated with renewal and childhood joy — is publicly broken and displayed. The crowd below doesn’t celebrate. They grieve, they rage, they look away. They recognize something of themselves in the broken figure on the cross.
We are all capable of becoming that rabbit under the right (or wrong) conditions.
Looking back through my own life, I can trace the transactions. Some were small and seemed harmless at the time. Others were larger and left visible scars. Each one taught me something about the cost. The youthful sales were made with optimism and ignorance. The later ones came with clearer eyes and heavier regret.
This isn’t a call to despair. It’s a call to awareness.
If human nature is ruled by the survival drive, then wisdom lies in understanding that drive rather than denying it. It means setting red lines with humility instead of arrogance. It means recognizing that circumstances can erode even the strongest principles, so we build safeguards and communities that reduce the moments when survival forces ugly choices.
It also means refusing to let “freedom” become a get-out-of-accountability card. Real liberty includes the responsibility to own the consequences of our actions. When we externalize blame too easily, we devalue not only our own soul but the very concept of agency that makes life meaningful.
In the end, culture — that confluence I often return to: Life divided by (Food + Music + Art + Craft + History) — is shaped by these transactions. The art we make, the stories we tell, the holidays we celebrate, the symbols we elevate or destroy — all of them reflect how cheaply or expensively we price the human spirit.
The crucified Easter Bunny is one such reflection. It takes something sacred and innocent and subjects it to violence. Yet in doing so, it reveals the violence we sometimes do to ourselves when survival is at stake.
I don’t claim to have stopped selling pieces. The price has gone up, yes, but the marketplace never fully closes. What has changed is my awareness of the cost. I negotiate harder now. I look further down the road. I try to preserve what remains.
Perhaps that is the best any of us can do.
Most people walking around today believe their red lines are ironclad. They say “I would never…” with full conviction. I used to say it too.
Then life happened.
If this piece resonates, I invite you to look honestly at your own ledger. Where have you sold pieces cheaply? When did survival rewrite your rules? And what price are you willing to pay from here forward?
The evolutionary drive will keep ruling the day. The only question is whether we will face it with clearer eyes — and a little more of our soul still intact.
Ric
