I explore the connections between pain, despair and self-hate and how the western hegemony and capitalism turns us against our bodies protests against self-exploitation. This by framing pain as an evidence of innate fault that we need to achieve to compensate for. We need achievement and the pursuit of endless possibilities to redeem our faulty humanity and strive to become gods. It's something that is socialized in almost a hypnotic way. Psychic malware is installed to alienate us from ourselves and each other. I read from an excerpt of Byul Chal-Han's The Burnout Society in a paper titled Vital Exhaustion: Late Capitalism and the Crisis of Pain published by The Courtald Institute of Art (Nov 2020) cover image: Daehyun Kim, Face the Whole Martini (2011)