I awoke from a dream with a single phrase echoing in my mind: Subjugation Atlas.
At first, I had no idea why those words would pair in my subconscious. Who writes an atlas of subjugation? And yet, as dawn broke quietly around me, I felt its gravity. It suddenly made sense as I opened my newsfeed to see that another 9,000 people had been laid off that morning from my former employer. I grimaced as my stomach twisted. I had been in that place before, with 9,999 of my peers previously in March of 2023. And it seems now, with every season since, this was going to keep happening to humans, coworkers, families and communities. When will it end?
That word subjugation - where did it come from and what does it mean exactly? I stopped to look up the etymology for a moment if only to take my eyes off the swirling headlines breaking that morning.
Etymology of “Subjugation”
Origin: From Late Latin subjugationem (nominative subjugatio), meaning “a yoking, subduing.”
Root components:
sub- meaning “under”
jugum meaning “yoke” (from Proto-Indo-European yeug- meaning “to join, to yoke”)
So subjugation literally means “bringing under the yoke”, evoking the image of placing someone or something into a position of enforced obedience or control.
This was not merely an academic aftermath or mystical musing—it was a subconscious summons. A call to map what remains hidden, and unspoken.
The grief that goes unspoken amidst all this change is enough to fill the pages of countless novels. At last count this year alone, there are 305,947 unvoiced voices who have had to part with a part of themselves, which they may have believed made them them worthy. While I couldn’t possibly reach all of them, I listen to the call to illuminate and empower those, them, who now stand at thresholds, weaving worlds. I stood here before. I likely will again. And until that time it was my time to help others find their ways and their words.
In my recent conversations with many fellow Edgewalkers I am reminded that we do not walk neutral landscapes. We traverse terrain shaped by centuries of service, serenity, contradiction, creation, extraction, contribution, care-giving and compliance. Whether in corporate corridors or inner sanctums, the maps we all inherit tell us where to go, whom to serve, and where not to stray. And also what not to say.
But what if we could draw new maps? Starting at the edges? Beginning with our words unspoken?
What if the very act of naming these entangled territories and entrapped emotions—of seeing them clearly—was the first step toward unsung freedom?
Under the Yoke?
In over 25 years of knowledge contribution, I have traversed the hallways of many a headquarters - ranging from military to corporate to political to religious to non-profit. And with their tantalizing trappings or treasures at the entryways, one cannot help but feel something immediately and in tension: the subtle weight of surrender mixed with just the right amount of wonder. And one wonders, is it planned that way?
Today’s knowledge workers’ subjugation can be deceptive, and hardly ever descriptive. When one wears a badge of productivity, and is awarded more swag for meeting quarterly targets, they are made to feel appreciated, not subjugated. But it deserves a second look. Doesn’t it?
But not in that direction, where discernment looks like dissent, and can lead to being exiled to the hinterlands of "not a team player." Where dangerously, one’s creative energy is mined until it runs dry. Where speaking of convictions and principled values can be relegated as rebellious.
It is a harsh awakening when one remembers and is unexpectedly reminded that systems are designed perfectly to get the results they want. And it is becoming more apparent with each passing day that corporate, titan-sized systems were designed to extract with exact evasion, not to nourish for supplication.
There are so many inherited maps of worth drawn by a handful of trillion dollar cap companies whose missions speak of empowerment and connection. And what happens when one of the mission keepers and moment makers finds themselves suddenly off the map and outside the walls of the kingdom? What keeps these maps protected and walls standing? Perhaps it is the invisible threads of fear and reward. To see them clearly is to begin to unweave them and disassemble them bravely.
The question isn't whether you carry these old maps still—it's whether you're ready to redraw them. Beyond the walls of where you once were.
The most important and consequential decisions never happen in boardrooms, but they do happen in the quiet chambers of our own hearts. What is stirring in yours?
Walking through the territories of loss in your inner landscape you'll find the beliefs built stone by stone, year after year. I am not enough. I must be useful to be loved. I must remain here to stay safe. I must work here to be respected. These are the internal maps drawn from external validation. External subjugation.
Grief should never be taxed, but should always be tended to. And one must be standing outside the walls to be able to even ask the question that begins with why am I here, but follows with what is this place teaching me about freedom?
Inside the walls of the capital of Not Enough, perfectionism reigns supreme. Knowledge workers exhaust themselves proving their worth, never realizing the game is rigged—there will never be enough evidence of your value. Decisions will be made haphazardly and impersonally. And you’ll get tired of people saying, “Don’t take it so personal.”
On the avenues of Must Be Useful, rest and deep reflection is unsanctioned. Because the only way the traffic flows is if the citizens confuse their being with their doing.
The Atlas of Liberation: Map Your Way Home
If subjugation has its cartography, so does liberation. Perhaps an Atlas of Liberation is a map back to that generative nothingness—the open space from which new ways of being emerge, outside the walls of the castle. This is the territory beyond the maps you inherited. The space where you author your own geography. Your own grace.
Here's what I've learned from mapping these territories with grief as a companion and loss as a constant teacher. The moment you name a form of subjugation, you begin to step outside its grip…and beyond its borders.. The moment you see a pattern of surrender, you reclaim the possibility of sovereignty.
But this work requires fierce honesty. It demands that you look at the ways you've made peace with your own credibility enshrined in captivity. It asks you to examine the comfortable cells you've built around yourself and dare to imagine what might be possible beyond their walls.
The map is not the territory. The territory is not the destination. The destination is the journey of becoming who you've always been beneath the layers of who you thought you had to be.
It’s Your Turn to be the Mapmaker
I'm curious: What territories of subjugation would appear on your map? What provinces of your inner landscape have you never fully explored? What borders are you ready to cross?
Perhaps The Subjugation Atlas is not just a phantom phrase in my dream. Perhaps it's in our collective, consciously awakening each of us. Every person who dares to map their own territories of surrender and liberation contributes to a larger cartography of human freedom and creativity.
Share your maps. Draw your borders. Claim your territories. The atlas is only as complete as we make it together.