The microwave beeped… 5 times.
Why is it always 5 times?
For that matter, why does everything beep so damn much these days? Grr.
The morning wasn’t off to a good start.
I looked up from my computer and realised I’d spent the last four hours inside a world that doesn’t technically exist.
Emails. Subscriptions. Social conversations. So many browser tabs… each one a tiny world of its own.
Everything was there, but not really there.
This abstract reality we spend so much time in is not something our mental systems have adapted to deal with… not yet, anyway.
And this morning… it showed.
The more abstract things get, the more I can feel my brain either keeping up… or starting to melt.
When I disconnected, everything else felt kinda… floaty.
Like it was buffering, as I experienced some kind of brain lag.
Our brains didn’t evolve for this.
They evolved for trees. For rocks. For repeated rhythms of day/night, hot/cold, safety/danger.
“Out here” in the solid existence of objective reality… things stay where you leave them.
You can trust your senses.
Meaning isn’t mediated by an algorithm and a content policy inside an echo chamber, snooped by the FBI over an insecure Wi-Fi connection.
But today, most of life… our relationships, our income, our entertainment, our sense of self… flows through digital systems designed to be updated, deleted, or throttled at will.
Not by you, of course.
By whoever owns the platform… and all the middle-management in between.
After some distracted musing and another coffee, I concluded that a large part of our lives is spent living in a dematerialised reality.
Consider this…
- You don’t own a lot of what you buy. You lease it (or pay it off) until the subscription expires. (Car / phone / house / internet / Netflix / software.)
- You don’t hold what you love. It lives on a server in “the cloud.” (My kids keep buying digital currency to spend on digital clothing for their online avatars… madness.)
- You don’t even speak in your own voice… you play by the rules on platforms that decide whether you’re seen.
Everything is here… but conditional.
And honestly, I’m OK with that… to a point.
These services are useful, convenient, and clearly valuable… or we wouldn’t keep paying for them.
But it’s worth zooming out a bit.
Because this reminds me again of the kids and their Minecraft “worlds.”
My kids build stuff in Minecraft all the time.
They have these “worlds” and their own personal “identity” in that environment.
Nothing new… video games have been doing this for years. It’s “normal,” right?
But you don’t have to look far to find the feeling of devastation that can occur when something goes wrong.
The game updates.
The file didn’t save properly.
Dad runs over your video games with the lawnmower. (Strong language warning on that click. This is staged, but hilarious!)
Maybe another character attacks your world…
Or worse, their account gets hacked and they (almost) lose everything. (True story.)
Just a login screen with a “wrong username/password” prompt.
Everything… gone.
Slammed back to reality.
No wonder there’s a frequent suspicion we’re all just drifting in a simulation.
In large part… we are.
But that feeling is not a brain flaw or a shortcoming with our perception.
It’s by design.
See… when you’re always detached, you’re always seeking.
Clicking. Checking. Paying. Performing.
That feeling is telling you something…
It says: “The system” works… but not for you.
/adjusts tin foil hat
So look… this doesn’t mean you have to go off-grid and eat kale and farm chickens.
But it does mean you’re allowed to feel the disconnect… and notice it can be a problem.
You’re allowed to say, “Hang on… this isn’t me.”
You’re allowed to want your life back.
To restore some of that childlike excitement, energy, and wonder from the everyday things?
So… maybe the best move isn’t to keep up anymore.
Maybe it’s to slow down, look closer, and build things that don’t disappear when the network goes down. (Or at least… stop building things on platforms you don’t own and control.)
You don’t need to “escape” the digital world.
But maybe you should stop anchoring your identity to it?
If this is something you can relate to, I’d love to hear about it.
Hit reply with a “Yep” or “I get it” or something…
Then maybe go outside and play 😊 That’s what I’m gonna do! 🤣
~ Chris
P.S. No PS today… you’ve done enough.