I’ve been in this weird headspace lately where life is just… strange. On the surface, everything is fine. I go to work, eat relatively healthy, try to stay on top of errands, keep things running — the usual. But underneath it all, there’s this constant feeling of dull pressure, like I’m being stretched thin by things that don’t really matter. It’s like I’m always busy, but rarely present.
Every day feels packed, but nothing sticks. I go through the motions, check off tasks, scroll a bit, eat, sleep, repeat. I end the day drained, like I ran a marathon in my head — but can’t really remember anything meaningful that happened. It’s not burnout in the dramatic sense, just this low-grade hum of tiredness and disconnection that never really turns off.
Socially, things have gotten quieter too. I barely see my friends anymore. Most of them are still into drinking and going out — stuff that used to feel exciting but now just feels… loud and repetitive. There was no big falling out. Just different rhythms now. Slower ones. And sometimes I sit with that and wonder if it’s just part of growing up, or if something deeper got lost along the way.
And then my brain starts spinning, usually late at night, when everything’s quiet. I start thinking about the future — and it honestly kind of scares me. Not in a dramatic, apocalyptic way, but in that creeping “things-are-moving-too-fast” way. AI is suddenly everywhere. Wars are happening in the background of our everyday lives. Economies feel fragile. Everything seems more unstable than it used to be, like we’re just pretending things are normal while the ground shifts under us.
And weirdly, my mind keeps drifting back to 2006. I don’t even know why exactly — maybe because it felt slower. Simpler. The internet was just fun and weird, not all-consuming. There were fewer screens, fewer existential threats in the news feed. Boredom existed, but it didn’t feel dangerous — it felt open. It felt like space to breathe. Now everything feels compressed, even rest.
I don’t think I’m depressed. I’m not miserable. But I feel… detached. Like I’m watching my life from the outside, waiting for it to feel like mine again. There’s this quiet emptiness running underneath everything, like background static. Not loud enough to break me, just enough to make everything feel slightly out of tune.
Anyone else feel like this? Have you figured out how to shake it — or at least live with it in a way that makes sense?
It’s up to us to make it like that again.
I stopped participating/consuming into anything that is algorithmically managed. It means that I cut back on everything online that is not… man-made. I don’t do Twitter/X, Facebook, Reddit, and so on. I even almost completely quit using YT beside a couple channels. So, I use Lemmy, watch vids on non-YT platforms (peertube, for example) and I do read blogs and websites… all contents that are all created by actual persons (not some SEO-optimized or AI-crap), actual people that care about what it is they’re talking about.
The thing with those corporation-owned ‘occupations’ is that our live don’t belong to us anymore. It’s theirs. Our live is a product they are exploiting (mining) and at the same time it’s… a service they’re selling back directly to us, as well as to other people that the algorithm thinks will (dis)like us.
Realizing that, I decided I did not want to be the product anymore no matter how much I liked their ‘services’.
And that was liberating. I would not want to go back to their precious little apps and algorithms. I spend a lot less time online, but I appreciate almost every second of it. Which to me at least seems like a good compromise ;)
edit: clarifications & typos.
I second sticking to social media platforms without an algorithm feed. When I scroll lemmy or mastodon, I feel satisfied sooner that I’ve seen what I’ve wanted to see, and actually get tired of content.
I want to second your comments about social media and algorithmic marketing. I completely stopped watching youtube unless a human recommended the video or i searched for the content myself. I don’t take recommendations from machine learning models - especially not ones designed and tuned to enrich billionaires at the expense of health, society, and democracy.
This probably sounds quaint, but i have returned to paper for my news/arts/culture stuff. I figure that if it is worth printing, it is more likely to be worth reading. Audio books can be nice, but I limit even them because they can intrude too much on my thinking time. I think part of the stress and fatigue i used to feel was related to a lack of reflection. It is good and healthy to just think. I am starting to wonder if daydreaming is a bit like daily exercise- not doing enough will really fuck you up.
One more thing i started doing that helped with my anomie was getting involved in helping people. I started volunteering at a church. Now, I am an atheist and very open about it (without, i hope, being a dick). But i found a church that is compatible with my beliefs and they do some nice community outreach. No one there has ever tried to convert me, so i extend them the same courtesy. The work is nothing heroic: i help stream the service so the elderly and disabled members (congregants?) can watch from home when they can’t make it, i help with the semi-annual food drive, and every now and then i make coffee for the old ladies while they have their meetings. It has made a huge difference in how i feel about my community. When i go out, i see friends and friendly people throughout the city. I feel like i am plugged into a mutual aid society and (try not to laugh) it makes me feel important in a way that work, school, and gym never did.
Question, what platform do elderly/disabled people prefer for tuning in to streams? Or what could you recommend?
Not that I’m planning to do this myself in my community rn, but I might be moving to a sleepy neighborhood later this year. If I ever want to set something up like this, it’d be cool to have something easy-to-use to suggest.
So at my church, we just stream the sunday service on Youtube. I would rather use peertube or something but I am not sure how some people would react to the change. At least one of our viewers uses a screen reader to browse; i don’t want to complicate her life.
I made up my mind sometimes ago but I do really think if a lot/enough of us were to stop using that nasty thing, corporations would be forced to reconsider the way they interact with us.
Not to me. I draft all my texts longhand, sketch and paint the same, and now over a year ago I quit reading ebooks because of privacy concerns, going back to print, including mags and newspapers… And my agenda is paper too.
I’m one too but had an almost two hours long discussion yesterday afternoon with a catholic priest I went to ask questions about some passages I was reading in the New Testament. I was impressed by how available the guy was, and how open to discussion knowing I wasn’t a believer, and by how close our view points were on so many things (beside the God/Salvation part, obviously) and we both happily agreed on meeting again to discuss further.
I’m not surprised by what you’re saying about feeling connected. It’s something that could very easily happen to me with that priest and his little congregation. I offered to help him in my field of exper… in those things I’m not completely incompetent, and will renew my offer next time we meet. Then, I’ll see if he sees any use in it or not. Meanwhile, he gave a me a couple books from the church’s library for me to read.
It was nice to read your reply! Digital tools are fine but i find nothing beats paper for making art.
I was also pleasantly surprised to have a comfortable one-on-one with my minister. Her thinking is very sophisticated - even when it comes to her own faith - and she is completely sincere about recognizing and making amends for historic wrongs committed by the church.