The Illusion of Arrival

In the Blunt Age, survival means blending in until you vanish. Erase your identity.

Everyone has seasons of not-okay. That’s human.

But when you try to talk about it, the responses often sound pre-recorded. A few “always here for you” messages sit in your inbox until the day you actually reach out – yes, STILL your job, right? Then all you get is a heart reaction, a quick “hang in there,” or silence.
It’s not cruelty, just low batteries everywhere. Empathy draws current, and most of us are running on low power mode.

Nobody around? The system fills the gap.

Feeds, DMs, story replies, little bursts of attention that simulate an emotion. We post and scroll to feel seen, but what we get are fragments, passed around like digital alms. It helps for a moment. Then it doesn’t. The ache returns, softer maybe, but still there – echoing behind all that polished optimism.

This is how we roll: attention without intimacy, motivation without rest, comfort without context. What will the new generation understand from this?

Photo: AI Generated Hellenistic echo in the age of screens placed in the frame of a real Greek Ancient Necropolis.

Even in marble, the posture looks familiar, resting but suffering from insomnia, craving something more.

Into that space step the wellbeing voices, professionally serene.

They promise balance, productivity, healing.
They say, “You just need to change something,” “Fix yourself.”

Wanna be in line happy?

Change your routine, your mindset, your diet, your morning, your frequency, your self.
Always change. Always more effort, if you want to be like the rest of your follower list, all-happy, all-enduring. The cracked-screen world vibrates full of advice that sounds right but lands hollow… “Now what?”, you might be thinking. A video is about how you should dress, another is about how you should act, each promising a version of peace that looks suspiciously like performance.

But what if the wound wasn’t your fault?
What if the constant changing is the very thing keeping you tired?

Somewhere along the way, we confused being alive with being optimized. We grew up listening to remarkable and important stories and lessons, and somehow ignored them. We measure inner peace by output and happiness by efficiency. Only automatic now. And when the noise returns, the voices say, “That’s resistance. Keep going.” We all bought this once – the promise that optimization was salvation.

That’s how the loop runs

Hurt → Scroll → Reassurance → Numbness → Avoidance → Guilt → Repeat
Or, if you try to “improve yourself” in sync with the algorithm:
Hurt → Scroll → Reassurance → Effort → Loss of Identity → Persist → Burnout → Feeling that something’s wrong → Avoidance → Guilt → Repeat.

The irony?

The more self-aware you are, the more it hurts. Because you can see the trick while still craving the warmth. You know it’s hollow, but you need the sound of it anyway. It’s not stupidity. It’s exhaustion. So we keep bargaining with the quick sugar of “it’s okay”, even when a small, stubborn part of us whispers that something truer must exist.

It isn’t a new problem. Two thousand years ago, someone already saw through it. Marcus Aurelius wrote:

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”

But that quote is not a fix… it is a mirror.
Because most of what hurts us today is the echo chamber of estimates – the voices telling us what to feel, how to fix it, who to become. And the moment we mistake those voices for truth, the illusion resets, smiling softly, saying again: “You’re almost there.”

Photo: Left behind and softening. Nature claims all.

The culture trained us to expect replacement – in work, in love, in everything that used to feel safe.

Desire used to be wishing. Now it’s a livestream.

We no longer fall into friendships or love, we match. We no longer wonder who we are, we brand and say “It’s okay. I got this car and this phone, this bag and those shoes. I’m the shit.” – This might sound childish, but we’re all doing it, without even thinking about it. What does “being an adult” or “being mature” even mean anymore?

Then, even when we checked all the boxes, we still get disposed as easily as recycled batteries at the first sign of defiance. Everywhere emotion once lived now runs on feedback loops. No one has time for your problems anymore.

The DMs, the “hey stranger” pings, a friend asking for help. It’s not conversation anymore; it’s a summon. You HAVE to respond, to conform, to be present – otherwise you miss out, and are cast aside faster than a used diesel engine in the current phasing-out era. Each ping, each supportive action, promises connection and delivers performance (if it ever delivers). During these actions, we talk more, but somehow say less. We see everyone and know no one.

It’s harder than ever to find meaningful connections. And, guess what? It’s not your fault, no matter what anyone says.

Photo: AI-generated rusted diesel engine on an outer space background🔗.

Western culture teaches us optionality as ethics

There’s always someone better. You’re either not enough, or are easily replaceable. Everyone is. That lesson doesn’t stop at dating. It touches work, friends, colleagues, even family.
People drift, ghost and replace – not because you failed, but because the system rewards novelty over care.

What does it actually mean to fail?

I’m telling you, it’s not this:
– Being ghosted isn’t failure – it’s an exit.
– Being replaced isn’t failure – it’s the culture of convenience.
– Telling the truth isn’t failure – it’s the cost of sincerity.
– Having needs isn’t failure – it’s being alive.
– Breaking under impossible conditions isn’t failure; it’s physics.

The language got warped. Words like needy, too much, clingy, toxic are used to punish intimacy, individuality, self-preservation. But too much just means “more than this small container can hold“. Failure isn’t that you weren’t chosen by a scrolling, risk-free world. Failure is letting the scrolling world define your worth.

Real failure is this:

Shrinking yourself into a brand you can barely survive inside. Letting the loop decide your future. Agreeing to resilience when all you needed was rest. Dressing like others, talking like others, smoking like others, being like others. A complete loss of individualism, the TRUE replacement of you.

You did NOT fail. You were measured by a system that rewards replacements. You are NOT a product. Stay human under pressure. Don’t. Give. Up.

Photo: Zenos Frudakis – “Freedom” (Philadelphia, 2001). Breaking free from conformity, oppression, limitation.

Some of us never tasted thick, difficult closeness at all. Others did, and that’s why this era hurts the most. If you’ve ever truly belonged – to a group, a place, or someone – today’s agitation feels violent: friends evaporate, lovers turn to static, promises mean nothing under the pressure of infinite choice.

We were trained by experience to treat opening up as a handicap.
– Share too much? Red flag.
– Tell the truth? Get out (maybe not today, but tomorrow). Revenge.
– You’re a performer? There’s someone better than you.
– You’re never forgiven for your mistakes – maybe in another life.
Egoism is framed as self-respect; empathy is framed as naivety. It’s efficient, and it’s empty. I try to be an observer, to learn, but honestly, I hate what it does to people.

Here’s how the machine keeps desire shallow:

– Branding the self. We curate a version of us that can be “liked,” then force ourselves to live under it.
– Infinite scroll of people. Choice masquerades as intimacy while erasing commitment.
– Disposable ties. When friction appears, replacement is easier than repair – by design.

The loops of modern relationships:

Match → Ping → Dopamine → Doubt → Performance → Discard → Repeat.
Bond → Share → Vulnerability → Silence → Shame → Retreat → Repeat.

This is why friendships and relationships alike break so easily. You have to perform to even be observed. When you make a mistake and the mask falls, you’re exposed. Your artificial friend or lover will tag the red flag and leave the second you stop performing.

Before we move on, ask yourself:

– Who taught you that opening up equals loss?
– Is it really your fault that they don’t call anymore?
– When did “more options” become a substitute for being chosen, not just in love, but in friendship too?
– If you feel isolated, what if the system is against humanity – not a defect in you?

We’re navigating a lifetime where, unless you’re born with a star on your forehead and luck waiting under your pillow, you’re told to change – to adjust, to optimize, to fit. Change something in you so you can be desired, so friends will like you, so the crowd won’t look away.

We move to feel alive, until movement is all we know. Oh, your flight has been canceled.

Existential Tourism for the Masses

We’re told to find ourselves by changing scenery instead of changing behavior. Work drains us, so we travel to forget. Travel drains us, so we work again to afford it. New coordinates, same thing all over again. You’re stressed with the planning, you’re stressed during the flight, you’re stressed to check all the points of interest, you’re stressed going back. Where’s the fun in that? When do you wind down? Also, if you’re not a “travel person”, your chances of being accepted into social circles drop radically.

Instead of finding places to belong, to know culture, meet, we book the same all-inclusive hotels, similar from one country to another – making it yet another act of proof for your online friends:
“Look, I’m living.”

Nah, it’s the same exhaustion, just with a different backdrop. Arrival dopamine has a half-life now – 48 hours, maybe less (you waste around 6 hours in the airport, at hours we should be sleeping). That’s the “city break” for you. What did you understand from the place you came back from?

Photo: Departure control. The clock is ticking. The company wishes you a magical 48-hour holiday! Source: Bucharest Airport – Is There A Worse Major European Airport?🔗

We turned movement into a status symbol

As if staying were laziness and flying were character. The feeds don’t help either:
A thousand reels of sunsets and “hidden gems” – which are now overloaded with people, collapse into one loop. The captions promise discovery; the truth shows the same latte in a different timezone.

Different place, same list: café, view, hidden beach, sign, step, pose, upload. Or even better: “What are we even doing here?”. A strange gravity pulls us toward the same angles, the same seasonal edits, the same “found myself” monologue.
We book places we don’t even want or like to go to, because we MUST. Why?

Photo: Summer to nowhere. Imagine paying your whole monthly salary for this. Source: Overtourism and the repositioning of destinations🔗

Workation, airport lifestyle, booking frenzy

It feels social until we arrive back home and realize we didn’t bring anything back.
Even industry observers say this is a structural phenomenon. Social media now concentrates desire: viral posts create a “snowball” that funnels crowds to the same few places, stoking FOMO, bucket lists, and saturation from Etretat to Cinque Terre and Bali. (source🔗)
Meanwhile, research shows the post-trip euphoria fades fast: vacationers feel happier briefly, but holidays add little to overall life satisfaction. (study source🔗)
As the Travel Psychologist puts it, using travel as your only coping strategy becomes unhelpful – distance relocates the ache rather than resolving it. (The Travel Psychologist🔗)

We don’t need fewer trips, we need truer ones

There’s a big difference between discovering a culture and a monthly sprint. We don’t even have the time to digest everything we’ve seen, that is IF we’ve seen anything.

Do you see it?

Two loops run in parallel. Classic monthly “bucket-list” style travel:
Burnout → Booking → Brief Euphoria → Content → Work → Burnout → Repeat.
or, if it’s short and crowded:
Burnout → Booking → More Burnout → Content → Work → Collapse.

Before we move on, ask yourself:

– Do you travel to discover, or to perform?
– Is movement still wonder, or just withdrawal, but with scenery?
– If no one ever asks you about it, would you still go?

We built the idea of travel into a virtue, a social status, when maybe what we needed, at least sometimes, was to stop, take it all in. Not forever – just long enough so arrival can be a feeling again, and not a file.

Learning to Arrive Again

Take a breath.

If anything stung in the first three chapters, it wasn’t personal, no verdict, no offense. It is the current we’re all walking through. We’re just trying to land somewhere.

Most article pages, videos and books would now say: ditch your phone, buy a brick, “be mindful.” Go outside barefoot, place a snail on your head and say, “Good morning, Universe!”. Apply scented oils on palms and chant an aphorism. Workout till you faint.
On the other side of the table, one would say: “Hmm, well the only solution to all of this is to completely isolate yourself”.

Cute, but I say nay, to all of those. Workout? Sure, just don’t overdo it! Scented oils? Okay. Snail on the head? Not really. But these are all coping mechanisms, therefore the issue will still be haunting you at the first opportunity.

We’ll go further

To survive, we must be unbound. We must think outside the box, while still inside our daily. If something you don’t agree with keeps happening – at work, in DMs, in your circle of friends – study it, thoroughly. The solution is usually the easiest one, even if it means just dealing with it. If it’s uncomfortable, stop, resume later.
What triggers it? Can it be changed? If not, how do I stop paying the tax? How can it stop hurting?
Practice saying no, with a steady hand. Trust me on this one – you have NOTHING to lose.

“No” as a craft – for work, life, and everything that tries your time.

– “This doesn’t make sense. What problem does it solve?”
– “I need the context that led to this request.”
– “What happens if we don’t do it?”
– “I can do it well or fast. Pick one.”
– “Not now. Revisit in two weeks.”

Remember, our time in this world is very limited. Question the ritual, study the occurrence. If the answer is “because you must”, or “because we always have”, you’ve just found yourself a place to be unbound.

Quick note for readers with real, heavy stuff: those are some thoughts on simple problems that seem difficult. Some solutions to open your mind. If you’re in a crisis, get professional support. None of what follows cancels that. What I wrote here is how to live alongside the modern noise.

Your time is precious. Waste it where you want and not where you’re being told to.

4.1. Unbinding the Feed Loop. Zoom in.

4.1.1. Turn your phone into a field recorder. Take daily short, solo walks.
Yes, walking alone feels “weird” today. That’s exactly why it works. This whole chapter is about Human Move 37*. Don’t mute your phone, practice restraint. For 30 minutes – an hour, there will likely be no emergency. So let notifications pile up and decline non-urgent calls. Answer later – on your clock.

Inspired by AlphaGo’s famously unexpected Move 37 – one decisive, pattern-breaking choice.

– Neighborhood pass: walk the same loop each week. Sounds bleak? That’s because we’ve lost the ability to see and feel. Look closer, what has changed since last time? If you don’t know, there it is… well, go and find out.
– Record reality: Take photos and videos of things that you find interesting but wouldn’t really post online. Cats, a new poster, cracked paint, an urban sunset. Shoot for your journal, not for likes. From a good walk outside, post a story or a reel of whatever randomness you find intriguing. See how your followers react.
– Park ritual: find two secluded spots. Sit. Touch the tree, the grass. Note the texture (in your mind). Return whenever you want, in a week or a month, and compare.
– Mask off (low stakes): Don’t care how you look for this hour. Dress functional, just think about the temperature outside. It’s a rehearsal for breathing without performance.

Move 37: once per walk, make one unexpected choice – turn down a street you never take, sit on a different bench, try something new to eat (have you ever tried eating baked chestnuts while an autumn trip to the local park?). Your microcosmos is yours.

4.1.2. Swap your spending to smarter choices.
Before you buy an iPhone 17 Pro when having an iPhone 16 Pro, stop for a moment, and think twice. What does it actually bring to the table? What do you do with it? Is it a tool or a status symbol? Wouldn’t it be better if you bought a fresh pair of sneakers? If you have too many sneakers, buy a good pair of headphones. If you have headphones, get a bike. Take your friends out for a drink in the most comfortable place you know or have. You get the point.

4.1.3. Practice “indifference training” indoors.
At home, deliberately stop caring about your physical appearance for a few hours. Not neglect, it’s freedom. It’s rehearsal for letting the mask slip in low-stakes contexts so you can breathe in high-stakes ones. Instead, look for things that you would improve. Repair that old radio by yourself. Don’t throw that t-shirt away, use it as a pajama.

4.1.4. Make peace with origins.
If it’s safe and possible, talk to your parents. If they’re gone – or unsafe – find an elder and listen to their stories. Outdated details aside, the patterns repeat. Seeing the pattern makes the present less personal, less punishing.

4.1.5. Practice imperfection as a craft.
Being you is what being human is about. Being perfect is entering the loop. Just one more tweak, one more change is how the evening disappears. Name the enough. Before you start, write what “done” means in one line. When you hit it, stop (or not 😉). You’ll know when you reach it. That’s blind development, not surrender. The real “growing.”

The time is now. Return to nature, in your own way.

4.2. Unbinding Masks, Matches & Shallow Friendship.

4.2.1. You are not a tool, not a brand
Kill the relationship KPIs, tear down the red flags, don’t care about them. Stop “managing”, you’re not a campaign. Decline invites that require you to play a role you didn’t choose. If you find yourself in a situation where you’re being called only because of your uses and not your person, slowly and politely turn away – you’re not losing, you’re gaining.

4.2.2. How to live when they taught you are replaceable?
Modern life turns people into options. Don’t let it.
– If someone treats you like a backup plan, they’re a contact, not a constant. Classification.
– Replaceable to whom? You’re replaceable, yes, in systems that reward novelty; but you are NOT replaceable to people who practice care and have a holistic view of the future. Keep those around.
– Invest accordingly. Have dignity to leave. Staying available to someone who won’t choose you, or who is caught in the loop is a slow insult. Leaving is hygiene.
– You feel down, have recently been “replaced”? Build tiny ties that don’t depend on performance: a neighbor, park regulars, colleague from the station. Zero expectations.
– Don’t try to out-perform the replacement. That’s how masks grow back.
– Don’t beg for clarity three times. One ask, one follow-up, then space.
– Don’t let resentment and doubts become your hobby.

4.2.3. Let the mask down, gently and locally.
Pick one person you trust and one topic. Tell one truth you usually package. If it lands badly, note it and adjust the radius – don’t adjust yourself or your reality. Letting the mask down means no performance voice, no highlight-only rules, no speed. Slow down.

4.2.4. Social Move 37
Honesty without theatre or whining.
I exist as I am, not as my curated input.

When people are hinting towards small talk: “How are you?”, “Man, this weather is great.” Respond with:
“I’m well but could be better. I’ve just found out that we lose most of our childhood memories by age seven, because the brain makes space for new ones. Weirdly enough, I can still remember many of them. What do you think about that?”
or
“Yeah, the weather is great, but so is this new thing I’ve just read about. Did you know clouds can weigh millions of tons and still float? Makes you think about balance.”
Speak true, be honest, and life will automatically reshuffle people in your favor. Stay curious, see people’s reactions, adapt for your own comfort.

4.2.5. There is no perfect relationship
There will always be difficulties and differences. It’s what makes us unique. Don’t give up. Give the fifth chance. Be kind. Send the message even if it’s not super-polished. It’s okay to show up even if you’re tired – real beats impressive. Reschedule without guilt, replace “big night” with “small walk”. Presence survives when the bar is human, and that’s how it has been, since the dawn of man.

Remember, you’re NOT failing; you’re resisting a culture that monetizes attention and calls it affection. It’s okay to be tired, everyone is on low power mode.

When awareness expands, boundaries dissolve – the self becomes light. Find your way to the light.

4.3. Unbinding the Cult of Motion

4.3.1. Unsubscribe from the tease
Kill the “hidden gems” newsletters and the “cheap flights” alerts for a month. They manufacture desire on someone else’s timetable. Ask the real question: Where do you actually want to be this time? Not “what’s on sale.” If you listen closely, you might even hear your body asking for rest instead of another city break.

4.3.2. Chart a trip like an archaeologist (Indiana Jones style)
Fewer trips, longer stays. Pick one region. Learn why this town exists: who built it, what craft survived, what disaster shaped it. Visit every museum – even the dusty one. Search for people who lived on this street, not just “in this country.” What made them known? Is that person’s way of becoming known worth a new hobby?

4.3.3 Move 37 (travel edition)
Spend one full hour on a single street: sit, listen. Note smells, sounds, the cat under the scooter. Stay until you go unnoticed. Buy a local newspaper, search the street online, there’s bound to be something interesting about it or about the person whose name it carries. If you hear music, go there, see what happens. That’s when a place starts talking back.

4.3.4. If you really have to plan, make your own guide
Plan low-cost, longer stays. Feel the vibe of the place. Ask a local for a story, not a recommendation. The hidden cliff you just noticed, why is none of that in the online guides? Write, photograph, for your journal, not for reels. Turn the phone into a notebook.

4.3.5. There is no perfect trip
Imperfect trips are the real ones. That’s where story and adventure start. Skip the crowded beach for a day in an obscure museum.

Don’t waste your time or your hard-earned cash. If you don’t feel like it, don’t go. If you want to go, break the loop. Let it be your best trip so far.

Even the sea learns to rest somewhere. Maybe we should too. Source🔗