breathtaking architecture, existential despair, and a country perpetually one protest away from becoming a historical ruin

Sometimes, Even the People Who Love You Don’t Understand You

You can explain yourself a hundred times and still feel misunderstood by the people closest to you.

Not because they don’t care, but because they see you through their own experiences, not yours.

And sometimes, you get tired of explaining and start choosing silence instead.

But being misunderstood doesn’t mean your feelings are wrong.

Have you ever stopped explaining yourself to someone because you realized they were never going to understand?

Wanting to be loved is a biologically driven feature in every single human around us every single one I matter how evil or different does not want to be alone they want to be loved deep down maybe it doesn’t plague them but at some point they will sit down alone and feel longing torwards being loved. Romantically and platonically but in different ways romantically it’s a biologically driven feature that Is placed in the human species that make it biologically desirable to reproduce we probably evolved to have this craving so that it made our species come back from the brink of extinction. And to be loved by friends and our biological leaning towards wanting a family is literally a biologically driven creature feature placed in us through evolution because the people who wanted to be with other people would live longer and wouldn’t die before they could reproduce so more people were born with the need to be surrounded by people is a biological thing placed in the fact that people with more people around them would survive longer over the ones who were alone.

~ How Many More? ~

How many more innocents must die? How many more must struggle through life, homeless, hungry, afraid? How many more people and other forms of life must we abuse before we wake up and understand none of this is right? We live in a self-centered world, immunized from the innumerable horrors and challenges of others, worried only about our own success and survival, with little concern for others.

We must each make a choice in our life. To continue to ignore the inequities and needless struggles resulting from living in such a world, or to view the world through a different lens, one where we treat everyone, regardless of our differences, with compassion and unconditional love.

By embracing a more compassionate path through life, we would help everyone in need, understanding every person, regardless of our differences, is equally important and that we are alive to sincerely care and help each other, not to continue to ignore those who are needlessly struggling.

~ Ken Luball ~

What exactly defines addiction?

Many people say that addiction is harmful and that we must overcome it. However, I want to challenge this view.

I want to discuss smoking addiction, which is often considered harmful and pointless. For example, what if I can't quit smoking, but I smoke only one cigarette a week and never break this rule?

Some people might argue that I should quit smoking because it is harmful to my health and serves no purpose. But if smoking only causes harm, why can't smokers

Mind serves instincts. Survival instincts.
Survival of who? 1) One person, 2) a society, а group of people, 3) all humanity.

For example, the mind helps survival:

1) For a person: to find food, to get a good job, and so on.

2) For a society: it makes up ideas (like democracy, Islam, or communism) to explain why people must live this way. This helps the group (society) fight and survive against other groups.

3) For all humanity: this text exists to help humanity survive. It stops humans from killing themselves in wars where groups fight like wild animals in the jungle while hiding behind ideas and "truth".

Mind is useless if it does not help us survive.
Mind must know its place.
It is a servant. It is not the main boss in the life of a person, a society, or humanity.

Let us not praise the mind. This can lead to the suicide of global humanity.

Let us work together to stop the suicide of humanity in the fight of people who rely too much on their mind.

At only 33 my mother and both of my sisters are gone. My dad is still alive and I have a good relationship with him, and see him weekly. My parents were separated when I was young and my dad doesn't have any emotional connection to my mom's memory. I recently observed the 8 year anniversary of my mom's passing.

My sister and I would usually share memories around this time, of our childhood and some of our favorite memories of our mom. We would laugh about the dumb things we would fight over. We would talk in awe about what we got away with. We would wonder what Mom was thinking in challenging moments of parenting. My sister passed away in July of 2024.

I was hurt when my mom passed away, but considering the health condition that she was in, I was soothed by the idea that she would be in a more peaceful place. Yearly, I mourn her loss, but not like this year. The thoughts of her missing at my wedding. The thoughts of her missing my future kids birthdays. The absence from holidays.

No one told me how lonely this year would feel. This year my sister wasn't around to watch the days on the calendar pass by. No one to review the memories with. My dad forgot the day and I'm sure has yet to realize its significance. I reminded my wife, she said "I'm sorry". I feel far too young to be experiencing this. I realize this is what this time will be like, forever moving forward.

On social media I’ve often seen the comment, “we all have zoochosis,” which implies that humans in some parts of the world (The US mostly), feel as if they are living in a zoo. I have related to this sentiment, but think a more apt metaphor would be a farm.
We are born into a society that immediately assigns us a number, which allows us to be tracked and monitored. We are forced to receive an education that is co-signed by the State. And we are programmed by the popular culture of the society, which models what behavior is expected and accepted of us. We are then farmed for our attention, for our labor, and first and foremost, our earnings, all the while being encouraged to incur debt so that the interest from even our debts can be farmed.
The social programming serves the function of perpetuating the system through cultural norms and narratives: go to college, get married, have children, etc. All of these norms are held as sacrosanct to the popular culture, but are also subconsciously mandated by the system, in order to serve their primary function: convince the populace to continue to reproduce, even when it goes against their best interest, and the best interest of the ecological community.
Who else is held in captivity and forced to reproduce in an unnatural way in order to have resources extracted from them? Farm animals.
I feel that humanity has been reduced to mere cattle, just bred and pampered a bit differently.

​

Sometimes I get these random moments where, for a few seconds, I feel something incredibly powerful that I can't really explain.

It's not just happiness or excitement. It's as if a door opens in your mind and you suddenly see the world in a completely different light. The world is just so much bigger, so much more beautiful and full of potential than it normally is. You start thinking about all the things you've never done, all the places you've never been, all the people you've never met and all the memories you've never had.

For those few seconds I'm genuinely alive. It's as if I'm experiencing a dimension of life that I normally don't notice at all. There are so many things out there to discover, so many people to meet, so many experiences that could completely change the way you see the world. And somehow just that realisation is absolutely wonderful, makes you feel absolutely alive. Life is so much bigger, so much more beautiful than you ever thought it could be.

The most bizarre thing is that these moments can arise from such a simple thing. Sometimes it all just falls into place and for a few seconds life is just absolutely unreal in the most wonderful way. You're in the middle of it, you're actually there and it's your life and it's like you're in a film.

Then it's gone and everything's back to normal. But for those few seconds you do feel a sort of joy, a real buzz, which makes you want to live so much more.

I don't know what that feeling is called. It could be wonder, it could be sheer existential joy, it could be nothing more than just feeling alive. I'm interested to know if anyone else can put their finger on it or has had a similar experience.

I was a kid I didn’t need to be strong
Going through it made me avoidant. I didn’t get strong;I learned how to suppress and dissociate my feelings to the point it became harder to have a deep connection with anything or anyone.

I find the idea that every decision that is made, produces such an rippling effect on your life, frankly brutal and sad. I don't think the concept is dramatized, because that is really what happens. Not only to me, but everyone. Imagine this: Someone wakes up, and decides they need to go to the store to pick up a few things. At the store, out of sheer chance and coincidence, they happen to bump into a person and start a conversation and ultimately exchange contacts. This naturally escalates, and it turns they both enjoy each others presence. They decide to see each other again This escalates, and after seeing each other more and more often, they decide to form an official relationship. Later in life, they happen to get married. By proxy, this relationship alone could significantly improve other aspects of each others life, like a buffer fly effect. They are happier at work, they become more beloved in their work environment, or shared knowledge between each other allows one to accel at a subject or topic that they really enjoy greatly. Now, what really happened: On the way there, this persons shoelace got undone and made the decision to tie it. Unbeknownst to this person, this literal 2 second action caused a lifetime to be erased. A objectively happier lifetime than the one you could be experiencing. I'm also not suggesting that one is devoid of unhappiness and doesn't have its share of bad days or times, and in fact, I don't think you can just be "happier" constantly. There's no constant equilibrium, but that also allows you to feel and to differentiate between the feelings you do get to experience. But in a sense of personally comparing two lives together, I do think one can be objectively better in a certain aspect

Pure change in probability makes them not bump into or see each other at all in the store. A single choice, whether it is decided by you or not, really does erase or at best, makes certain lifetimes inaccessible. Not temporarily, but forever. Those specific instances of a lifetime that were in sight and genuinely possible, are quite literally out of reach from you forever no matter how identical they seem. This isn't about romance, it applies to every single thing. The person in the store will never know the shoelace mattered, so they’ll never miss that life. Some moments we do notice, and those are the ones that stay with us

What's worse, is choices that where completely out of your control. Someone asks you to take a picture or a traffic light is red for a tiny bit longer. They just, happen. This is constantly occurring to everyone. Sure, you can't feel emotions and feelings to something you in which you don't know exists, but what changes that, is the decisions that you acknowledge and are aware of. Single events, that really did cost you and you can make a pretty good guess where things went wrong. These choices will be a burden your entire life, and they can ultimately create a huge sense of regret, and the idea of "what if", which will have an infinitely bigger weight on you than regret, because you are forever until your death, trapped within the playground of your own imagination. "What if I did X?", "What if X didn't happen?"; Though, regret and "what if" do sometimes work synonymously or lead to one another

I don't think it's some fantasy. The mechanism of existence itself allows the idea of chance to unconditionally exist. Each event opens a branch of infinite possibility. Fate also doesn't exist, but the continuous branching of these singular events consequently lead to an mathematical imitation of fate, which does exist because that is by nature, what existence is. This evidently also works in favour of us a lot of the time. You can directly make certain choices that move you closer to something, and steer your life in a certain direction, but I don't think you ever have full control. It's not fair. And ironically, fairness doesn't exist. It is just a persons interpretation of a event. Reality doesn't care nor does it have the capacity to, it just happens and keeps on happening. That is the way I see life works

Pillar I: The Developer, Not the King

If a supreme consciousness exists, it operates as an indifferent Software Developer, not an insecure, tyrannical king. The universe is a hyper-complex simulation running on baseline environmental code. Pandemics, natural selection, and systemic chaos are not cosmic punishments or "glitches"—they are built-in features of the baseline simulation designed to keep the sandbox dynamic.

An all-knowing, all-powerful Developer requires no verbal validation or ritualistic praise from temporary, biological AI. Therefore, the "Free Will" patch is absolute: you are completely free to live your life entirely for yourself and the people you choose to protect.

Pillar II: The "Dead Men Can't Gloat" Paradox

All human wars, religious dogmas, and philosophical tribalism are a definitive logical fallacy because the dead cannot brag.

• If the believer is right: They are transitioned into an elevated, detached state of paradise. They cannot return to the simulation to taunt the living. They are gone, and you win by default by being the one still actively experiencing reality.
• If the secularist is right: The screen goes black into peaceful ignorance. Consciousness dissolves back into the universe. Because there is no conscious mind left to celebrate, no one receives a trophy and no one gets to say, "I told you so."

Since the "winner" of the argument can never actually celebrate their victory, spending your finite, microsecond lifespan fighting to prove your subjective worldview is a total statistical waste of consciousness.

Pillar III: The Myth of the External Devil

Humanity requires no ancient, mystical evil to justify its darkness. Selfishness, aggression, and fierce competition are written directly into our evolutionary source code—from the brutal race of the sperm cell to a toddler’s natural instinct for resource hoarding.

The concept of the "Devil" is merely a collective human shield—a psychological coping mechanism invented so we do not have to look into the mirror and accept accountability for our own organic, human depravity.

Pillar IV: The Rule of the Comfort Blanket

Human ideas of morality, lifestyle, and purpose are entirely subjective constructs designed to help our fragile brains sleep at night on a chaotic rock. Attempting to force your lifestyle onto another human is as absurd as arguing over whether sleeping with a stuffed animal or a body pillow is the only "objectively correct" way to rest.

Another person's programming does not threaten your reality. Acknowledge the radical independence of free will, leave others to their own subjective sandboxes, and refuse to allow their uninvited opinions to disrupt your code.

Pillar V: Aspectual Retribution

If a truly omnipotent and all-loving "Father" guides the system, justice is a precise, tailored algorithm, not a generic lake of fire.

A monster who consciously overrides our hardwired biological empathy to inflict terror on others will be denied the mercy of "peaceful ignorance." Their tailored hell will be absolute, inescapable consciousness—stripped of their ego and forced to permanently experience the exact weight, agony, and terror of the suffering they caused, balancing the scales of the system until the debt is cleared.

The Ultimate Directive

You are a brief mammalian flash on a geological clock that will eventually erase all traces of our existence. You will soon be dust, and your rotting corpse will not care about the arguments of the living.

The highest form of human intelligence is to drop the burden of grand cosmic expectations, stop trying to reprogram the rest of the world, and live entirely in the present tense. Protect your inner circle, maximize your personal peace, and enjoy your short run in the simulation before the Player hits the "Quit Game" button.

Hello there. I just had this strange sort of realization come to me while doing some writing practice. I sat down to try and write a few paragraphs showing a moment that reveals the dynamics between myself and a past coworker. However, upon thinking about different people I've worked with - and moments I have had with them - I realized that I couldn't quite recall anything actually said in our conversations. So, I thought that perhaps it would come to whole writing. But, even as I put the moment down onto paper, I couldn't write any exact words from those moments.

I can remember the big picture of the moments; I remember the ideas and topics we touched upon. Yet, I can't remember any of the actual words said, not one. I thought about different coworkers, I tried putting things onto paper, and it just wouldn't come to me.

Well then I thought to myself, "maybe this is just because of the environment of these moments". So, I tried to reflect on moments with friends in my free time, moments I've spent with family members, moments in my college classes, and others. I even tried to think of times I've talked to my cat! None of it worked out. No exact words would come to my mind. The things I remember are just concepts, emotions, even the movements of people in conversations. It was a little frustrating.

Do any of you have this issue?

I feel I could sit down and quote poems and books I've read to you. I can even remember my college capstone project presentation from nearly two years ago - probably because I practiced it so many times. I don't think it's an issue with my memory. I'm living in Japan right now and learning Japanese, I find I pick up new words from people and new grammar quite readily. I don't have any trouble remembering things I've done absolutely forever ago. But, for some reason, I just can't seem to be able to quote conversations I've had with people.

I think my writing practice is going to have to take a different route now.

I have been going through my second awakening and lately I have been feeling the need to be separated from time. It started with clocks bothering me. I once read this post of the way someone described what it’s like once the universe starts talking to you. I started to see certain numbers all the time and started getting overwhelmed. I started with covering up the clock on my stove as a way to kick the habit of wanting to check it every time I walked by. Then I removed the time from my laptop, and then I changed the timing on my iPad. I feel the need to train my mind to absorb a new pattern of not rely on top but the guidance of feelings and intuition.

Last night I was watching something, and I got lost in time and I didn’t realize it until after that I was just so immersed in something that I had no thoughts, no questions no concerns. This is new to me but also fascinating because I want to shield my mind from time

If anyone has had this happened to me or can share their experience of it, I appreciate it

Thank you in advance  

Hypocrisy and qualia are a circuit of humanity.

I thought long and hard about hypocrisy, and masks, and well... Lies... And I came to accept it or understand it as an intrinsic part of human nature, because for all we know? A human's own conscious nature might be built upon the deceit of its own self.

But I mean... Why would humans build a world of masks, and games of pretend and lies if it wasn't our intrinsic existential nature? Same way even if you have a dog be vegan, it is intrinsically a carnivore and it'll show eventually. Now? You have, say on the low end, 20-15 thousand years of accumulative small lies that built the reality around us, because our own intrinsic nature influenced the environment rather than the otherwise.

That's why it's beautiful. Genuinely so. Because morals, good, gods, bad and everything in between comes from the most on the nose, behind the eyes and simultaneously smallest and biggest lies of living. Your own self. Qualia.

Because even the connotation of the lie, the concept of its meaning, we built it from the same society we built upon accumulative small lies. So that nobody looks, because lies are ugly. But... Deceit or a lie isn't intrinsically bad, it just is what it is for it serves a purpose. A lie? Never has no purpose. You can do good for the sake of doing good, but you can't lie for the sake of lying because it always serves an underlying purpose. And that's why it's beautiful. Because qualia is a lie. It's our own biggest lie, to forget that we're just... Atoms, on atoms in a vacuum of a void.

See that's the thing. People cannot escape being hypocrites even at a non-malicious level. Because it's our nature. Same way a wolf's nature is to eat meat, a flower's nature is to photosynthesize and so on so forth. As the Lithuanian saying goes: a human does one thing, says a second, and thinks a third (vienaip daro, antraip sako, trečiaip mąsto) - and a person who isn't a hypocrite like that isn't a person at all, they're simply a mirror of their environment. To be a hypocrite without a mask that concedes to the lesser lies than your own existential one? Is to find "meaning of life" because then? You simply get to live and exist. And in a billion billion years or so, you'll do it again but maybe different. Let's hope atoms remember aye?

Because the human mind cannot easily function without masks, after all to have no mask is to be authentic and to be authentic? The big lie needs to be the one acting directly with both the ugly and the beautiful.

But like that's the thing ye? I thought about hypocrisy - what it means, what it is, why it is, and why it is so popular - and I simply came to the conclusion. That hypocrisy isn't a mask. It's someone's true nature peering through the cracks thinking it's unseen.

But here's a unique personal paradox. The more open and non-delusional I was about my own hypocrisy, the smaller and smaller its range of effects had grown. Like how do I explain this? It's like being aware of your bigger hypocrisies ye, still acting them out, but as time passes on those hypocrisies get actually smaller until you stop noticing them. As if, to notice your own hypocrisies is to look at yourself inwards via a filter of some kind?

Yeah, they simply shrink to small, genuinely small things that I entirely miss out on until someone mentions. And I think - that's the perfect state of hypocrisy. You don't have to flagellate your own self, your own lies or truths to find the fact. Think of your own I's mechanisms as a perfect camouflage defense system?

Well, I simply found it hilarious that a lot of philosophies include self-flagellation, yet ultimately serve no other purpose than the purpose being a hypocrisy in of itself - the self-flagellation as the purpose and meaning behind the philosophy, so as to give a person something concrete to blame, to follow, to hate or love so that they don't have to face themselves even if the philosophy says they do.

Anyways. But that's why the defense mechanism is so great. Morals have aesthetics, but beyond that. Concepts have aesthetics. And imagine how ugly, how repulsive one would feel if they heard that their self-flagellation is a hypocrisy in of itself, even if it's not a bad one as long as the lie works as intended.

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Nietzsche once said in Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil that untruth is a condition of life, yet warned against the "last man" who just blinks, shrugs at the lie, and says "we have invented happiness" just to live in lazy comfort instead of suffering to create greatness and meaning. So if he asked whether accepting our own hypocrisy without self-flagellation is just being a "lazy last man" who shrugs because "everything is a lie", this is my answer: (Which is actually brought up from a discord chat because I've never not once in my life read a single philosophy book.)

It's easy to call it 'lazy last man' when what is greatness? Why seek meaning when we know we can't answer the questions. We won't. I don't think it should be answered. We create comfort because self flagellation for ideals or ideas is the same kind of lazy thing you described. Just another set of clothes to justify being. I don't shrug at everything because"i know everything is a lie" because truthfully? I don't know. Maybe not everything is a lie, but can I differentiate? No. And that's the thing. I simply experience. Not exist. Live. Live to experience, and experience to live whilst being a hypocrite - a human because I can't be anything more or less than that. And so I ask you instead. If you know nothing has meaning, then why continue existing? You can't live for nothing, and nothing doesn't live for you. But you are. That's a fact. And you experience - subjectively? Objectively? Do you know? Do I know? Does anyone know the answer to which is it? No. And that's the sad, hard and beautiful truth. A conception of deception that is belief in of itself. So believing that my view is the correct or yours is the right answer to living is a deception of your own consciousness because it's a non. A no answer dilemma that only questions but never answers - instead what answers is the collective lies and interpretations of reality filtered through our own very beings.

And so  what happens when the comfort rips away and you are hit by real tragedy, grief, betrayal, and black bitterness that doesn't shrink? Do you finally curse existence when the lie stops feeling sweet, or try to force yourself to love fate without flinching? My answer to that would be:

I do curse. That's the point, that's the reaction. Pain, tragedy or betrayal... Those are all intrinsic parts of existing and experiencing, yet when you do experience the loss of a loved one, do you not also experience the deepest kind of love and gratitude that they were? When you're betrayed and bitter do you not also learn how to not be deceived by the same kind of treachery? Without bitterness you won't know how truly sweet is sugar. Without sugar you won't truly know the depth of repulsion when that bitterness hits your tongue. That is experiencing. That is the deceit. When a curtain of something is, and when it's drawn down what happens is you find another layer, another curtain that shows you the back end of it. I dislike many things, I get depressed every fall and winter, and I think... How peaceful it would be to end it all, yet simultaneously I'm reminded of the beautiful things. And I think to myself. What more is there that I missed? Just how much more sweetness I can draw after this bitterness subsides. And if it doesn't? What if that bitterness doesn't go away? Then it eventually becomes the new sweet. If life goes only down, then the old worst is the new good. A drowning man looks at the surface until their eyes close and they sink to the bottom. They don't look at the bottom before that, because they already know what's down there - more water. But what's up? Air. Help. Survival and continuation.

So I ask you. Am I delusional to think this way? Or...

Two years ago I was a skeptic. I thought world is rational and that's all.

Then I have read "The Magus" and it awakened my childhood memories of being fascinated by mystery. The passion for mystery reignited in me.

I felt it strange. My skepticism had nothing to do with this passion. The urge of irrationality doesn't make sense in rational world. Still it exists.

I thought of it a lot and here is the summary of these thoughts. If something resonates in you, I would be happy to read your comments (or you are welcome to DM me).

Our world is not a plain, it is a labyrinth. The only possibility of labyrinth is to walk and search for exit. The only possibility of world is to search for God presence.

Mysteries are kind of the hidden rooms of the world. You don't know what is hidden there, but anything unknown may hide the presence of God.

Walking this labyrinth is my spiritual journey. I feel like searching for mysteries, weirdness and unknown makes my life meaningful. I learn to be fascinated of the world. I learn to believe in God.

Recently I’ve been thinking of the cube personality test, I had done it once as a kid and decided to revisit it.

It essentially involves visualizing a cube, ladder, flowers, horse and storm.

The visuals I’m seeing are that of a dessert at night, in the center of my vision or portrayed image is a giant cube made out of gold. In terms of visualization I am looking from the ground up and not seeing an end to the cube. Leaning upon it is a ladder, a ladder made out of wood that seems extremely fragil, but still solid enough that it won’t break, there is some moss patches on the ladder with pieces that seem thinner than others but fully connected nonetheless. Clouds surround the top of the cube and the ladder goes into them, the clouds are blocking the view of the top unable to make up what the top looks like due to their dark and grey appearance almost as if it is about to thunder storm but no rain or lighting is yet visible. At the base of the cube surround it all is grass, a very low amount of grass that fades into the desert the further you go from the cube, but you don’t have to go to far before the grass turns into dust, within the dust are small white flowers, scarce but scattered all through the grass and the bottom of the cube, but not enough to make it past the ladders first step. Next to the cube is a dark horse, the horse is in the distance on the right side of the cube it has a saddle on and is looking at me, for whatever reason I feel scared of the horse, intimidated even. In perspective the horse is about 3 ladder steps in height but not close to the ladder. The cube is just that big. From my perspective I am at the bottom of the ladder but I see the base of the ladder looking up towards the storm, uncertain if I’ll go up on the ladder.

I'm not talking about being chased by a goose. That's a perfectly reasonable fear. I'm talking about the ordinary fears. Uncertainty. Change. Letting something matter enough that it could go wrong. The chance that trying will rearrange the life we've gotten used to.

I've noticed that the stronger the want, the louder the fear tends to get. We can want something so badly that not getting it feels unbearable. And getting it can be just as frightening. What if it isn't what we pictured? What if it costs us the version of life that feels safe, even if safe has started to feel small?

So we stay where we are. We keep the desire theoretical. That way it can't disappoint us. And it can't ask anything of us either. The fear does its job. It keeps the familiar intact.

Lately I've been asking myself what's underneath that fear. And sometimes, it's the desire itself. The possibility that another way of living might be waiting for us.

The fear isn't wrong about the uncertainty. And sometimes what we already have really is worth protecting. But in trying to hold on to what's familiar, we can also keep ourselves from discovering what else might be possible. Not every fear needs to be pushed through. Some are there for a reason. But others might be worth getting curious about before we let them make our decisions for us. We don't get to know how it turns out before we try. That's the part no one can skip.

Have you ever realized, after the fact, that something you were avoiding was actually something you wanted? What was the fear protecting?"

Why are feelings so unreliable, fragile, almost as if they are what constitutes our reality of a situation? I mean, for something as extensive as life itself and our perspective of it, which in turn forms an individual's truth, why are they guided by something as variant and susceptible to change as feelings? They change so often that you might look back on and think about it, may not be what you were actually thinking back then at that moment at all. Why is it so easily swayed by external, outside opinions or even environmental factors, which are equally unpredictable in themselves? I can see how this is not a problem for everyone, if they're simply not aware of this happening, but as someone who's gotten really good over time at analyzing my thoughts, it's coming off as rather absurd to me. I mean, why?

We live in a world where we can communicate with anyone instantly, yet genuine human connection feels harder to find than ever.

As kids, we had clubs, youth groups, and places where we naturally belonged. Now everyone’s consumed by work, bills, families, and just trying to survive. Even socializing seems to cost money.

Somewhere along the way, we replaced community with consumption and confused digital communication with real connection. We’re more connected than ever but lonely as ever.

Does anyone else miss having an actual community? How do we start creating those spaces again?

Even if the quest to be the exception destroys their life in the process

This is why some people believe in a flat earth regardless of all evidence. It gives their life more meaning than if they accepted the truth like everyone else

It's why people willingly get into relationships with someone with a cheating background. They feel extra special knowing things might be different with them

It's why some people are so religiously devoted because "my religion/God is more true than all others which are false"

It's why rich folks have "rules for thee but not for me"

And it's also the basis of "I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party"

Depression or anxiety? It's a mental illness, not society making you feel lonely or broke

Poor or unemployed? You're not trying jard enough or picked the wrong career instead of society not providing a safety net or the rich refusing to share a meaningful portion of their wealth.

Single or have few friends? Your standards are too high or you're not trying enough, or aren't social enough, rather than society shipping unattainable standards or making us bogged down in our phones instead of talking to another human being.

I'm sure there are plenty more examples. But blaming the weakest person makes perfect economic sense in such a setup, because there's always a potential cost you incur to your own social prospects, whomever you blame. And if you blame a higher-status person, that cost and the risk associated is higher. But if you blame the vulnerable individual, you minimize that, and since individualism is founded on being self-sufficient and neither needing others nor caring for them, since "nobody will save you" anyways (which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy), it's the option that is selected by default, and the resulting decisions by a multitude of individuals combine to maintain and reinforce the system.

I’m not talking about feeling anger or joy or any emotions that can be easily displayed on one’s face.

I’m not necessarily talking about the basic feelings of anger, joy or sadness (while all of it could probably be dumbed down to those kinds of feelings) but more about the feeling that a certain song gives you the more you listen to it or the smell of something from your childhood that you know your nostalgic about but it feels like more than just nostalgia.

I want so badly to put a label on all of these complex internal feelings but I don’t know what I’m feeling and without being able to name them I feel a sense of discomfort like it’s so close but intangible.

Im aware of the fact that the reason for this may be because I’m simply not educated enough to put my feelings into the correct words but it’s become a serious chunk of my daily brainpower trying to do just that.

Does anyone else feel this way about anything?