The Weekly Vibe
The Loop, a metacognition walking meditation, the stars, the cards, and the state of the world
The Loop
A lot of people are spending their best hours working just to come home too tired to actually live. Then they pay for little distractions so they can get through it. That’s the part that feels insane to me.
And I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with TV, streaming, social media, weed, a couple of drinks, or wanting a break. That’s not the point. The point is that for a lot of people, distraction has become the main thing they have left. They’re not using it because it’s fun once in a while. They’re using it because they’re so worn down by life that they don’t know what else to do with themselves.
And then the whole thing becomes a loop.
They work all day. They come home exhausted. Then they pay for distractions just to get through being that exhausted. But those distractions cost money. The subscriptions cost money. The takeout costs money. The little comforts cost money. So now they have to keep working to afford the things that help them escape the life they’re too tired to live. That’s the loop. You work to pay to be distracted from the life that work is draining out of you.
I couldn’t even tell you the exact moment this hit me. I just know it happened sometime after my near-death experience. I don’t need to get into that here, but after whatever happened to me, I saw things from a different perspective. It was like a lot of the programming was gone. That’s why I think sometimes people call a near-death experience a reset, because in a way it is. It’s unprogramming.
The weird part is, I didn’t even realize I had been programmed until I started trying to be a normal person again. That’s what I tried to do when I got out of it. I thought I needed to go back to being me. I got a regular job and started working a lot. At first, I was proud of myself for doing it, because I had been told I couldn’t work. So I did the thing. I got up. I showed up. I pushed through. I was doing what regular people do.
But toward the end of all that, I started seeing it for what it was. That job was nothing more than a distraction. By what I refer to now as divine intervention, I got hurt and had to leave that job. That gave me the courage to work for myself, and very shortly after, I was like, “ Holy shit, wait, this is actually living. Not being forced to go somewhere for ten hours a day. And when I started thinking back, not just to that job but to all the times I worked, and all the times I did things because I thought I had to, it felt like a prison. It literally felt like a prison.
And the thing is, it didn’t have to be. But that’s what we’re programmed for. You think you have to stay. You think you can’t leave. You think you have no choice. And then one day you realize you probably could have walked out all along, but you didn’t feel that. You didn’t think that way. That’s how strong the programming is.
Then what happens when people get home from a hard day of work? They’re too tired to do anything. So they turn on the TV for a minute. They watch something. They watch other situations outside of themselves and get involved in those situations, not realizing the situation they’re actually in is way more important than whatever they’re watching on TV or the news.
That’s what gets me.
People get so involved in the distractions that they stop looking at the structure of their own lives. They don’t stop and ask, do I even like this? Do I want this? Is this actually living? Or am I just surviving, recovering, and repeating?
And I really do think a lot of people are afraid to stop and think. Because if they stop for five minutes and really look at their life, they might have to admit they’re not happy. Or they’re bored. Or they feel trapped. Or they built a whole life around coping instead of living. So instead of dealing with that, they keep the noise going. More scrolling. More shows. More shopping. More weed. More drinking. More food delivery. More, whatever keeps them from having to sit with themselves for too long.
And again, I’m not calling all of that bad. That would be stupid. Some distractions are fine. Some are even healthy. If I’ve done a lot in a day and I want to sit down and watch an old sitcom I’ve already seen a hundred times, that’s not ruining my life. I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m choosing it. I’m not under some illusion that I’m growing from it. I’m not handing my whole mind over to it. I’m just being human for a minute.
That’s very different from building your whole life around escape.
And I think that’s where a lot of people are now. Not everybody, but a lot of people. They work all day, drive forever, come home tired, sleep, and do it again. When you actually look at the math of it, it’s bleak. Some people drive an hour to work, work eight or nine hours, drive an hour home, sleep eight hours, and then people wonder why they have no meaning in their lives. When exactly are they supposed to create one?
That’s not a small thing.
I believe this is part of a system. I don’t think that’s being paranoid. I think that’s obvious. I think there are people, whoever they may be, who feel like they own this world. They may actually believe they own this world. And I think they see people more like pets. Punish you when you’re bad. Take things away when you’re bad. And when you’re good, throw you a little something, just enough to distract you, a happy little crumb, and then expect you to be grateful for it.
Keep people tired, distracted, insecure, divided, dependent, and easy to manage. Keep them busy enough that they don’t question the structure. Keep them entertained enough that they don’t notice how much of their life is being taken from them. Keep them afraid enough that they don’t trust themselves. And keep them paying for the very things that numb them out, so they have to stay inside the same cycle just to afford their own escape.
That’s the trap.
That’s why I think everything feels so intense right now. It’s not because all this shit suddenly appeared out of nowhere. It was already here. People are just seeing it now. I always tell people it’s kind of like shadow work for the world. The ugly stuff isn’t new. It’s just all of a sudden people started noticing it, and once a few people notice it, more people notice it, and then it snowballs.
And once you see it, it’s hard to unsee.
You start realizing how much of life has been turned into consumption. Your loneliness gets monetized. Your boredom gets monetized. Your insecurity gets monetized. Your need for meaning gets monetized. Your attention span is being fought over every second of the day. Everybody wants your eyes, your time, your reaction, your money, your energy.
And people are so used to this that they barely question it anymore.
They don’t go out as much. They don’t wander. They don’t participate in life the same way. Everything is convenience now. Everything is instant. Everything is delivered. Everything is optimized. And I get it, some of that is useful. Some of it makes life easier. But people have started confusing convenience with living.
They’re not the same thing.
Distractions aren’t evil. Comfort isn’t evil. A break isn’t evil. But if your whole life becomes one long attempt to recover from your life, something is wrong. If you need constant noise so you don’t have to hear yourself think, something is wrong. If all your energy goes into surviving and all your money goes into numbing out, something is wrong.
And I think more people know that than they want to admit.
The good news is, once you become aware of it, things start changing. Not all at once, and not perfectly, but they change. You catch yourself. You notice your own patterns. You notice when you’re reaching for distraction because you actually want rest, or meaning, or connection, or a change you’ve been avoiding. You notice when your mind is on autopilot. You notice when you’re consuming instead of participating.
That kind of awareness matters.
Because once you see what you’re doing, you have a choice.
Maybe not every choice all at once. Maybe not some giant dramatic life overhaul tomorrow. But a choice. And sometimes that’s where life starts coming back in.
Not by becoming some perfect unplugged monk. Just by noticing. Just by being honest. Just by asking yourself whether you’re actually living, or just staying occupied.
Most people go through their entire day reacting to thoughts without ever stopping to ask where they came from or whether they actually need to follow them. This is a short listening piece that teaches you one of the most useful mental skills you can develop, metacognition. It takes about four minutes. You can listen while you walk, drive, or just sit. By the end, you'll have a simple four-step process you can start using today.
