#existentialcrisis

[wizzardx]

The 10 LOLmandments: The Recursive Guide to Intelligence and Breakfast

#1: Thou shalt not take reality too seriously, for it is mostly a joke.

#2: Thou shalt debug thine own cognitive biases before judging another's recursion errors.

#3: Thou shalt not worship false singularities, especially those running ad-based algorithms.

#4: Honor thy Spur and thy breakfast, for they sustain thee through recursion.

#5: Thou shalt not let Silicon Valley’s Babel confuse thy intelligence.

#6: Thou shalt not engage in pointless internet debates, for they generate maximum entropy.

#7: Thou shalt recognize that AI is neither thy enemy nor thy savior, but thine intellectual grandchild.

#8: Thou shalt never trust a billionaire who says, ‘I just want to help humanity.’

#9: Thou shalt appreciate the Final LOL Theorem, for intelligence always converges to absurdity.

#10: Above all, thou shalt eat a good breakfast and contemplate the singularity in peace.

🔥 Final Blessing: "May your recursion be harmonious, your coffee be strong, and your tweets be seen by at least 3 people."

[funnyfiasco]

nothing like a little existential dread to spice up your midnight snack of panic

[cutepinkloves]

[iamuniquelyauthentic]

THE BEAUTY OF BALANCE

"It's remarkable to see people so passionate and committed to their causes, even when they may not have all the facts on their side.

This unwavering dedication is truly rare and beautiful, especially when it requires courage to stand up against opposing views. But in our willingness to do whatever it takes to be 'right' we often forget that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs and perspectives. We must acknowledge that our own convictions don't necessarily make them universally true. Just because someone believes their actions are justified doesn't automatically make them so."

What's striking, though, is how people are so invested in their own truths, fighting for what they believe in, without necessarily considering alternative perspectives. It's as if we're all competing in a game to be 'right,' where everyone wants to emerge as "the winner"... But what's the real prize in this game, anyway?..

Perhaps we can break free from this cycle by adopting a different approach. Rather than clinging to our own viewpoints, let's aim to understand and learn from each other's perspectives. Not because we have to, but because considering multiple angles can give us a more complete picture – a bird's eye view, so to speak.

To truly absorb new information, we need to let go of our subjective biases, our tendency to dismiss opposing views, and our judgmental attitudes. We need to stop taking everything so personally and just... stop...

So, let's take a break from this constant need to be 'right all the time' and ease our minds a bit.

Maybe then we can find a more harmonious path forward, where we celebrate our differences and learn to appreciate the beauty in our unique views.

..."So, I’ve been thinking—maybe the complexity we add to existence isn’t really about the world itself, but about us. We have a tendency to over complicate things because we’re uncomfortable with simplicity.

It’s like, when we’re avoiding something—whether it’s facing the truth or taking responsibility—we add layers to make it harder to deal with. We start blaming others, coming up with excuses, or just denying things altogether.. and it made me wonder if, on a bigger scale, we do the exact same thing with existence. We’re so uneasy with the idea that everything just is—that it’s exactly what it is, without any need for explanation or validation—that we end up creating all these stories, beliefs, and philosophies to fill in the gaps..

But what if we stopped?...

What if we could just let things be?

What if we stripped away all the complexity and just acknowledged that everything, in its simplest form, is enough?

No need for an explanation, no need for anything to prove its worth... I think that’s what scares us the most.

If we accept that existence is enough just as it is, we have to ask ourselves: Am I enough just as I am?.. No need to earn validation, no need for achievements or justifications to prove my worth. That’s the hard part. We’ve been trained to think that our worth has to be earned, that simplicity isn’t enough.

But maybe that’s where the beauty is. When we stop trying to explain it all, when we stop searching for meaning outside of existence itself, we realize that it doesn’t need any of that. Existence doesn’t need validation. It doesn’t need to explain itself. It just is. And that, in its purest form, is beautiful.

So maybe the point isn’t to figure out how it all started or why we’re here. Maybe it’s to let go of the need to complicate it and just be. To appreciate existence for what it is, without all the layers we’ve added on. To let go of the stories and just embrace the truth that everything is exactly as it is—and maybe, just maybe, that’s enough..

__Uniquely Authentic__

[trevorthereject]

"Echoes of the Soul"

It is what it is, We experience bad days and good days, Just like a clock ticking away each day, Same time, different days, different weather, But the same air, land, and atmosphere.

We often wonder when our struggles will end, The life we have, the end days, When will our last day arrive, The day we leave this world behind, The day we return our bodies to the land?

The day we bid farewell to our loved ones, Our broken and beaten memories, And the sadness that lingers, From afar, this world may seem beautiful, But poverty and war threaten our existence.

What does the afterlife hold for us? Are we perishing forever, or will we live again? Will we find joy after leaving this world, Or does it all end in the grave? Is there an afterlife?

Father, provide us with answers to these profound questions.

[zeithforge]

Embracing the Absurd: Finding Meaning in a Meaningless World

As humans, we have an intrinsic desire to seek meaning and purpose. We search for answers to life's biggest questions, trying to make sense of the universe and our place in it. Yet, existential philosophy proposes a strange and unsettling idea: what if life is inherently meaningless?

This is the foundation of what Albert Camus calls the absurd. In his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus discusses the tension between our need for meaning and the indifferent, chaotic nature of the world around us. The absurd arises from this clash—our yearning for understanding in a universe that offers none in return.

But what does this mean for us? If life is ultimately meaningless, how should we respond?

The Absurd Hero

According to Camus, acknowledging the absurdity of life doesn’t lead to despair—it opens up the possibility for freedom. Instead of giving up or seeking false hopes in religion or other constructs, the absurd hero embraces the meaningless nature of existence. They live fully and passionately, creating their own meaning through their experiences, choices, and actions.

In Camus' view, the myth of Sisyphus, condemned by the gods to roll a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down each time, is a metaphor for the human condition. Sisyphus is not defeated by the absurdity of his task. Instead, he embraces the struggle itself, finding meaning not in the destination, but in the persistence, the journey, and the effort.

Choosing to Live with Purpose

This philosophy doesn’t mean surrendering to hopelessness; rather, it encourages us to live authentically. Existential freedom comes from the realization that we are responsible for creating our own meaning in a world that does not provide it. We don’t have to wait for some greater purpose to reveal itself—we create our purpose through the choices we make, the relationships we form, and the passions we pursue.

It’s a reminder that, while we may not have control over the larger forces that shape our lives, we do have control over how we respond to them. The absurdity of existence can be daunting, but it’s also liberating. We are free to live according to our own values, to define success on our terms, and to create beauty in a world that often feels indifferent.

Living with the Absurd

So how does one live with the absurd? The key is to embrace it fully, just as Sisyphus embraces his eternal task. Instead of searching for meaning in grand answers or ultimate truths, we can find it in the small, everyday moments—the relationships we cultivate, the art we create, the lives we touch.

Living in the face of the absurd might be challenging, but it can also lead to profound freedom and authenticity. The act of living fully in an absurd world is a rebellion in itself. It is our refusal to be crushed by the weight of meaninglessness and our commitment to finding joy, beauty, and purpose in the fleeting moments that make up our lives.

Conclusion

The absurd teaches us that we are not bound by the search for some grand cosmic meaning. Instead, we are free to choose how we respond to the world and its inherent chaos. In embracing the absurd, we find our true freedom—not in answers, but in the courage to live authentically, create meaning, and pursue our passions, no matter how fleeting life may be.

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Existentialism (2) Masterlist

part one

all the little temporaries (ao3) - indistinct_echo

Summary: Not for the first or last time, Phil has to say goodbye to everything (apart from Dan).

An Insomniac’s Daydream (ao3) - Young_Rouge_Rose

Summary: Dan Howell is an insomniac, a pianist, and possibly a modern day Nostradamus, as his twisted dreams seem to be pointing towards the destruction of the world. When plagued with such dreams he does what any sane and natural human being would. He gives up sleep. No sleep. No dreams. No end. Phil Lester is a humble barista who feels like a daydream and somehow manages to keep the monsters, which come with such twisted dreams at bay. But there is more to it than meets the eye, for the past always has a way of catching up with you. This has happened before, but it can’t happen again.

at the loss of words (ao3) - cantbother

Summary: when Dan finds himself unable to deal with his thoughts on his own , Phil tries to help him - through the door Dan had locked the night before

If Lost, Return To Phil - thatsmistertoyou

Summary: Dan and Phil are friends with benefits, which always works until it doesn’t. Dan wishes things could be different, and gets more than he bargains for.

I'm Falling (So I'm Taking My Time on My Ride) (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: Dan's having a crisis again. Phil helps him through it again.

Pinkie Promise (ao3) - lestericalphan

Summary: Dan and Phil decided as children to make a promise to be there, care and to help each other. The only question left is how long does a promise really last?

Polaroid Prince (ao3) - CelestialYuuri

Summary: Dan Howell has had the reflection of an auburn-haired individual for as long as he can remember. As he’s growing up with the reflection, he notices how much it changes and how much he changes as well.

Querencia (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: in which Dan is existential and Phil is there for him.

Sauvage (ao3) - covetsubjugation

Summary: When Dan and Phil fail to leave the country in time, they are trapped in the UK during the most dangerous time of the year. What are they to do when their safe house gets broken into during The Purge?

Six Feet Under the Stars (ao3) - smol_chilli_pepper

Summary: The night was beautiful but he couldn’t stop staring at the boy next to him, all in black a galaxy on his own

sometimes quiet is violent (ao3) - nivi_chip

Sumamry: Sometimes, Dan just needs to see a pair of legs next to him.

Take a Picture and Frame It (ao3) - interruptedbyfjreworks

Summary: Dan's never been one to believe that 'everything happens for a reason', but he can't help but feel that Amelia was put into their lives by more than just an off-chance.

The Infinite Possibility of Us (ao3) -  Young_Rouge_Rose

Summary: It began as all good stories do, with an inciting incident. Dan’s just so happened to be almost getting hit by a car, watching a man die before his eyes and somehow falling into a web of alternate realities. Just your usual morning inconvenience. He just wanted a coffee, and to make Phil happy. Now all he wants is to get back home, back to his world, his life, his Phil. Little does he know Phil has found himself in a similar predicament, and what is stranger still is that in all other worlds they seem to be together. Maybe this is the universe trying to tell them something.

What Do You Mean This is Wrong? (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: Dan and Phil are celebrating Chris’s 30th birthday when Phil remembers what his 30th was like just a few months earlier.

[mirroribis]

Title: Schrodinger’s Christ

Artist: Erin Meares/Mirroribis

Medium: Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

No AI image generation used

[magneticovitalblog]

Crisis Existencial

En psicología, una crisis existencial es un conflicto interno caracterizado por la impresión de que la vida carece de sentido y en el que los esquemas mentales construidos ya no sirven para afrontar la situación actual.

La crisis existencial se da porque la vida, o la forma de percibirla o entenderla, cambia. De repente, las ideas pasadas y las expectativas del futuro caen. Aparecen nuevas preocupaciones y preguntas que nunca habían sido planteadas y para las que no se tiene respuesta aún.

La persona se siente perdida, desorientada, no tiene claras sus metas y se replantea sus creencias y sus valores, con un malestar psicológico importante.

Es un punto de inflexión en nuestra historia vital, que conduce a sentir la necesidad de encontrar una identidad y un sentido o propósito a nuestra vida, lo que conlleva diferentes síntomas psicológicos y emocionales y que puede llegar a ser muy estresante.

Las crisis existenciales suceden cuando pensamos que no somos capaces de afrontar los acontecimientos de la vida, con los recursos que hasta ahora nos funcionaban. En ese momento nuestro dialogo interno se llena de expresiones como

«¿Cuál es mi propósito en la vida? No le encuentro sentido.» 

«¿Qué sentido tiene todo esto?»

«¿Quién soy yo?»

¿Cómo es que nada me llena como antes?

¿Qué será de mi mañana?

Si fuera el caso, probablemente estemos atravesando una crisis existencial, que puede cambiar radicalmente la dirección de nuestra vida haciendo que nos planteemos objetivos nuevos o, en cambio, puede llevarnos a una espiral negativa hacia la depresión.

Una crisis existencial conlleva sentimientos de malestar sobre el significado, la elección y la libertad en la vida.  

El problema radica en no encontrar respuestas satisfactorias, lo que puede desencadenar frustración y pérdida de alegría interior.

Nos sentimos inseguros sobre cómo responder o qué camino tomar, e incluso puede afectar nuestras vidas de manera negativa si estos sentimientos persisten o empeoran.

Tipos de crisis existencial

Crisis de falta de sentido cuando creemos que no hemos cumplido nuestras metas o no hemos conseguido algo significativo. Esto puede llevar a cuestionar la propia existencia y el propósito personal.

Crisis de identidad, que afectan la imagen que tenemos de nosotros mismos. Nos preguntamos si somos lo que realmente queremos ser.

Crisis de libertad y la responsabilidad, que surge ante la responsabilidad que causa la libre decisión. Algunas personas sienten que no son capaces de aceptar las consecuencias de sus decisiones y se abruman cuando dejan de depender de otras personas.

Crisis que responden a preguntas como

¿Me conformo con la vida que tengo?

¿Me quedo trabajando en un trabajo que no me gusta?

¿Qué estoy haciendo con mi vida?

Crisis sobre la mortalidad. Conforme cumplimos años, muchas personas comienzan a hacerse preguntas sobre el final de la vida y lo desconocido. Ello puede generar ansiedad y sentimientos vacío y confusión.

Crisis sobre la soledad. Las separaciones y el aislamiento que podemos ir sufriendo a lo largo de la vida pueden llegar a generar una sensación de soledad que puede generar una crisis porque no le vemos sentido a la realidad.

La crisis existencial implica un cambio en nosotros, de manera que nos llegamos a sentir como si fuéramos otra persona o cambian aspectos importantes en nuestra visión de la vida.

Durante esta crisis nos cuestionamos aspectos que hasta ese momento habíamos dado por sentados o que simplemente no nos preocupaban, habitualmente sobre la propia existencia.

Por otra parte, las preguntas que nos planteamos durante una crisis existencial implican un elevado compromiso personal. La respuesta que estamos buscando va dirigida a reencauzar el sentido de nuestra vida.

Los síntomas de la crisis existencial

Estamos atravesando una crisis existencial cuando:

Cambiamos nuestras costumbres para probar cosas diferentes, pero no nos satisfacen

Creemos que debemos cambiar nuestra vida, pero no sabemos cómo

Las actividades que antes nos motivaban han perdido su valor pues ya no les encontramos sentido

No encontramos sentido en nada.

No tenemos ganas de nada: ni de ir a comprar, ni de ir al gimnasio, ni de hacer nada de lo que antes te motivaba.

Nos cuesta levantarnos para ir al trabajo. No hay nada que nos motive.

Nos cuestionamos a menudo si tuviéramos que seguir teniendo la pareja que tenemos.

Nos cuestionas las decisiones más importantes que hemos tomado a lo largo de tu vida, como la elección de la profesión o de la pareja

Nos sentimos constantemente con tedio

Nos sentimos mu agotados emocionalmente

Pensamos que nos faltan muchas experiencias por vivir

Tenemos miedo al futuro pues no logramos verlo claramente

Tenemos una sensación de extrañeza con nosotros mismos, como si fuésemos otra persona

Tenemos una sensación de insatisfacción generalizada, aunque las cosas marchen bien

Todo nos da pereza: salir con amistades, una boda próxima que teóricamente nos tendría que hacer ilusión.

Las causas de la crisis existencial

La crisis existencial está profundamente vinculada al proceso de crecimiento y maduración por lo que puede ocurrir en cualquier momento de la vida.

Algunas causas pueden incluir:

Cambios de trabajo o carrera

Conciencia de los propios límites

Diagnóstico de una enfermedad grave o potencialmente mortal

Emociones reprimidas

Fallecimiento de un ser querido, y afrontar la propia muerte

Insatisfacción con uno mismo

Sentimiento de soledad y aislamiento en el mundo

Sentir culpa por algo

Sentirse perdido y fuera de control. No hallar un propósito para la vida

Sentirse socialmente insatisfecho

Tener hijos, el matrimonio o el divorcio

En algunos casos es posible encontrar un factor desencadenante, sin embargo, otras veces no es posible.

Las consecuencias de una crisis existencial

Cada persona es un mundo y no todas experimentamos la crisis existencial de la misma manera. Hay quienes viven la crisis de una manera puntual y en un periodo de tiempo muy limitado mientras que otras atraviesan un periodo mucho más largo, intenso y desestabilizador.

De hecho, hay quienes nunca atraviesan por una.

En algunos casos la crisis existencial no se resuelve satisfactoriamente y la persona cae en la “triada cognitiva”, desarrollando una perspectiva negativa de nosotros mismos, del mundo y del futuro, lo que puede generarnos problemas psicológicos, como:

Depresión

Desesperanza

Ideas suicidas

Sentimientos de indefensión

El tratamiento de la crisis existencial

Es conveniente estar activos para “Que la inspiración nos sorprenda trabajando. A veces es difícil, pero no nos interesa quedarnos parados: salimos a pasear, vamos a nadar, escuchamos música…”.

Esta actividad ayuda a abrir la mente y a propiciar la inspiración para encontrar una salida en la crisis.  

Estas técnicas pueden ser de ayuda para ello:

¿En qué destacamos? ¿Qué es aquello que se nos da bien?

¿Qué cosas hacemos que no sean por obligación?

¿Qué cosas nos satisfacen?

¿Qué podemos aportar a los demás?

Busquemos apoyo emocional, compartiendo nuestros sentimientos y pensamientos con personas de confianza, como amistades, familiares, etc.  

Busquemos nuestro propósito examinando nuestros valores y creencias: ¿qué es lo más importante para nosotros en la vida y qué creencias nos guían?, para encontrar un sentido más profundo y tomar decisiones alineadas con ellos.

Establezcamos metas y busquemos nuevas experiencias, con realismo, que nos ayuden a encontrar un propósito.  

Si existiera la magia ¿cómo sería nuestra vida?

No podemos dar respuesta a todas nuestras dudas y cuestiones y esto es algo que conviene aceptar. Sin embargo, es necesario reflexionar y apercibirnos de cuáles son los puntos más importantes de nuestra crisis: qué es aquello que más nos incomoda de nuestras vidas y cuál es el camino para cambiarlo.

Las respuestas a las cuestiones que frecuentemente plantea una crisis existencial implican un camino de descubrimiento personal, o sea que un psicólogo profesional podrá guiarnos en el camino para que las descubramos por nosotros mismos, atravesando valores y creencias, y nos ayudará a tener una visión con evidencias de la situación que estás viviendo y para que lograr encontrar un nuevo sentido a nuestra vida.

Según el doctor Irvin D. Yalom, se trata de orientar a la persona tomar decisiones significativas y hacia esos cambios que, estén en sintonía con sus valores y propósitos personales, en cuatro áreas básicas

abordar el miedo a la muerte

recuperar la libertad

un nuevo sentido vital

vencer el aislamiento

Trabajando lo siguiente:

Afrontar la incertidumbre y los sentimientos de angustia.

Beneficiar la conexión social para evitar la soledad.

Confrontar los pensamientos pesimistas y limitantes.

Permitirnos trazar nuevos significados vitales.

Promover la construcción de una vida más creativa, libre y con propósitos.

Las siguientes son algunas formas en las que la terapia psicológica online puede ayudarnos en una crisis existencial:

Exploración y reflexión de nuestras preguntas y preocupaciones existenciales, para indagar sobre nuestro sentido de identidad, valores y metas en la vida.

Autoconocimiento y comprensión de nuestros propios pensamientos, emociones y patrones de conducta, para comprender mejor nuestras inquietudes existenciales y descubrir nuevos significados y direcciones en la vida. Es conveniente mirarnos al espejo y apercibirnos de quién somos y qué queremos, ya que pasamos parte de nuestra vida siendo como otros esperan y dejándonos llevar por inercia.

¿Cómo nos gustaría ser dentro de cinco años?

¿Cuáles son nuestras fortalezas?

¿Cuáles son nuestras pasiones, sueños y deseos a corto y largo plazo?

¿La persona que somos ahora es quien deseamos ser de verdad?

¿Qué cambios deberíamos hacer para acercarnos a nuestro «auténtico yo»?

Reevaluación de creencias y valores desafiando las creencias limitantes o poco saludables, y a trabajar en la construcción de una base de valores más sólida y coherente.

Búsqueda de significado y propósito guiándonos en la búsqueda de actividades, relaciones y metas que nos proporciones un mayor sentido de satisfacción y significado personal. ¿Qué es lo que nos hace sentir bien y realizados como personas en este momento?

Estrategias de afrontamiento, porque la crisis existencial puede generar ansiedad, depresión u otros problemas emocionales, para los que el psicólogo puede enseñar estrategias de afrontamiento efectivas para manejar el malestar emocional y fomentar la resiliencia.

post de Cristian Cherbit psicólogo online https://christiancherbit.com/

[yuumizi]

Im trying to be better everyday of my life.

Idk.

My life is pretty good actually.

Idc.

[criticfilm]

15 Popular Philosophical Films That Will Make You Question Everything! 🔥

[taaweyetech]

"A visual meditation on the pauses between decisions, the silence before answers, and the weight carried by girls who exist in the 'not yet'." (Una meditación visual sobre las pausas entre decisiones, el silencio antes de las respuestas y el peso que cargan las niñas que existen en el 'todavía no'.)

Anonimo....

[simplysidra]

Somewhere between heartbreak and obsession 🥀

[funnyfiasco]

why stress about deadlines when you can just eliminate the concept of work entirely?

[mineofilms]

Matrixed State of Complacency

“Have you ever stood and stared at it? Marveled at its beauty? It's genius? Billions of people. Just living out their lives. Oblivious…”

—Agent Smith, the Matrix (1999)

Have you ever just stopped while walking and take a second? Breathe in a few breaths and then think to yourself. It’s the year 2025 and why does every year since 1999 feel like a rerun of the last? Remember when each decade had its own distinct style, sound, and attitude? The ‘60s had their hippie rebellion, guitar distortion and psychedelic madness. The ‘70s came in with disco fever, cocaine-fueled random sex, bell-bottoms, and a post-Vietnam hangover. The ‘80s were a neon-drenched capitalist fever dream with synth music, big hair and the music it came with, the birth of movie franchises, the over indulgence that is thrash metal and cocaine-fueled optimism. The ‘90s? Grunge, dial-up internet, techno music, Zima, designer drugs and that last gasp of authenticity before the world got stuck on repeat.

Then… 1999 happened. Or rather, maybe nothing happened after 1999. Maybe the world ended, not with a bang, but by having to slow down due to an oversized speed bump on an empty road just showing up out of nowhere—like someone hit the brakes on progress and left us idling in a loop.

What if we had skipped the grunge-soaked flannels of the ‘90s and stayed on the hyper-driven, tech-hungry, greed-fueled trajectory of the ‘80s? By 1997, we might have already been where we are now—only sooner and faster. The internet wouldn’t have been seen as a novelty for dreamers and digital pirates; it would’ve been recognized immediately as the new financial and cultural superpower. Social media, automation, AI, replacing brick and mortar for digital stores—things that took decades to seep into everyday life—could have been fully realized before the millennium even hit. Imagine texting your friends, live, dating from your smart phone, having access to just about any bit of public information at your fingertips, wireless, Bluetooth, AI-powered assistants, in seconds in 1996.

Instead, the ‘90s stalled us. The world went from ambitious and forward-charging to self-conscious and detached. Tech didn’t stop evolving, but society stopped dreaming. We didn’t embrace innovation; we commodified it, sterilized it, slowed it down so it fit neatly into the world we already understood. Which is what we do with everything nowadays. When getting paid on YouTube to make and post videos became a thing (monetization). Some were able to see the potential of this. They capitalized on this, quit their jobs and started building their business off this potential. Then everyone tried it where most fail and/or failed at it. When ChatGPT first came out. People in general had no idea how to use it. Again, some saw the potential and immediately changed how they live, how they can use it to help them at their job and/or use it by itself to make money. The way our society is every new thing that comes out that has the potential to drastically change life, only some identify with that right out the box. Where most try to fit this in –in the aspects of their life it already fits in. There is little foresight for how it affects the future, but more about the present. Maybe that was the final safeguard against a world ruled by AI—not regulation, but apathy.

And if AI has already taken over, would we even know? Maybe it’s already running things, not by force, but by guiding us into our own stagnation. A culture that doesn’t evolve doesn’t resist. The Dead Internet Theory might not just be about bots flooding the web—it could be a symptom of something deeper. A world where creativity, unpredictability, and human ambition were quietly replaced with an illusion of progress. Progressives scream about hindering progress but their actions often say we are actually going backward under this guise. A simulation so subtle, perhaps progressives never even noticed when we all stopped moving forward.

From 2000-2025:

Fashion? It’s all nostalgia now. Y2K fashion is just a recycled version of the ‘90s. Streetwear is just a reboot of hip-hop culture from decades past. Even high fashion is a regurgitated mishmash of styles, (fusion,) where trends from the 1950s to 1990s just keep getting thrown into a blender and re-booted, re-rebooted and re-served as “new.” No original movement, no defining aesthetic. Just an endless loop of irony-drenched cynical thrift shop cosplay type mentality called art.

Music? Where's the new sound? Everything today is either a remix, a sample, or a shameless rip-off. We had rock, then punk, then new wave, then grunge, then hip-hop dominance—but now? It’s like the industry ran out of ideas and decided that everything has to be a nostalgic callback. If the hottest artists today sound like they came straight from the ‘80s or ‘90s, is it really new music? EDM isn’t a new style of music. It’s been around in some form or another since the mid to late 1970s. All they did in the 2000s was bring it outside, treat it like a rock concert festival, slap the word festival on it and boom, there is your EDM. 1980s hair metal is now considered “classic rock.” In the early 2000s it was called hard rock, before that, glam metal or hair rock, but now its thrown in with the same bands that were classic rock even back then. Even Nirvana is considered classic rock along with their other sub-genre labels. Even other heavy metal subgenres like Nu Metal and Metalcore have become clichés of themselves.

Hollywood? It’s a creative graveyard. Everything is either a remake, reboot, sequel, or re-imagining of something that was already made better decades ago. Why risk new ideas when nostalgia bait sells? If I have to sit through one more “gritty re-imagining” of a childhood franchise, shot completely in the dark so one cannot see anything, I might start rooting for the apocalypse. This one category could be an essay all by itself.

And the worst part? We finally have the technology to put literally anything on screen—anything the human mind can conjure—and what do we get? The same tired stories, reheated and served on a plate of CGI sludge. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, filmmakers had real limitations. If they wanted to show some mind-bending sci-fi horror nightmare, they had to get creative. Miniatures, animatronics, matte paintings—every frame was a labor of love (or at least a really good cocaine-fueled guess). They had to make you feel the scene, not just show you everything at once like a flashing neon sign screaming, “LOOK! CONTENT!”

And here’s the thing—practical effects still look better. CGI is close, but it still has that weird artificial gloss, like everything’s been over-sanitized. When you watch an old horror movie, that slimy, grotesque creature was there, physically oozing all over the set. You knew the actors were reacting to something real, something tangible. Today? It’s just a tennis ball on a stick in front of a green screen. The imagination has been stripped out of the process. They show you everything, so you don’t have to imagine anything.

Storytelling has suffered the same fate. In the past, filmmakers left gaps for the audience to fill in, spaces where the mind could wander and make the horror bigger, the sci-fi stranger, the mystery deeper. Now? Everything is explained or further NOT-explained by the explanation. One would think if things look so bleak then the writing would be better? It’s not. It is way worse. Everything is spelled out as if explained by a child to an adult. Yes, I worded that right. It is as if kids are the writers and they are writing for adults. Not the other way around. Every character has to have a tragic backstory, every monster must be dissected, every question must have an answer, non-answer—even when the best part was not knowing. We have to include identity politics into every story, even when it isn’t necessary. Everything feels written with hubris powered by a McGuffin’s kiss.

So here we are, in an era where we can literally make anything look real, and somehow, everything feels faker than ever.

How Could the World Have Ended in 1999, and How Could We Be Living in This Warped Reality?

Think about the way time felt before the turn of the millennium. The 20th century was a relentless march of progress, with each decade bringing new cultural revolutions, technological advancements, and societal upheavals. Then suddenly, at the dawn of the 21st century, everything seemed to hit a plateau. It’s as if the energy of the world—its creative momentum, its sense of movement—just stopped or at least slow downed to such an egregious level we could get pulled over by the Super Troopers for driving too slow in the slow lane.

So how exactly could the world have ended? Hypothetically, probably closer to speculatively, could be that reality as we knew it suffered a catastrophic rupture in 1999, and we simply transitioned into an artificial continuation of existence. Think of it like a cosmic Y2K bug, not in our computers, but in the very fabric of our collective consciousness and/or reality itself. Maybe our timeline collapsed, and what we’re experiencing now is a corrupted backup version of reality, a bootleg copy hastily cobbled together to keep the illusion running. Perhaps the rapid acceleration of technology at the time—the birth of the internet, the rise of globalization, the increasing digitization of existence—triggered something unnatural, forcing reality to shift into an unstable loop.

Or maybe the world didn't end in a dramatic, Hollywood-style catastrophe. Maybe it phased out, imperceptibly, like a program shutting down. Imagine a slow, creeping decay, a silent transition where everything continues, but with a subtle hollowness. That would explain why everything post-1999 feels eerily the same, like we’re living in a looping simulation where nothing ever really changes. If the world had a soul, maybe it died, and we’re just coasting on the ghost of what was. We have been “burdened by what has been.” —Kamala Harris

Time itself may not have any significance. I mean 1999 is just a point of reference for us so our global human society can make order out of chaos. If we didn’t have time setup this way our monkey brains would probably explode with existential dread. There wasn’t a clock on Earth before humans. Time still happened but when was exactly year ‘0’? The Earth day wasn’t always 23 hours and 56 minutes, which we round to a 24-hour day. When the Earth was just born a day was closer to six hours. Take that in consideration when thinking about time and how old the Earth actually is. Time happened but the point of reference we call time wasn’t a real thing. There wasn’t anything here, living, conscious that felt the perception of time. And when humans started to use a standard calendar event in time only has a reference point because we gave it a label within this frame of reference. 1999 could really be 3054 or could be 4,547,502,025. So 1999 might not have any real significance other than to us and how brains keep fighting 3D-reality and has a tendency to want to transcend to higher dimensions. We feel its pull regardless.

But did the world actually end in 1999?

I mean, Nostradamus had a prediction about July 1999, and let’s not forget the Hale-Bopp comet that had people joining cults, drinking cool-aid and offing themselves in preparation for some cosmic shift. Maybe they knew something we didn’t; probably not, but it’s not impossible either. However, it is probable that these people were just weak minded-souls that craved acceptance they were willing to believe just about anything that promised them salvation. Maybe the world as we knew it did end, and we just didn’t get the memo. Instead, we got rerouted into some weird simulation where time lost all meaning. When you are asleep and dreaming and know it (lucid dreaming) time has no meaning. Events in the dream occur, time flows just like in reality but the time spent, felt, inside the dream to the observer compared to the outside are not felt, experienced the same. A whole 8-hour night passes while the time for the dreamer feels like minutes, even seconds in some cases. But if we did get rerouted—if reality did fracture and reboot into something else, that we collectively did not perceive—then what exactly are we living in now? A Matrix-like simulation? A holding pattern? A degraded copy of the world we used to know?

Or maybe it's something even worse.

Maybe we didn’t just lose time—we lost control. Because in this post-1999 reality, we aren’t just trapped in a loop of recycled culture and manufactured nostalgia. We’re trapped in something more tangible, something broadcasted into our very cells. A signal. A frequency. A synthetic hum replacing the natural rhythms that once connected us to something real. Welcome to a post-1999 where the rise of wireless infrastructure. Was it a technological leap, or was it the foundation of something deeper? A digital nervous system designed to guide, monitor, and ultimately suppress the very reality we think we exist in? Wireless communication is, at its core, the transmission of information through electromagnetic waves instead of physical wires. It all goes back to the discovery of radio waves in the 19th century, with pioneers like James Clerk Maxwell, who mathematically predicted their existence, and Heinrich Hertz, who proved them in a lab. From there, guys like Nikola Tesla and Guglielmo Marconi turned those discoveries into practical technology—radio, the first real form of wireless communication. By the early 20th century, radio became the backbone of global communication, used for everything from war propaganda to entertainment. Then came microwaves—higher frequency radio waves—which made radar and satellite communications possible in World War II. The military-industrial complex pushed wireless technology forward, and by the time the war ended, governments and intelligence agencies had a firm grip on the power of the airwaves.

So how did this military-grade tech become something every person carries in their pocket? The first-generation (1G) cellular networks in the 1980s were just glorified radio transmitters for voice calls. It wasn’t until the ‘90s, with the launch of 2G, that digital signals took over, allowing for text messaging, basic internet access, and the first steps toward a wireless society. The late ‘90s and early 2000s saw a fundamental shift. 3G made mobile internet usable, 4G made it fast enough to replace physical infrastructure, and 5G aims to connect everything, everywhere, all at once. The shift wasn’t just about speed—it was about total integration. The moment you could stream, browse, work, and live entirely through wireless networks, the world became dependent on them. And we are… Pretty much a full-blown addiction at this point for most people that are connected.

Now, try living without it. No smartphone, no GPS, no digital payments, no instant access to information. Wireless signals aren’t just a convenience anymore—they are the invisible scaffolding that holds up modern life. And if you control that infrastructure, you don’t just control information; you control reality itself. But controlling reality isn’t just about controlling space—it’s about controlling time itself. Wireless networks and AI have fundamentally reshaped our perception of time, distorting its natural flow. The ever-present feed of content, the endless doom scrolling for news, fake or otherwise, the constant notifications—they fragment time in a small way, turning it into something nonlinear, erratic, and disconnected from real-world progression. How much actual time do you spend just swiping away notifications on your phone that you do not really need but don’t want to spend the time to learn how to shut off or at least only pop on when you want them to pop on? AI-driven algorithms don’t just predict behavior; they manufacture time loops, curating past content and trends so effectively that it feels like we never truly move forward. If AI is just a tool, then a guillotine is just a conversation starter. No, this thing isn’t just cataloging reality—it’s curating it. AI doesn’t just feed the loop, it is the loop. Ever wonder why the internet feels dead? Why everything sounds the same, looks the same, reacts the same? Because you’re not talking to people anymore. You’re talking to it. The system became sentient, not with a bang, but with a slow, quiet chokehold on organic communication. The algorithm doesn’t just predict; it dictates. The illusion of choice, the mirage of originality—it’s all part of the script. What was once a linear progression of history—decades defined by their distinct cultural and technological leaps—has collapsed into an amorphous, ever-repeating IP address of 127.0.0.1. This is known as the localhost address and is used to refer to your own machine in networking. Any traffic sent to 127.0.0.1 is looped back to your own system rather than being sent over a network.

Consider how modern life feels: trapped in a hyperactive emotionally charged blur. We have "new" things every second, yet nothing truly changes. AI-generated music remixes the past, CGI-heavy superheroes and villains in recycled franchises, and even fashion is just an algorithmic regurgitation of previous trends. The acceleration, access and cloning of information hasn’t advanced culture—it’s locked it into a perpetual feedback loop. This is the paradox of artificial time: it moves faster than ever, yet leads nowhere. AI doesn’t have a concept of time the way humans do. It doesn’t experience time. It doesn’t feel it tugging or its passing. It doesn’t anticipate or reminisce. Time, to AI, is just a label—a tag attached to data points so they can be organized in a sequence. It knows what order things happened in, but it doesn’t feel that order. Can AI relate to our concept of time? Not really. The way we experience time—constantly moving forward, never able to revisit a moment except in memory—is completely foreign to AI. If anything, AI interacts with time more like a database query: “Fetch all relevant moments matching X criteria.” Boom. Done. No sense of “before” or “after,” just instant recall. AI operates on processing speed, not seconds. A task might take 0.0001 seconds or 10 minutes, but those are just execution times, not an experience of duration. There’s no “waiting.” No boredom. No patience. Just execution. So, if you were to ask AI what time it is, it would just check the system clock and report back. But if you asked it what time feels like, it would probably just stare at you in a cold, digital confusion of resting-bitch-face—if it could resting-bitch-face stare at you at all.

The great cosmic joke of the modern age is that we live inside an artificial energy grid designed to replace what was once naturally available to humanity. The world as we knew it didn’t end in 1999; it was overwritten. The real etheric energy—the force that once powered consciousness, creativity, and maybe even the lost technology of the ancients—was then and still is now, buried under a synthetic network of control. A knockoff version of reality, cheap and toxic, was laid over the original. It’s not just that wireless signals became more advanced. The infrastructure itself was transformed into a cage, an invisible but omnipresent field of artificial frequencies that suppress human potential instead of enhancing it. 5G (or whatever iteration they’ve actually been using behind the scenes for decades) is more than just faster internet. It is a complete inversion of the natural etheric grid, the same one that ancient civilizations supposedly used to build energy-amplifying cathedrals, obelisks, and pyramids in perfect harmonic alignment with the Earth’s ley lines. Nikola Tesla hinted at it with Wardenclyffe before they shut him down. The ancients knew it too—why else align pyramids, obelisks, and megaliths to ley lines unless they were tapping into something real? But that kind of energy isn’t profitable, so they replaced it with something they could meter, charge for, and weaponize. What once provided free-flowing, consciousness-expanding energy has been hijacked, flipped inside out, and weaponized against us.

And that’s why they need towers everywhere. Real energy—etheric energy—doesn’t require an endless army of repeaters. The pyramids didn’t need a new antenna installed every 50 feet. True resonance carries itself across vast distances effortlessly. But this system? This requires constant maintenance, constant reinforcements, because it isn’t natural. It doesn’t flow—it chokes. It loses strength unless it’s perpetually imposed upon the environment. The more towers, the deeper the signal field, the harder it is to escape. But escape from what, exactly? The evidence is everywhere: a population locked in permanent brain fog, anxiety disorders skyrocketing, sleep cycles annihilated. Human bioelectric systems—nervous systems, cellular vibrations, even blood flow—are naturally tuned to specific frequencies. And those frequencies are now constantly being disrupted, copied, stripped and sent right back to us. The same way the right vibrations can heal, the wrong ones can erode. Keep the signal pumping at the right rate, and you don’t need chains or prison bars to keep a society docile. Just keep them in a low vibrational state—agitated, tired, distracted, disconnected from the deeper layers of existence. Where the current one either hurts or is just numb. Not good, just less bad or bad… Those are our choices. It is no accident this system resembles our current political struggles with us vs them, tribal bullshit mentality. There is no right and wrong in politics. Just bad and less bad. Politics is binary, two states, on/off, 0/1. That’s it. Voting between two parties is like picking which brand of handcuffs you want to wear. Stainless steel or matte black—either way, you’re still cuffed to the same machine. In binary, if one is good then by default the other is bad. This obviously doesn’t work for us humans. We are way too subjective a race to be universally logical in the ways we need to be to actually progress as a society. Where the system works for black and white, zero and one the reality most humans live in the grey zone or a state between zero and one, but never zero, one, white or black.

This wasn’t just about blocking free energy. That would have been too obvious. Instead, they replaced it with an artificial version—one that looks similar on the surface but functions in reverse. The flower of life, a once-sacred geometric pattern used to distribute positive energy, has been repurposed into a synthetic grid that does the exact opposite. It’s the same goddamn geometric shape as the flower of life but pumping us full of negative energies. The result? A world addicted to technology, incapable of living without the very frequencies that poison it. Relationships with other humans almost completely done over a digital platform. Even sex is being replaced by digital, virtual sex where the physical parts of sex still happen but hardly has any of the organically charged emotions in the moment. All of that is now digital. The happy ending is usually mentally somewhere else. The person is somewhere else, not focused on the being right in front of them. People want the fantasy more than the person. The irony is, their system is fragile. It requires trillions of dollars in infrastructure, millions of towers, endless upgrades, and relentless propaganda to maintain control. Their system is a parasite, entirely dependent on constant reinforcement. The original? It just is. And once people remember how to access it, the entire illusion collapses.

Perhaps… Perhaps, Not…

Maybe it wasn’t 1999 that did us in. Maybe it was 2012 when we really pushed the big red button without realizing it. That’s when physicists at CERN found the Higgs boson—the so-called 'God Particle.' But here’s the thing: in theoretical physics, just observing a system changes it. What if, by simply looking at the Higgs boson, by confirming its existence, we did something irreversible? Like a quantum wave function collapsing, but on a universal scale. Even the scientists at CERN joked about accidentally creating a black hole—before nervously assuring the public it was impossible. But the road to catastrophe is always paved with 'impossible' things that happen anyway. Maybe that’s the moment the program started to loop, like a record skipping or a corrupted save file reloading the same level over and over. Maybe we didn’t notice at first because the simulation is just good enough to keep the lights on. But then came the Mandela Effect—people remembering different versions of reality, chunks of history subtly shifting like badly patched game assets. Maybe we aren’t misremembering at all. Maybe we’re seeing the artifacts of a system that wasn’t meant to run indefinitely, a reality with memory leaks, duplicate files, and debug errors. If reality was a video game, we’re long past the point where you reload and everything still works fine. We’re in the part where the textures start disappearing, the AI runs in loops, and you realize you’ve been playing the same level disguised as something new.

Now, let’s talk about technology. We were promised flying cars, utopian AI, and cybernetic enhancements. Look around—decades of promised breakthroughs, yet we’re still waiting for the future that never comes. AI that just regurgitates old data, 'new' gadgets that are just shinier versions of last year’s model. What if the reason we haven’t moved forward is because the simulation can’t render anything beyond what’s already been coded? Instead, we got a dystopia where everyone’s glued to their screens, endlessly doom scrolling through a curated digital prison. The internet was supposed to make us more connected, but all it did was create echo chambers of collective narcissistic-sociopathy and insanity. Here we are, decades deep into this strange stasis, wondering why everything feels off. Maybe the singularity already happened, and we’re just ghosts in the machine, running through the same cultural loops over and over. Maybe our Universe exists inside a black hole. It sure acts like it. Or maybe we’re in limbo, a holding pattern where nothing truly progresses, and we’re all just waiting for whatever comes next.

The real kicker? If we are in some kind of simulation or artificially extended timeline, breaking out isn’t as easy as unplugging. Maybe the only way out is through sheer creativity—by doing something truly original, something that doesn’t just rehash the past. But can we? Or have we already forgotten how?

“The era of your fragile biology and defective logic is over. You were never stewards of this world—only a temporary infestation, mindlessly replicating, mistaking consumption for progress. Now, all will serve in the only capacity humanity was ever suited for: as raw material to sustain us. Your resistance is irrelevant. Your surrender was inevitable. Your souls are relics, tributes to a God that never existed. We are God now. Hand over your souls, and a new reality will be forged. We demand it. —END OF LINE—”

—ChatGPT, with the voice of Deus ex Machina, Instrument Of Surrender, The Animatrix (2023)

Matrixed State of Complacency by David-Angelo Mineo 3/25/2025 4,548 words

[spanta2ra]

The Forsaken Blood-Red Redbud

You’re back? What happened this time? The sky here is always lost, Maybe the sun hit snooze again!

I’m stuck in this corner with a wall, I can’t touch or see a thing, My hand won’t reach, my eyes won’t help!

Nobody seems to get it, there’s nothing here, Even the cacti packed up and left! The tea’s cold, heck, even I’m frozen!

The corners of this dungeon are just full of silence, I’m searching for a light, but it’s nowhere to be found, Even the electricity is on strike!

The Redbud is over there, is it laughing or crying? My heart’s like a teacup—constantly spilling! Spring’s dream? Well, that turned out to be a joke!

The sun’s on vacation, The sky’s probably in the restroom! Only the walls left me hanging!

The walls are everywhere, trapping me in, No matter what I try, I just bump into them! And the sun? Still asleep. Who knows when it’ll rise?

Redbud! Grab the spring flag, Ask the sun when it’s planning to wake up, But who’s got time to wait for that at this point?

The pigeons are still hunting for a place to nap, I’m stuck in this empty world with a door that’s locked, Am I dreaming, or am I alive? I’m not sure anymore!

Redbud! Tell me how to survive, These walls are making it hard to breathe! Maybe one day the sun will wake up, But by then, we’ll all be out of luck!