There is a crisis unfolding across the modern world, but it does not announce itself with catastrophe or spectacle....
numbness
There is a crisis unfolding across the modern world, but it does not announce itself with catastrophe or spectacle. It happens quietly, invisibly, moment by moment, until one wakes up to find that life has thinned to a performance of itself. This crisis is the death of aliveness - and it is happening not through violence, but through numbness.
We are living in an era where feeling has become intolerable. Every discomfort - boredom, loneliness, longing, uncertainty - is met not with curiosity, but with instant distraction. At the first flicker of unease, we reach reflexively for a screen, a scroll, a surge of stimulation.
Slowly, without noticing, we replace real life with a simulation of it.
The age of constant numbing: Today, numbing is no longer occasional. It is the architecture of modern existence. Where there might once have been natural pauses, now there is endless content. We scroll TikTok for hours, losing ourselves in fragments of other people’s lives. We binge entire seasons of shows in a day, not out of love for storytelling, but to fill the background of our own. We stream music and podcasts constantly - not to listen, but to drown out the silence. Even cooking dinner or walking to the store is rarely done without a device filling the air. The weekends offer no reprieve. What should be days of rest or exploration are often given over to more distraction: staged nights out, staged conversations, staged photographs posted on Instagram for others to observe. Life becomes something we perform rather than inhabit.
This pattern is not an accident. It is the predictable result of a system designed to profit from our attention. Every platform, every algorithm, every app thrives when we are fragmented, restless, and seeking stimulation. A deeply connected, present individual is far harder to manipulate than one who is perpetually numbed.
You are not stuck. You are numb: A strange phenomenon follows this chronic numbing: people begin to describe themselves as ‘stuck’. They say, ‘Nothing exciting is happening’, ‘I feel lost’, ‘I’m waiting for something to change’, I hear it from my friends all the time, who like me are in their early twenties - living through a time where distraction and avoidance have become the norm. They speak as if life itself has grown barren, that fortune has simply passed them by. But this is an illusion. They are not stuck. They are numb. When boredom is immediately anesthetised, you never sit long enough to reach the spark of curiosity. When loneliness is drowned out, you never recognise the longing that could have led you to true connection. When longing is numbed before it can deepen, it never gathers the momentum needed to change your life. Movement - the real kind, the life-altering kind - does not come from external events. It comes from the internal surges of longing, curiosity, dissatisfaction, wonder. When these forces are muted, you are left waiting for a life that can only ever come from inside you. You are not stuck because life has withheld itself from you. You are stuck because the noise has severed you from your own instincts.
The true cost of numbing: The price of chronic numbness is not measured merely in wasted hours. It is measured in lives unlived. Numbing blocks the natural processes of self-creation. It stifles the creative impulse before it can even surface. It prevents boredom from blooming into imagination. It prevents longing from hardening into action. It dulls instinct until every path feels equally empty. Over time, you lose access to your own movement. You are not waiting for a breakthrough. You are silencing the forces that would have created one. The greatest tragedy is not that people waste time, it is that they waste themselves.
How this became our default: The epidemic of numbing did not appear by accident. Modern technology, consumer culture, and social media ecosystems are all designed to exploit human restlessness. Silence, boredom, emptiness - these natural conditions of life have been reframed as emergencies requiring immediate resolution. The constant background noise is not a glitch. It is a feature. A mind that never sits still is easier to sell to. A body that never rests is easier to exhaust. A life filled with shallow dopamine loops is easier to manage than one directed by deep, slow- burning desire. And so the system feeds the cycle. It offers endless stimulation at the exact moment feeling begins to rise. It rewards distraction, celebrates performance, and sells back hollow versions of connection, meaning, and achievement. If you feel perpetually restless, perpetually dissatisfied, perpetually lost - you are not broken. You are functioning exactly as the modern world has trained you to.
The revolutionary act of enduring feeling: To reclaim aliveness today is an act of quiet rebellion. It means enduring boredom long enough for imagination to take root. It means sitting with loneliness until it clarifies what kind of connection you truly need. It means honouring longing instead of numbing it – letting it sharpen your desires, letting it move you toward action. None of this is easy. It is far simpler to scroll, to binge, and to distract.
But ease is not the same thing as freedom. The real work of becoming yourself - the real work of creating a life you want to live - begins when you stop running from discomfort.
Because what waits on the other side of boredom is not emptiness. It is creativity. What waits on the other side of loneliness is not despair. It is clarity. What waits on the other side of longing is not sadness. It is movement.
You are not stuck. You are not broken. You are simply too far from yourself. The world will not stop offering you ways to numb. There will always be another video to watch, another update to scroll through, and another night to party away the unease. But the life you are waiting for - the creativity, the purpose, the depth - is not hiding outside of you. It is buried underneath the noise. It is waiting for you to stay. To feel. To endure.
The question is not whether life will give you the opportunity to grow, to love, to create. It always will. The question is whether you will be awake enough to recognise it.
Neshmeeya Abbas is an author, based in Amsterdam. She can be reached at neshmeeya@gmail.com
