Disillusionment of our Conditions

"We have no future because our present is too volatile. We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment's scenarios. Pattern recognition..."

— William Gibson, Pattern Recognition

Something is wrong. We can all feel it because we have lived through it. People of our generation often have trouble knowing what the future holds for them, what future they want, what life they want to live. I have met far too many people that go to college because that is what their parents want for them, what society has deemed as necessary for one to be successful in life. They go through classes and insert themselves as a cog in the machine that churns out the most productive and obedient workers. That pressure is felt to perform so that we do not fall behind and become forgotten or looked down upon by our parents, friends, and everyone else. So we pursue this endeavour for years thinking that once we get that title, that job promotion, that amount of wealth, that we will be happy and content — live a meaningful life. But at a certain age in life, an age which is different for everyone, they have a mid-life crisis. I had lived this life, luckily I chose the right major, I found meaning in what I study, I study because I want to, not because I need to.

But that is a lie, I still feel the need to perform to a capacity in which I am not forgotten. I frantically think about my future if I do not have a good resume and a good set of extracurriculars — if I am not a good cog. Every day I live in risk management, I do things to minimize the risk I have of being a bad cog, of being undesirable to what employers want, to what people want, and ultimately, it affects what I want. It spins and spins, never ending, I can always reduce more risk, always be better. Until I recognized the pattern that I have been going down my entire life. I am disillusioned from this system that has opressed my being, but recognizing this pattern doesnt entail that the pattern stops spinning, it keeps spinning for me — I'm just trying to slow it down.

This generation is the generation that hates AI the most, but uses it the most. I am guilty of this, but why hate something we use so often? Because we hate the potential for perfection and optimization it brings upon us, of what society now expects of us. We need to use it, we have no choice unless we want to manage more and more risk of us being incompetent and behind. So we use it so that we do not dissapoint ourselves for the work we produce relative to what society has now set as the standard. But what do I mean by society? Well by everyday people of course; everyday people have their values and goals controlled by people in power, people in power hold where the fulcrum is placed.

The fulcrum is placed as far as possible from themselves so the profit and power slide towards them, always making it easier for them to guide where money and power flow, all while making it too fucking difficult for us to do anyhting about it. The people in power are also in participation of risk management too, just that the "risk" they manage is different from ours. Their risk is the risk of losing power and profits, they prescribe us a future with AI, self driving cars, and technology that will become reality we all want to hear. But they are so focused on the future they wish to create for their own gain of power and profit they ignore the present until they are forced to act. They make our present volatile because they oppose the livelihoods of everyday people — and they are blind to the fact that they oppose even themselves. Always in risk management of trying to appeal to the masses so that they do not revolt, so that they do not create unions, so that they do not become aware.

The people in power know they control the spinning, they recognize the pattern in which this world works. The biggest risk to them is if everyday people become aware of this pattern. The biggest and most impressive risk management this world has ever seen is the ability to control the entire population's habits, opinions, direction in life, and thoughts through a slab of glass and to convince the population that they need it. The medium in which all of their risk management optimizes through is on that slab of glass, such that they can build AI datacenters, burn more fossil fuel, profit off of our health, profit off insurance and pay as little as possible to people suffering, create subscriptions for all things essential in life, and gain more power. Why is it that the most valuable thing to any company is data on you? Because those bits are the key to unlock the doors to your soul, those bits give them the power to exercise their risk management to the fullest extent.

The truth is that you feel this pressure mounting on you because the people in power have both weakened you to this pressure and pushed this pressure onto you. Your phone is now using you, all while still creating an illusion that you're in control. When I first heard this, and when I was still in illusionment, it sounded ridiculous. Perhaps it was ridiculous because I didn't want it to be the truth, but more so I think it was because everyone else is using it, wouldn't that mean everyone is being used then? It sounded too unrealistic, too dystopic — and I mean I have my own problems to worry about, I gotta get a job! Not just the phone, but technological advances in general have attempted to solve problems of daily life that is essential for a meaningful life. The people in power are also working towards a future in which life itself won't be able to flourish.

I always hate the feeling of telling my friends, or just anyone that our phone is a problem and we would be better off putting it away and living in the moment. It necessarily implies that I don't interact with my phone at all and that I have a healthy relationship with it. I sound like a snob if I say that and go against the grain of everyone else — I mean literally almost everyone else. It's like someone saying if only you made a successful company life would no longer be such a struggle for you, like thats rich of them to say.

But in reality I am simply saying a fact, I struggle to have a healthy relationship with my phone, it has been ingrained in my daily life since my childhood. But I see the pattern and wish to oppose it, thing is I can't make any meaningful change against this lever —I'm just a cog. But as a collective, we can go against this lever and shift the profits and power to slide towards us, to all of humanity. We are controlled to prevent ourselves from thinking about these problems in everyday leisure with the advent of short form media and mass consumption of secondary sources, somtimes even with no sources. We are controlled to think that productivity and work are the main fruits in life. We are controlled to think that the people who feed you content to lower your attention span and pressure you to be more productive are separate powers. They promote activities that make us more uneducated while profiting from your attention with data used to subjugate you even more. While subjugating, they create a system where hypercompetition of internships and lucrative jobs with the promise of a life "worth" living is always in the back of our heads. They exploit you out of work, and in work. They have made leisure sound undesirable, it's unproductive, it's laziness.

Leisure is lost in this world. If you aren't grinding day and night you're gonna fall to the bottom while the people who do grind rise to the top, ya got no time to have Leisure. But everyone needs rest after work, after studies, so we go on our phones and scroll, consume, numb our brains with dopamine. That is not real leisure, Leisure is the most human thing we can do, the most real thing in front of us.

Ask yourself, why is it that we describe the betterment of our lifestyle as "working on myself" or a relationship "working on the relationship". Why is it that school is considered "Intellectual work"? It is because work is too engrained in our lives, we take naps, we scroll, we "recharge" from work and call that leisure. Joseph Pieper in his book Leisure, the Basis of Culture, describes Leisure as a "form of silence". This form of silence is a contemplative silence, wholly separated from the distractions of our world. It is where scientific innovations, great philosophy, and a peacefulness in life are achieved, which creates our culture. It is inward in oneself and done for the sake of doing, independent of any motive except to do. I argue that we must all find this in our lives, to slow down and engage in Leisure. Only then can we create a collective that can recognize this pattern, and stop the spinning of the work centered risk management so that we can reverse the years of suffering, ecological damage, and ownership of souls we have done to ourselves, which I call a human centered risk management.

A human centered risk management dissolves the need for risk management in the first place, it is instead planning a future that does not create volatility against all people. We must first spin the wheel backwards to decrease our burning of fossil fules to save countless plants and animals from becoming extinct, from homes flooded, from wildfires burning the feet of our animals and nests of birds, from heatwaves making it unbearable for outdoor cats to live, for bugs to live. We must slow down the progression of technology to make sure we understand the consequences it has for the human psyche. We must save our planet before it is too late, and create systems which support all of humanity, not just the ones with the most amount of money and power. After this we no longer need to spin anything, there will be a stillness, a silence, a path to deep meaning in our lives we can all clearly see. No longer reducing ourselves to a cog, but to see reality in our humanity, to live as a human

No more patterns, just continuity. No wonder Aristotle thought that virtuous activity could lead to true happiness, it is the most continous thing that exists, let us strive for this continuity, not be chasing a future that seems to just be getting worse and worse.

"[virtuous activity] is the most continuous, since we can contemplate truth more continuously than we can do anything. And we think happiness has pleasure mingled with it, but the activity of philosophic wisdom is admittedly the pleasantest of virtuous activities; at all events the pursuit of it is thought to offer pleasures marvellous for their purity and their enduringness, and it is to be expected that those who know will pass their time more pleasantly than those who inquire."

— Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

Many of us have not even begun to inquire, so how can we ever be able to become "those who know", which is so necessary for our humanity? I am in the process of inquiring, and I urge all to do so as well. First, develop a healthy relationship with your phone and technology, it is the prerequisite to Leisure, then go on the journey, however you decide, as long as you always strive for the truth.

I apologize for how unorganized my thoughts are, I realized that the more I try to refine and organize my blogs, the more I end up not finishing them and the less I am able to let my thoughts run. I also apologize that many of the claims do not have sources to back them up, but to me they are truths because of the books and information I have read form credible philosphers, psychologists, authors, and professors.

I hope as time goes on I am able to talk about this more as I do have more to say, but I think this is already a lot to read. I will for sure expand on a lot of these topics so that they are more fleshed out and better explained on how certain causes and effects I showcase here are real to me. This is just a peek of what I have been contemplating this summer, if any of you are in agreement or disagreement, it would be wonderful to have conversation anyways.

Thanks for reading

Spencer Lee, 09/11/26 13:32