We find ourselves at a peculiar crossroads — watching the unraveling of once-stable systems, while distant lands stir with echoes of something oddly familiar, even comforting. In the noise of our Western constructs — the false progress, the chronic self-importance, and performative freedom — a contrast reveals itself in the quieter strength of those who’ve endured actual hardship. This isn’t about glorifying one over the other. It’s about noticing — and remembering — what we’ve lost, and what we might still rebuild.
Tag: intentional living
Japan fascinates many for its balance between tradition and modernity, stability and progress, restraint and indulgence. Despite having a lower GDP per capita than some Western nations, its people generally report high satisfaction, longevity, and social cohesion. But is this the result of conscious societal choices? And if so, are there other nations that have taken a similar path?
How to Get Away from the Crazy
Most people feel it long before they can name it — the quiet sense that something fundamental is off in the way we live, work, and organize our lives. We move through routines that drain us, systems that demand obedience, and structures that promise progress while hollowing out the very things that make us human. Beneath the noise, a deeper truth keeps pressing through the cracks — that much of what we’ve accepted as normal is anything but natural, and the cost of participating grows heavier by the year. This piece is an attempt to trace that unease back to its source, to examine the mechanisms that keep us compliant, and to consider what becomes possible once we stop pretending the modern world is built on anything real.