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“They’re trying to convince people they can’t do the things they’ve been doing easily for years – to write emails, to write a presentation. Your daughter wants you to make up a bedtime story about puppies – to write that for you.” We will get to the point, she says with a grim laugh, “that you will essentially become just a skin bag of organs and bones, nothing else. You won’t know anything and you will be told repeatedly that you can’t do it, which is the opposite of what life has to offer. Capitulating all kinds of decisions like where to go on vacation, what to wear today, who to date, what to eat. People are already doing this. You won’t have to process grief, because you’ll have uploaded photos and voice messages from your mother who just died, and then she can talk to you via AI video call every day. One of the ways it’s going to destroy humans, long before there’s a nuclear disaster, is going to be the emotional hollowing-out of people.”

You need a rest. You need empty moments in which you tolerate your anxiety and circling thoughts until they slow down and stop circling. You need slow, quiet activities that ground you and remind you to accept yourself in spite of huge obstacles and bad thoughts. You need to put solutions out of your mind for now, and engage in activities that have nothing to do with your ego. You need habits that strengthen your patience and focus, but also feel real and not arbitrary. You need to abandon your glorious future and build your imperfect present instead.

Breakfast Should Refresh You