It is challenging to resist the “trendification” (commodification) of everything good. As I learned in university, when we take this to an extreme, we arrive at the realm of hipster irony, cringing at earnestness and rejecting small pleasures that don’t enhance the gloss of detachment.
No thanks.
Similarly, I have noticed a complementary tendency in the “spiritual” world to justify everything fun by labeling it “sacred” or “transformative.”
Likewise, no thank you.
I believe we are simply hunting for depth and meaning amongst the streams of content that pass for aliveness, searching for a buoy in the flotsam. But I think the spark of hope lives not out there, but rather in our collective and individual imaginations.
The following two reflections emerged a couple weeks apart. Although inspired by different moments, they somehow speak to the same need to give away less of ourselves and feel more.
Sacred Fun?
Maybe indulgence doesn’t need an excuse.
It is revolutionary to rest, party, abstain, indulge in a world that values consumption, productivity, and conformity over all else. But it doesn’t have to be revolutionary. The silly, profane and superficial are also sacred (everything is sacred), but they don’t have to be.
Why the compulsion to justify everything, to prove the value of a decision by way of its sacredness, its radicalness, or its depth? Is it a trap?
Of course, pleasure, dance, play, expression are all sacred manifestations of our humanness, yet, something I can’t quite put my finger on is happening when we insist on it so much: Something about the overemphasis, the making of every little thing into a ceremony. As if none of it would matter otherwise… as if we are terrified most of all of insignificance.
Of course, I also believe in making meaning from the in-between moments. Still, enough is enough.
Everything is sacred. Everything is medicine. Everything is a ceremony—transformative, peak experience, never-before-seen-your-life-will-change-literally-groundbreaking stuff. Is it so scary to say, “Actually, this is just fun”?
“Honestly, this is a good time, and I don’t have to assign it more meaning to justify liking it.”
“Really, I just want to. And sure, of course it’s sacred, but it doesn’t have to be; I give myself permission to enjoy it regardless.”
Anti-Optimal
Embrace the Friction, Reject the Trend
What words can I write that have not been optimized for SEO, conversions, engagement, soul? Where can I go that AI, the algorithm, and the hulking supercomputers and optimal humans cannot follow?
What is the antithesis of optimal?
2026 has been declared the Year of Friction, so now even the friction, the mess, the sticky, human chaos shall be codified, branded, repackaged, and sold back to us as healing.
Where can we go that the trends will not follow?
“Resistance” will probably be the Merriam-Webster word of the year. #human and #chaos are no doubt poised to trend. The simulation of the singular, impossible-to-imitate me-ness of this random yet painfully specific collection of cells and blood and memories and dreams—the simulation is surely just a few more years, a few more keystrokes, a bit more processing power away.
Every voice has a clone; when one pet dies, you can make another. Babies can be optimized, too. The only difference is ethics, and who cares about ethics these days?
When did “can it be done?” take precedence over “what is it all for?”
Of course it can be done; we can do so many things, but of all the infinite, exquisite possibilities our intelligence could imagine, why would we choose this?
Are we so broken, so hopeless, so dulled by the grind that this is the best we could dream?
If I could imagine anything for myself, for this world, what would I choose?
What would you choose?