‘I didn’t like the food on the plane.’

40 something dude. Still lives with his mum. His whole existence is built around kitesurfing. Has no sex, because that requires being able to talk to a human in a meaningful way (he’s not a billionaire).

He’s flying to Egypt to go and have right next to two million starving people, half of them children.

He also complains that Egyptians are not too friendly. Maybe they are a little more aware of what is happening next door.  

Another guy obsesses over how to buy a Tesla. Because of ‘life-style.’ He has no notion of what ‘status signalling’ is, so he calls it ‘life style’. What else takes up his bandwith? Some bug is eating into his lawn.

I meet people who sit in meetings numbed by questions on the agenda like ‘what surprised us this year?’

What surprises me is that so many companies can survive and pay out salaries to so many people who don’t do any meaningful work and use company time to do online shopping and look up holiday destinations, intermittent fasting schedules and make-up tutorials.

I could turn this into an extremely long rant. Listing all absurd behaviour I have been a witness to this year. These human brains which are still the most advanced forms of intelligence spotted in this universe reduced to figuring out how to find night stands that go well with the bed or how to sit in meeting without having to speak.

Some of us watch parts of the world devoured by hell fire, Gaza, Sudan and too many other places with no Ryanair flights, but plenty of drones.

We see spending on military gadgets go up while spending on anything that sustains life in a healthy way goes down.

We see the US descend into the most base tribalism and Americans embracing gladiatorial dominance over others as the highest virtue.

Japan is going ‘no babies, I have to work’

Russia thinks it’s still 1944 and they are the only real bulwark against nazism.

Africa keeps being robbed, but nobody seems to mind.

Latin-America has kept warmth and fire, but their economies never really provide for all.

Scandinavia is the opposite. Everything has been so optimized that people there don’t know what the point of being alive is anymore.

Most of Europe is gray, gutless, looking for escapism, no longer interested in depth. Cities like museums.

Australians are realizing the fun is over. Lightness and wonder replaced by more and more rigidity and control.

Canada functions like a tamer version of the US with more affordable healthcare.

Asia is a cheap production center and an escape for burned out western corporate rats.

People travel with the express purpose of curating their Instagram posts, not to learn anything, not to get to know new people, not to immerse themselves in any culture.

The main goal is to let other people know you are travelling, you are alive, you are not a loser, you are enjoying yourself, your life has momentum.

Some of us wince at the sight of kids with amputated legs, most sigh ‘that’s terrible’ and go back to complaining that the food at the fancy new restaurant in town was not as good as expected.

We see that life without meaning drains humans far more than hard work, the struggle for a purpose bigger than ourselves. No matter how much comfort and cheap dopamine thrills are injected into a human nervous system, if life isn’t about serving some greater good, we get hollowed out, are eternally exhausted, underwhelmed and in need of holidays to recover from our other holidays.

Attention spans have collapsed. This text is considered VERY LONG, especially on a platform like X. Eros has collapsed. Couples have become logistical units. They sync schedules, manage kids, manage housing, manage shopping and a hint of eros is smuggled in via the backdoor with porn, fantasy, series, movies, flirting online, sneaky confessions via chat. To the outside world couples perform happiness. Kids don’t smile anymore unless they know they are being asked to perform.

European values have crumbled for all to see and are reduced to theatre. No amount of dying children will make Europe stand for something other than the further enrichment of its elites and keeping all other citizens comfortable enough not to rebel, especially not in an organized way.

If you have something real to say the algorithm will shut you down, if you rise regardless they will quench you anyway.

I have never in my life seen a holiday people with even less enthusiasm, even less energy, even less willingness to connect face to face with other people in a way that creates a real bond and real intimacy. I see people retreating into the tiniest bubbles more obsessed with reacting to online noise than to human beings around them.

And since you can’t read anymore, only skim texts, I will stop here.

2025 was confirmation that any sense of humanity as a species that cares about the well-being of all its members is as dead as can be. Our governments are self-serving and directed by the most financially affluent. Real power doesn’t show itself.

Hatred and contempt have grown.

Purchasing power has shrunk, except for the minority that lucked out.

AI is replacing connection and used for validation privately, and creating the new investment bubble publicly.

The value of your car indicates how much society will value your opinion.

There are whole cohorts of men who  no longer have sex and whole cohorts of women who hunger for something more, but don’t really know what it is they are longing for.

They collapse into silly humor claiming all they need is wine or some such nonsense.

There is no real vulnerabilty, only performed vulnerability that vibes well with algorithms.

Kids have no childhoods and are numbed by noise and an unprecedented access to information.

Kids today talk like therapists at a psychiatry conference, but have never written a love letter, and will never write one, haven’t climbed enough trees, see the toxicity in their own parents better than anyone, and are doing more homework than ever and having less magic and adventure in their daily lives than any kids in history.

I for myself have concluded that life is not worth living in this world, but instead of killing myself, I have killed an identity of myself that wanted to convince others of what I see. I intend to live 2026 as if I have already died and all the risks I usually avoid are not a threat, but an invitation.

Nobody knows since my efforts barely registered, but I did try to bring some humanity into this world.

Fail.

What I can do is bring some depth back into my world.

You know, read the Brothers Karamazov in a train to Lisbon or something like that, unbothered by Instagram scrolling zombies.

Not as a snob, though you can call me one if it makes you feel better, but as someone addicted to the idea that humans can opt to embrace life, all of it, the dirt of it, the beauty of it, the risk of it, the defearts and the victories, with real sex, real friendship, real connections, real stakes, not block it out with cheap comfort.

Anyway, to the two people who actually read this to the end, let’s say ‘fuck this shit’ a lot more often in 2026 and live accordingly.