"21st century syndrome," epic reddit comment

"Anyone else here feel like they're never fully rested, like there's dead space in your brain? I have lost most of my emotions and the connections between the physical world and my mental state. I have a girlfriend, good friends, a decent job, and my own place. What's wrong with me?"

A response, there's at least a little bit for everyone in there:

"You could be suffering from early 21st century syndrome. Don't bother googling it, I just made it up. But the symptoms you describe are typical of the new malaise. You should be happy. You have fulfilled the requirements of a media driven life. You have your own place. You have a 'decent' job. You have a woman. And yet, underneath it all there is this dissatisfaction. You can't quite place it but it is there nonetheless, gnawing at your brain.

You flick randomly through internet pages for hours after dark. The TV chatters in the background. Every world developement is known to you a few minutes after it happens. You are the master of an external world that appears and presents itself through text and pics and vids.

You go about the business of living as it has been described to you and you can check all the boxes for relative success. And yet it doesn't feel like success. Not the way it does in the movies or on TV. No orchestral music chimes in when you do something good, no ominous montage depicts things negatively when your performance is not up to par. Life itself is removed from you because consciousness itself does not match up to the way 'we' are used to receiving information; that of third person observer through a cam. The P.O.V. first person view is somehow limiting, it limits us to this space and time which is not in keeping with how consciousness can effortlessly cross time when 'connected' to the internet.

Life today in a modern industrial society has an air of rigidness about it. Everywhere you go, you run up against barriers and rules. Speed limits, parking restrictions, decorum, social rules (unwritten but bearing on the mind), myriad exacting laws. All of them supposedly designed for the collective benefit of everyone. But no individual feels like everyone, each individual feels like you. So you end up being oppressed by the collective rules designed to protect you. This is called the "system".

There is nothing "wrong" with you brother.

You are merely suffering from the collective malaise of having all that we are supposed to want. Supposedly, human existence today is the best it has ever been. The 'facts' bear this out. Life expectancy today for the average person is higher than it's ever been, right?

And yet you long for the hunt. The risk. The hunter gatherer life, buried deep somewhere in your hypothalamus, longs for that time when your own ingenuity resulted in food for your group. When you could exploit your human genius for real and direct gain...feeding yourself and your tribe. Going to the office/cubicle today gains you money to obtain these things. But it does not offer the thrill of the hunt. The risk. The adrenaline rush of the successful raid on the enemy camp, the high of the perfect kill.

Homo sapiens sapiens is not a very old species in relative terms. But it is a cunning one and the greatest force this planet has ever seen. But, the amount of time we successfully gathered as hunters (2 million years) is far longer and evolutionary significant in comparison to the existence of human civilisation (8 thousand years). Yet, all cogent information tells you you are better off today than anyone in human history.

And yet, on a quiet walk outside the city, you stare at the moon through leafy glade and can almost touch the truth of a different life. A life you were designed for but no longer is.

There is nothing wrong with you brother, that is not wrong with all of us.

Disregard those corporate entities who tell you your problem is solvable through the use of their 'drug'.

If you need to alter your consciousness self medicate with whiskey or weed. Do not touch the shit the "experts" have formulated to suppress the spirit."