Disclaimer: The matter to be discussed can be yielded in symbols that you know only in facts or in experience that you already have. The latter is chosen. Writing much of the below seems redundant to the extent that writing it feels repugnant. Yet, we shall endure because you have forgotten it all and need a friendly reminder.

She kneels behind the door, breathing shallow, anticipation thick in the air. With steady hands, she lays a line of coke across her chest—careful, deliberate, chest up to ensure the line doesn’t slip inside. Behind her, the queue stretches long, each bearing their finest, eager for their moment. They’ve come to serve. The messiah opens the door. A sniff, deep and hungry. A hit. It fades quickly. He craves more. Many more. He looks up, eyes scanning, and the queue suddenly seems too short.

That queue is your Instagram feed, and you are their messiah.

Them lines of joy have never been of better quality. Refined, and then refined some more. Movies have not been shot better, writing has never been sharper, food has never been tastier, music has never been richer—and yet, their impact has never been lower. This is the paradox of today.

A great movie is not just its runtime—it’s everything that precedes it. The quiet, the build-up, the anticipation. How can you see a movie when you see them all the time, huh? You do not taste when you never stop munching. You do not hear when there never is silence. The constant strips you of the ever-present.

You need its absence to enjoy its presence.

A hard slap on a cold morning is felt. One too many, and you’re numb. Don’t become numb. If not, the subtleties that make life life will elude you forever.