Today it has been hard to shake the thought that my world feels a little askew lately. Not in a catastrophic, sci-fi way—more like a subtle glitch, the kind you notice out of the corner of your eye before everything resets again.
I suspect the root of this is generational whiplash. Being born in the previous century means I’ve lived a decent portion of my life without the conveniences that now structure nearly every day. I carry memories from a world that no longer exists, while trying to make sense of the one that’s replaced it.
This train of thought led to a memory of an interior design reality show from the early 2000s. The challenge was to create “a room of the future.” I only remember one entry—a dwelling that could easily pass as something in Mos Eisley, equipped with a pneumatic-tube system for food and basic supplies. You’d never need face-to-face interaction. Even then, it felt like a lonely kind of convenience I hoped I wouldn’t have to experience.
And yet, here I am, years later, living out a variation of that very scenario. I didn’t speak to anyone in person today. Groceries appeared on my doorstep. Meetings happened in digital rooms. My conversations had all been on screens. The future I once found unsettling has become so normal that I barely notice it (most of the time).
But instead of despair, what hit me was curiosity. Somehow, I adapted to this life without intentionally choosing it. The classic frog in a boiling cultural pot scenario, I suppose. Which makes me wonder: what parts of this convenience-driven reality genuinely support me? And which parts have crept in simply because they were easy?
Don’t get me wrong, I can be overly sentimental and there’s a lot about my past that I miss… For example, phone calls catching up with friends for hours are now texts, or even just passively seeing what’s going on in their world on social media. I used to have to physically take my introverted ass to the movie theater if I wanted to see a new movie — there simply weren’t other options for most of my life. On the other hand, amusingly, I use the internet a LOT to unlock or flush out fuzzy memories from my childhood and adolescence. A recent example of this is that using AI, I was able to figure out which horror movie seared a rather gory scene into my mind, when I was watching TV unsupervised as a child… ANYWAY…
Maybe the glitch I keep sensing isn’t a sign that something’s wrong. Maybe it’s simply a reminder to pause and recalibrate, to make sure I’m still the one authoring my own life in a world that is hungry to automate everything.