Something that I find a bit mystifying is why anyone is actually motivated to do anything now.
If you think the about the general reasons for human striving – things like meaningful work, spirituality, religious belief, the prospect of owning your own home, finding a committed relationship, starting a family, participating in a community – almost all of these things are desperately lacking now.
There just doesn’t seem much point in doing anything because work doesn’t pay that well anymore and the work that exists is mostly alienating or dehumanising, spirituality has vanished from our society, house prices have priced most of us out of the market, dating apps have completely destroyed dating, and community is nowhere to be found.
On the other hand, you now have the widespread availability of a lot of extremely addictive things – internet porn, smartphones, video games, drugs. It’s remarkable that more people don’t just decide to drop out of society and indulge in these things all day long. How do people keep going?