Joan Westenberg, with a great essay:
In the months, years since the pandemic’s peak, I’ve been unable to reconcile the cognitive dissonance. Seeing the inauthenticity and performance of modern happiness has made it impossible to achieve happiness through the same means. There’s a falseness to it all, a sense of how fragile the facade actually is.
After the collapse, after the burnout, after the creeping dread that none of the things I’d been told to care about were making me feel human, I started noticing what actually felt good. Not “aspirational” good. Not “productive” good. Just good. A grilled cheese sandwich eaten in the sun. A day without notifications. Saying no and not explaining. I didn’t see it as a philosophy. I just knew I felt less fake. Less hollow. Less like I was performing a version of myself I couldn’t stand anymore. Over time, I started tracing a pattern. What if I stopped managing my life like a brand? What if I let it be messy, private, low-stakes? What if that was enough?