There are days when everything feels useless—when I feel useless.

I go through the motions – the routines. Wake up. Work. Respond to things. Say the right things. Avoid the wrong ones. Smile enough to not raise questions. And yet underneath it all, I feel hollow, like I’m floating in a world where nothing I do actually matters.

It’s not just about me. It’s about everything. Somewhere, right now, someone is being torn from their home. Someone is starving. Someone is grieving a child whose name won’t even trend. And somewhere else, someone is watching all of this on their feed… and moving on. They scroll past a massacre to get to a meme. A café post. A vacation reel.

And no, I don’t blame them. Not entirely. We’ve all learned how to survive—some by running, others by numbing. Most by dividing the world into tidy, livable compartments.

There’s the broken—those whose lives are shattered minute by minute. Whose entire existence has become a survival story that no one wants to hear anymore because it ruins the algorithmic vibe.

Then there’s the blind—not because they can’t see, but because they’ve taught themselves not to. Good people, kind, intelligent, educated people, but they are sleeping. They see injustice and respond with phrases like “It’s complicated,” or “We can’t be sure who’s right.” They build arguments around atrocities as if suffering were a debate club topic.

Then there are the builders; those still chasing the dream. The degrees, the homes, the promotions, the lifestyle upgrades. People trying to give their kid a future, trying to stay relevant, trying to keep up. They’re not bad people either. But their upward climb often depends on never looking down. A consumer society.

And then there’s a strange, in-between group. Maybe this is where I belong.

We’re not broken, but not blind either. We see, we feel, but we’re not doing much. We repost, we whisper, we overthink. We want to scream but end up writing drafts we never share. We want to be brave, but the air is full of warnings—Don’t say that. Be careful. Stay neutral.

We’re the floaters. The potatoes of resistance. Not fried and golden. Just… sitting there. Soft. Mute. Half-alive.

I used to be more than this. I used to be angry. Active. Fired up. I still want to be that version of myself—the one who refused to go numb. But I’ve become someone who is always about to care loudly, and never quite does.

Even the people who love me try to convince me it’s just a phase. “You’re not depressed,” they say. “You’re just tired.” Maybe they’re right. But maybe I’m just finally feeling the weight of everything—of seeing a world unravel while everyone else keeps tying bows around it.

And the worst part? Even those who light candles and chant slogans are still caught in the rut of the machine. The same brands. The same dreams. The same pursuit of a future that was built on someone else’s erasure.

Consumerism has become the elegant version of destruction. Quiet. Branded. Global.

I keep thinking maybe this silence I carry is some kind of shield. Or maybe it’s just exhaustion pretending to be safety. I don’t even know what I’m allowed to say anymore. The wrong sentence could cost you everything—your job, your visa, your body, your belonging. So you whisper in private. You cry in the shower. You click “like” and move on. You write things you never post. You scream in dreams.

And you sit, heavy and still, like a potato, waiting for someone to ask the right question.
But they don’t.
Or they can’t.
Or maybe they’re too busy trying not to feel anything at all.

So the ache just stays.
Quiet. Careful.
Unresolved.

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