The Great Cosmic Carousel: Why Your To-Do List is a Joke

Welcome to another day on this spinning wet rock. If you’re reading this, congratulations. You’ve successfully navigated the high-stakes gauntlet of “waking up” just to participate in a society that is essentially a giant, loud, neon-lit waiting room for the inevitable.

As Rust Cohle might say while making a beer-can mannikin: “Time is a flat circle.” And honestly? That circle is looking more like a hula hoop we’re all failing to keep up.

The Absurdity Buffet

Modern life is a peculiar brand of madness. We’ve managed to automate everything except the existential dread. Here’s a quick look at the nonsense we’ve agreed to pretend is normal:

The Inbox Purgatory: We spend eight hours a day sending digital ghosts (emails) to people we don’t like, about problems that won’t matter in six months, to earn paper that only has value because we all collectively decided not to laugh at it.
The Screen Worship: We stare at a black mirror in our pockets to see what people we haven’t spoken to since 2012 had for lunch. We are the first species to document our own extinction in 4K resolution with a “vintage” filter.
The Health Hustle: We go to the gym to run on a belt that goes nowhere, just so we can live three years longer in a nursing home where no one remembers our names. It’s peak efficiency.

Sentience: The Evolutionary Oopsie

We are biological accidents with just enough consciousness to realize we shouldn’t exist, but not enough to do anything cool about it, like fly or breathe underwater. Instead, we use our “higher intelligence” to argue with strangers about politics on a Tuesday afternoon.

“I think human consciousness is a tragic misstep in evolution. We became too self-aware.” — The vibe every time your Wi-Fi drops.

We’ve built a world where the most stressful part of our day is choosing a streaming service to watch while we eat a microwave burrito. We are giants of intellect, weeping because our phone charger is too short.

Why Bother? (The Good Part)

If everything is meaningless and we’re just meat-puppets dancing to the tune of our DNA, there’s actually some good news: You can stop trying so hard.

If the universe is a vast, uncaring void, then that “embarrassing” thing you said in a meeting three years ago doesn’t exist. Your credit score is a fictional story. The pressure to “find your purpose” is just marketing.

We’re all just walking each other home in the dark. We might as well crack a joke while we stumble.

The 90s Anime That Predicted Your Doomscrolling: Why You Need to Watch Serial Experiments Lain

Have you ever stared at your phone at 2 AM, blue light burning your retinas, wondering if the “you” on the internet is the real you?

If yes, congratulations! You are living through the plot of Serial Experiments Lain.

Released in 1998—back when the internet was mostly just chat rooms and slow-loading pictures of cats—this anime didn’t just tell a story. It looked into a crystal ball, saw our modern obsession with social media, memes, and digital identity, and said, “Hold my juice box.”

It is weird. It is confusing. And it is arguably the most important anime ever made about the digital age. Here is why this 25-year-old show is more relevant today than ever.

Wait, What is it About?

Okay, explaining the plot of Lain is like trying to explain the flavor of water. But here is the simple version:

Lain Iwakura is a quiet, awkward middle school girl. Her life is boring until her classmate, Chisa, jumps off a roof. A week later, Lain gets an email from Chisa.

The email says: “I have only abandoned my physical body… God is here.”

Lain gets curious, upgrades her computer (called a “Navi”), and dives into “The Wired” (the internet). As she spends more time online, the barrier between the real world and the digital world starts to break. People see Lain in places she hasn’t been. She develops different personalities. Reality starts glitching like a bad video game driver.

Why It’s Still Mind-Blowing Today

You might think a show featuring clunky CRT monitors and dial-up sounds would feel dated. But the themes? They are terrifyingly fresh.

1. The Internet Isn’t Just a Tool; It’s a Place

In the 90s, the internet was something you “visited” for an hour before your mom needed the phone line. Lain predicted a world where we never log off.

In the show, the “Wired” bleeds into the real world. Today, we have Augmented Reality, the Metaverse, and people walking into traffic because they’re looking at TikTok. Lain understood that eventually, there would be no difference between “online” and “offline.” We live in the Wired now.

2. The “You” Online vs. The Real “You”

Lain develops a split personality. There is the shy, quiet Lain in the real world, and the bold, terrifyingly powerful “Lain of the Wired.”

Does that sound familiar?

Real Life: You are too shy to ask for extra ketchup at McDonald’s.
Twitter/X: You are a fierce political commentator fighting strangers at 3 AM.

Lain asks the big question: Which one is the real you? Is it the physical body, or the data floating in the cloud? If everyone knows the “online” you, does the “offline” you even matter?

3. The Loneliness of Connection

There is a recurring haunting phrase in the show:

“No matter where you are, everyone is always connected.”

It sounds nice, right? No! It’s actually a horror story. The show depicts a world where privacy is dead and everyone is mentally linked, yet the characters feel more isolated than ever. It perfectly captures that specific modern sadness of having 5,000 followers but nobody to eat lunch with.

Is It Hard to Watch?

I’m not going to lie to you—yes.

Serial Experiments Lain is an “avant-garde” show. That is a fancy way of saying “you will spend 50% of the time staring at the screen asking ‘What is happening?’“

There are long silences. There are shots of power lines buzzing for no reason. There is a guy in a suit with laser goggles. It is a mood piece. It’s less about understanding the plot perfectly and more about the vibes. It feels like a fever dream you had after scrolling Instagram for six hours straight.

The Verdict

You should watch Serial Experiments Lain not just because it’s a classic, but because it is a warning we ignored.

It predicted that we would upload our memories to the cloud. It predicted that rumors online could change reality. It predicted that we would all worship the glowing rectangles in our hands.

Plus, the opening song (“Duvet” by Bôa) is an absolute banger that will get stuck in your head for the next decade.

So, go watch it. Just remember: if you get an email from a dead classmate, maybe just delete it and go touch some grass.

We are the Cyborgs (And It’s Hilarious)

Remember those sci-fi movies where humanity was a drooling, helpless mess, utterly dependent on their glowing overlords? Yeah, about that… it seems we skipped the “glowing overlord” part and just went straight to the drooling, helpless mess.

We’ve all seen it. The person trying to unlock their front door with their car keys. The frantic thumb-tapping when the Wi-Fi goes down, as if the air itself has suddenly become unbreathable. The existential crisis that unfolds when you try to calculate a tip without the aid of a phone’s calculator. Suddenly, a simple 15% becomes a mind-bending, mathematical odyssey that would stump Isaac Newton himself.

Our brains have outsourced so much of their basic functionality to our devices that they’re starting to get a little… dusty. Why memorize a phone number when Siri has the entire global contact list on speed dial? Why navigate by instinct when Google Maps can tell you, in a calm, robotic voice, to turn left at the exact moment you’re about to walk into a lamppost? Our ability to remember, to orient ourselves, even to have a productive argument, has been slowly, joyfully surrendered to the tiny rectangles in our pockets.

It’s a peculiar kind of human evolution. We’ve gone from tool users to tool dependents. The smartphone is no longer an extension of our hand; it’s the prosthetic brain we can’t function without. Take it away, and a sudden, quiet panic sets in. It’s not just “nomophobia” (the fear of being without your phone, a term that is, ironically, probably only known because someone looked it up on their phone). It’s a deeper, more profound kind of helplessness.

The mind-bending part? We’re building this world ourselves. We crave the convenience, the instant gratification, the perfectly curated feeds. We’re the architects of our own technological reliance, meticulously crafting a future where our most complex problems can be solved with a simple search query, and our most profound thoughts can be distilled into a 280-character post.

So, next time you’re lost without a GPS, or you can’t remember your best friend’s birthday without a notification, don’t despair. Just laugh. We are the cyborgs we were warned about, but we’re the funny kind. The kind who would panic if the robot apocalypse came via a low battery warning. And honestly, isn’t that a little bit brilliant?

Welcome to the Cyberpunk City: Where the Future is Always on Fire

You’ve seen the movies. Neon skies, flying cars, everyone looking mysteriously cool in leather jackets at 3 AM. Living in a cyberpunk city sounds stylish until you actually live in one. Here, the reality is less “cool hacker with sunglasses” and more “I can’t afford rent because my left arm update is overdue.”

This is the future humanity ordered on express delivery, and it came with no return policy.

The Streets

Walking through the city is like scrolling through five different apps at once, but physically. Billboards don’t just shine—they scream. They know your favorite snack, your debt status, and the fact that you bought cheap knockoff cyberware last month. Giant neon signs flash EAT, DRINK, OBEY while you tiptoe around puddles of rainwater that suspiciously glow in the dark.

Everywhere you look, people are plugged into something: goggles, helmets, random wires hanging out of their heads. Old folks say things like, “Back in my day, we had conversations face-to-face.” Now, if someone makes eye contact with you, you assume they’re trying to hack your bank account.

The Buildings

Nothing in this city is designed for humans. It’s designed for corporations—giant towers stabbing into the polluted clouds like middle fingers to the people below. The rich live so high up that the air is actually breathable. The rest of us live in the shadows of those towers, in cramped apartments where the power goes out every other night, but the rent never does.

Elevators barely work, the staircases leak, and yet somehow there’s always a 200-foot screen blasting ads for “luxury brain implants you’ll never afford.”

The People

Everyone here has a “half-upgraded” look. One guy has top-tier robot arms but can’t afford to fix his teeth. Another has glowing cyber-eyes, but his shoes are held together with duct tape. That’s life here: a mix of high-tech and low-budget survival.

You talk to friends over encrypted chat while sitting across from them because—let’s be real—trust is dead. Even relationships are corporate-sponsored now. Want love? Just download it. There’s literally an app called Rent-a-Soulmate. Don’t ask how it works.

Law and Order (Ha, Good One)

There are no “police” here, only “security contractors.” Their job isn’t to protect you—it’s to protect whoever paid them. If your neighbor owes money to a megacorp, good luck. You’ll wake up to his entire apartment being repossessed, including the fridge, the bed, and possibly his cybernetic leg.

Justice here depends on your credit score. If you’re broke, you’re guilty—end of story. If you’re rich, congratulations, the law doesn’t even see you.

The Daily Struggle

Why do people stay here? Honestly—because leaving is worse. At least in the city, the Wi-Fi is decent, and you can still buy soy noodles at 4 AM. Sure, the air tastes like burnt plastic, and your boss tracks every heartbeat you take, but outside these walls? Desert wasteland. At least here, misery comes with neon lights.

We laugh about it because if you don’t laugh, you’ll start screaming. And once you start screaming, the corporate sound meters will fine you for “noise pollution.”

Final Thoughts from the Bottom Tier

Life in the cyberpunk city is dark, weird, and exhausting—but it’s ours. We have our neon lights, our glitchy street markets, our unreliable cyberware, and our community of broke, sarcastic survivors. We keep moving, paycheck to paycheck, software update to software update, waiting for the day we can afford an escape.

Until then: keep your head down, keep your implants charged, and try not to choke on the smog.

Because the future is here.

And the future sucks.