Curated ignorance is the new modern superpower. Trying to stay updated on everything floods your brain with useless anxiety. Filtering out 95% of world noise leaves you with the focus required to fix your immediate life.
Your brain loves easy problems because solving them feels like winning without any hard work. But growth requires you to actively choose the path with the highest friction. The mind adapts, so keeping life easy forces your intelligence to shrink over time.
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War is a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives.
The reason Gen Z spends comfortably on small luxuries like high-end coffee is that long-term milestones like buying a home feel entirely out of reach in this economy. So they prioritise immediate quality of life over distant financial milestones.