There's Nothing Wrong With Us

Nashville, Tennessee

A dream and a letter to Gen Z, Millennials and everyone else

It’s been three hours and we’re still scrolling. There’s nothing wrong with us. There’s a rushing feeling that something isn’t right. There’s nothing wrong with us. We can’t sleep again. There’s nothing wrong with us. Even when we’re in a crowd, we feel alone. There’s nothing wrong with us. In fact, we’ve never felt so alone. There’s nothing wrong with us.

I was running up a hill, away from something. What it was I could not tell. All I knew was to run. But it’s the knowing that’s the hardest part, cause once I knew I was running I could stop. So I did, and I asked myself, who am I running from?

I turned around and I expected to see a face, a villain, a witch, someone I’d have to defend against. But there was nobody, only a million other bodies running up the same hill like water moving upstream or a freeway at night, when all you can see are the blurring of lights.

Like one can do in dreams, I lifted up toward the sky and there I was, looking down at the tunnel of blur ascending the mountain. It appeared like a trail of supersonic ants, and beyond it was a world moving much more slowly: The cold water of the San Fransisco bay lapping under blue sky, specked with clouds. And I could breathe.

There’s nothing wrong with us. We’re just not made for this; This machine that has us running uphill in a panic; This machine that has us eating dinner in separate rooms while staring at screens; This machine that has us addicted to constant noise and images which are deteriorating our thinking; This machine that’s distracting us from knowing our neighbors, sun on skin, silence of thought and quiet rustling of leaves. There’s nothing wrong with us.

Build against the machine a life outside the blur, a life in the slower world, a life of other bodies, of sky, of hands held, eyes locked, paper books, sitting at dinner tables, laughing. There’s nothing wrong with us. Get out from behind the screen and build against the machine.