What is Happening to People?

My wife and I stopped at Culver’s after a chiropractor appointment. Nothing unusual. Just a normal day, a normal place, a normal interaction. Or at least it should have been. As I stood there waiting to place our order, I noticed two employees behind the counter, and something about them stopped me cold. It wasn’t rudeness. It wasn’t incompetence. It was a look. A blankness so complete that it was unsettling. Their eyes weren’t angry, bored, or tired. They looked vacant, as if thought itself had stepped out of the room.

I have seen this look before. I have been seeing it for years, but for some reason, in that moment, it fully registered. This wasn’t an isolated thing. It was familiar. Widespread. And once I truly noticed it, I couldn’t stop seeing it everywhere.

That expression seems to appear most clearly when there is no screen in front of someone. No phone. No device. No digital prompt. Without external stimulation, many people now appear suspended, almost waiting to be activated. The moment a screen lights up, they come alive. Without it, there is nothing behind the eyes that suggests engagement, curiosity, or presence.

That realization opened the floodgates.

I began thinking about how many people I see who look physically miserable simply existing in their own bodies. Not elderly people. Not those with visible disabilities. Average adults who appear to be in pain just walking. Movement looks labored, uncomfortable, almost foreign. Their bodies seem neglected, not used, not challenged, not respected. They shuffle rather than walk, slump rather than stand, and move as though gravity itself has become an enemy.

This did not happen overnight, and it did not happen without cause.

We live in a world built almost entirely around immediate gratification. Processed foods engineered for taste rather than nourishment. Endless snacks that deliver pleasure with no effort and no nutritional value. Diets saturated with sugar, chemicals, and empty calories that satisfy a craving while quietly damaging the body that consumes them. Obesity is only the most visible consequence. Behind it are inflammation, fatigue, depression, diabetes, joint pain, cognitive decline, and a general sense of physical unwellness that has become so common we barely question it anymore.

The body follows the mind. When comfort is prioritized over capability, weakness becomes the default.

The same pattern exists socially. More and more people move through public spaces as if no one else exists. They walk directly into others without acknowledgment. No excuse me. No apology. No recognition that they have shared the same physical space. It is not aggression. It is absence. The awareness that other people matter, that shared spaces require shared responsibility, appears to be fading.

Then there is public phone behavior. Speakerphone conversations held loudly in restaurants, stores, waiting rooms. Personal matters broadcast to strangers without a second thought. No sense that some things are private, or that courtesy is a social agreement we all benefit from. The idea that one person’s personal moment should not become everyone else’s problem seems to have vanished.

This is not confidence. It is not empowerment. It is a collapse of boundaries.

Layered on top of all of this is the constant need to express. Opinions shouted outward. Emotions displayed publicly and indiscriminately. Grievances aired as if the world is obligated to absorb them. Social media has conditioned people to believe that every thought deserves an audience and every feeling requires validation. Reflection has been replaced by performance. Identity is no longer built internally. It is projected outward and reinforced by likes, shares, and comments.

And here is the uncomfortable truth. Many of the things that offer instant gratification are the very things that harm us the most in the long run.

Highly processed food tastes good now and damages health later.
Endless scrolling feels soothing now and erodes attention later.
Prescription drugs promise relief now and often create dependency later.

Convenience removes effort now and steals resilience later.

We have built a system that feeds our impulses while starving our long-term needs, and we foolishly call it “progress”.

When Compassion Is Replaced With Permission

One of the most damaging shifts in modern culture is not just what people are doing to themselves, but how the world now responds to it. We have rebranded indulgence as acceptance and neglect as kindness. In the process, we have created narratives that actively discourage improvement while pretending to be compassionate.

A clear example of this is the way body positivity has gradually replaced body responsibility. It began with a reasonable idea. People should not be mocked or dehumanized because of their appearance. That is a standard any decent society should uphold. But somewhere along the way, that principle was distorted. Instead of protecting dignity, it began protecting denial.

I recently saw a post that asked, “Would you care if your spouse were fat?” The question was framed to corner people into a specific answer. The socially acceptable response was not just “no,” but “of course not,” followed by declarations about not being judgmental. The implication was clear. If you care, you are shallow. If you express concern, you are cruel.

That framing is dishonest.

Would I care if my wife were overweight? Of course I would. Not because of how she looks, but because of what it would mean for her life. Being overweight makes everyday movement harder. It causes discomfort. It affects sleep, energy, joints, and long-term health. It increases the risk of serious disease. Caring about those realities is not judgment. It is love. Selfishly I want her around as long as possible, so I care about any condition that may affect her quality of life or may even shorten it.

But modern narratives deliberately avoid those truths. They shift the focus entirely to appearance, because that makes it easier to dismiss legitimate concern as vanity or intolerance. By doing so, they silence conversations that actually matter. Health. Longevity. Quality of life. Preventable suffering.

This pattern repeats everywhere.

We are told not to question choices, not to challenge behavior, not to express concern, because doing so might make someone uncomfortable. But discomfort is often the very thing that precedes growth. When a culture treats every boundary as oppression and every critique as cruelty, it creates an environment where harmful behavior is not just tolerated, but affirmed.

The result is a strange form of social negligence disguised as empathy.

People are encouraged to do whatever feels good in the moment, while being shielded from hearing about the consequences. Anyone who points out those consequences is framed as insensitive or hateful. Meanwhile, the outcomes do not change. Bodies break down. Health deteriorates. Dependency increases. And the same system that encouraged the behavior offers pills, labels, and slogans instead of solutions.

This is how decline is normalized.

By removing responsibility from the conversation, we remove the possibility of improvement. By redefining concern as judgment, we eliminate accountability. And by pretending that every choice is equally valid, we quietly accept outcomes that are objectively worse for the people living them.

That is not compassion. Compassion does not mean telling someone that everything they are doing is fine when it clearly is not. Compassion means caring enough to tell the truth, even when that truth is uncomfortable.

The Direction We Chose

Modern life did not accidentally lead us here. It was engineered to reduce friction, eliminate effort, and prioritize comfort. But effort is how bodies stay strong. Discomfort is how minds grow. Delayed gratification is how character is formed. When those things are systematically stripped away, the result is not happiness. It is numbness.