The Overwhelmingness of Modernity

Treading water in a whirlpool

I don’t know about you, but I find modern life to be simply too much. Too much to do, too much to consider, too much to decide. There are too many bills, too many obligations and expectations, and too many things to worry about — both existential and mundane. Too much traffic, too much pollution, too many people competing for ever-dwindling resources on a finite planet. Perhaps I was born in the wrong era. I often think I’d be more at home as a Paleolithic hunter-gatherer or a homesteader in the Old West. But alas. I find modern life continually overwhelming.

For example, you head off on a week’s vacation for your kids’ spring break. Before leaving, you make sure to get paid up on all current and upcoming bills. You make sure to get as caught up as possible on your workload and to line out all the things you’ll need others to cover while you’re away. You make sure the chickens are sorted out with food and water, the house secured and in good order, your vehicle tuned up and ready to go. And then at last you’re ready to go “relax.”

Fast forward a week. You fire up your work laptop and are met with several hundred unread emails. You open your personal email and have dozens more. You check your physical mailbox and find it filled to the brim with mostly junk mail along with a few random bills from random utilities too old-school to switch to e-bills. It’s insane-making.

And the only reason I don’t have to add dozens and dozens of both work and personal voicemails to this list is because I categorically refuse to use voicemail. It’s such an anachronistic, useless time suck. “To check unheard messages, press one. The following messages have not been heard. First unheard message…” Yeah, I know they’re unheard. Cue the part about me checking them. Sigh. Anyway, it’s called email and text. Look into it.

You go to the grocery store and are confronted with fifteen different brands of cereal. And each brand has a dozen varieties. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Welcome to the omnivore’s dilemma. So you go with the easy out. Beer is a kind of cereal right?

You read that violent crime is through the roof, much of it caused by people going batty from social isolation during pandemic lockdowns. But how often did you see your friends even in the Before Times? Life gets so hectic between jobs, kids, housework, extracurriculars. Lifelong best buddies you used to see every day of your life back in grade school, you’re now lucky to see once every other month — even when they live less than a mile away.

And for what? So you can vainly and pointlessly try to keep up with the Joneses? To hell with the Jones. It feels like humanity has completely lost the plot. Like we’re all running around like headless chickens to destroy the planet as fast as possible in order to feel overwhelmed and miserable. Surely that’s the definition of madness.

I don’t know what the answer is. You read about various “slow” movements — slow food, slow work — but few of them seem remotely feasible. “Sorry, boss. My therapist told me I need to reduce my spreadsheet intake. That report will have to wait until next week.”

People try to compensate with toys, but that only complicates matters. Now you have boat engines to repair, skis that require storage and need waxing and are quickly rendered obsolete. Every new gadget you buy comes with a half inch thick instruction manual. Yeah, that’s how I want to spend my limited free time. “I’m afraid I’m not gonna be able to make it to your dinner party. I need to delve into a technical dissertation to figure out my new digital SLR.” Perhaps it’s a case of old dog/new tricks, but too many new tricks to learn can age you beyond your years (or turn your human years into dog years).

By this point you might be thinking to yourself, “This guy sounds like he needs medication.” Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t believe soma is the answer. This is much bigger than brain chemistry. The answer lies with society. And yet, around fifteen percent of the populace now takes anti-depressants. (And that’s pre-COVID. In fact, when you Google it, the top results are all pre-COVID. How bizarre. It’s like it’s gotten so bad they don’t even want to report on it anymore.)

Perhaps then, AI is the answer. After all, sorting through complexity is what it does best. Yet, if the current AI experience is anything to go by, it’s not looking promising. It’s so goddamned tone deaf. Facebook generously offers up “a memory you might enjoy from eleven years ago.” Oh look, a photo of my ex-wife and I smiling broadly moments after getting engaged. Gee, thanks for sharing. That’s really heartwarming. Not triggering at all. I sincerely hope our future AI overlords have a bit more of a clue as to how human psychology works.

Then again, I’m not sure how many humans have a clue how human psychology works. Take, for instance, the constant push notifications you get from Tinder when you haven’t logged on in months. They send you, what I guess they think are clever or humorous chastisements about how you’ve been slacking on using their service, as though it’s through your own personal failings or lack of focus. Did it ever cross their minds that perhaps, just perhaps, you used their dating app to meet someone who you’re now dating and thus you no longer require their services? What the hell kind of business model fails by succeeding?

Lastly (as in the last topic I’m going to complain about here — I’m sure there are plenty of others I’ve overlooked), you have the nightmare that is the American healthcare system. Even when you have platinum level coverage, trying to make sense of the billings makes even a supposedly reasonably bright person’s head spin.

There are the charges (covered and non-covered), the subsequent adjustments, the deductibles and copays. You get the paper “Explanation of Benefits” statement in the mail reminding you in six pages of small print that “This is not a bill.” Then why did you send it? *Kindly refer back to the part about way too much fucking mail.

Then you get the actual bill that you study intently to try to figure out what you actually owe. Then both the bill and the notification are repeated electronically just in case you weren’t confused enough already. And heaven forbid, if you happened to have been out of town when the first one arrived, you get a follow-up one telling you it’s now past due, and then you have to reconcile dates of service with account numbers to try to figure out if it’s actually one bill or two.

So you call up Customer Service, spend ten minutes pressing keys and talking to various robots before getting placed on hold for another fifteen minutes, until at last you reach a human being, only to have to then verbally reenter all of the information you already provided the robots. And finally, just when you think you’ve almost reached the end, your cell phone drops the call and you have to start the whole process over again from scratch. Even Kafka couldn’t have imagined how technology would only serve to further enhance the bureaucratic nightmares he so eloquently and terrifyingly envisioned.

And mind you, this is what you have to deal with when you have excellent insurance coverage. For the tens of millions who are uninsured or underinsured, you’re all pretty much just shit out of luck. Unless you’re in perfect shape and perfect health, with no family history of cancer or heart disease, and you regularly refrain from any and all activities more dangerous than walking down the sidewalk, you’d best get well-acquainted with bankruptcy law.

I like to end my essays with something positive whenever possible. I like to offer solutions. After all, as engineers are fond of noting, “There are no problems — only solutions waiting to be found.”

But this one’s a tough nut to crack. How do we possibly begin to dial back modernity? Is it even possible? Would it be desirable? A trade worth making? Or will nature soon force it upon us for our reckless squandering of her gifts?

Thanks goodness for mind-altering chemicals. And thank goodness there’s no world beyond this one and we’re mortal within it (so at least there’s an exit). But hey, the sun just burst through the clouds. I’m gonna get out in it and I’ll think about the rest tomorrow.

Colby Hess is a freelance writer and photographer from Seattle, and author of the freethinker children’s book The Stranger of Wigglesworth.

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