There’s a kind of tired that sleep doesn’t fix.
It isn’t the tired you get from splitting wood or walking a long ridge line. That kind of tired is honest. You feel it in your shoulders, your legs, your back. You eat, you rest, you wake up better.
This is different.
This is the tired that sits behind your eyes.
The kind that shows up even on quiet days.
Nobody is naming it because nothing is technically wrong. The bills may be paid. The house may be standing. The job may still be there. The country hasn’t fallen apart. The sky hasn’t cracked open.
And yet.
People are worn thin.
Not angry-thin.
Not dramatic-thin.
Just stretched.
It feels like we live in permanent intensity.
There used to be seasons for things.
Election season.
Harvest season.
Football season.
Tax season.
Now everything is always in season.
Permanent outrage.
Permanent updates.
Permanent “breaking.”
Permanent analysis.
Your phone hums.
Your watch lights up.
Your inbox refills.
Your feed scrolls without bottom.
It never ends.
The body knows this before the mind admits it.
You see it in how people talk to each other — shorter, quicker, less patient. You see it in marriages that feel more like logistics departments. You see it in men who stop calling their friends because they “just don’t feel like talking.” You see it in women who say they’re fine, but their shoulders never quite drop.
We lost more than diners and hardware store counters.
We lost the pause between events.
There used to be space.
Space to digest news.
Space to disagree in person.
Space to cool off.
Space to be bored.
Boredom was not a threat. It was recovery.
Now boredom feels suspicious. Like you’re missing something important.
You’re not.
But your nervous system doesn’t know that.
It thinks every alert might matter. Every headline might demand a reaction. Every social post might require a position.
And so we react.
Tiny reactions, all day long.
A raised eyebrow at a headline.
A tight jaw at a comment.
A quick reply that didn’t need to be sent.
A scroll that lasts longer than intended.
None of it feels catastrophic.
But the accumulation is heavy.
We don’t get physical rest from this kind of strain because it isn’t physical strain. It’s cognitive and emotional strain. It’s the weight of constant input without integration.
There was a time when news came once or twice a day. A paper on the porch. The evening broadcast. You absorbed it, maybe talked about it, and then the world went quiet.
Now the world never goes quiet.
And without quiet, nothing settles.
When nothing settles, everything stays slightly inflamed.
Not enough to explode.
Enough to exhaust.
You can see it in conversations.
People don’t listen as long. They wait for their turn. Or they don’t talk at all. They withdraw. It feels easier to stay inside your own head than risk one more friction point.
That’s not weakness.
That’s depletion.
There’s also a strange pressure to care about everything.
Every crisis.
Every scandal.
Every injustice.
Every rumor.
We were not built to carry the emotional weight of the entire planet in our pockets.
But we try.
And when you try to care about everything, you end up caring about nothing very deeply. You skim. You react. You move on.
Depth requires quiet.
Commitment requires margin.
Stability requires repetition without interruption.
Those things are rare now.
The exhaustion nobody is naming isn’t about politics. It isn’t even about economics.
It’s about pace.
Permanent pace.
Permanent input.
Permanent decision.
Do I respond?
Do I repost?
Do I argue?
Do I ignore?
Do I worry?
Do I prepare?
Even choosing not to engage becomes a decision.
And decisions drain.
You don’t feel it all at once.
You feel it when you don’t want to go out anymore.
When you’d rather stay home than sit in another loud room.
When silence feels safer than conversation.
When you realize you haven’t had an unstructured afternoon in months.
We are not collapsing.
We are over-stimulated.
There’s a difference.
Over-stimulation doesn’t make headlines.
It makes people tired.
The remedy isn’t dramatic.
It won’t trend.
It’s smaller than that.
Less input.
Longer pauses.
Fewer opinions.
More listening.
More repetition of simple things.
You don’t have to carry every emergency.
You don’t have to respond to every claim.
You don’t have to fix what is beyond your reach.
There is strength in narrowing your field.
There is sanity in choosing a smaller circle.
There is steadiness in refusing permanent urgency.
The culture may stay loud.
You don’t have to.
Exhaustion isn’t failure.
It’s a signal.
And sometimes the most disciplined thing you can do in a world of constant motion is stand still long enough to feel your own weight again.
Quiet is not retreat.
It is recovery.
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