Life post Covid-19. A ANALYSIS

Anyone else feel like we’re just "Simulation Walking" through life since 2023?

I’ve been trying to put my finger on why life feels so "off" lately, and I think I finally figured it out. It feels like the world’s factory settings were restored in 2023, but the software came back with glitches we’re all just pretending not to notice.

The biggest one? Developmental Stasis. Think about the kids born in 2005. In 2020, they were 15. They were children. For three years, they stayed home, played games, and lived in pajamas. Then suddenly, in 2023, the world hit "Resume" and told them, "Okay, you’re 18 now. Go to college. Be an adult. Pick a career."

We measure age in years, but we measure maturity in experiences. We essentially took a whole generation and put them in a microwave—aging them physically while freezing their social lives. Now, we have a world full of 22-year-olds who feel 19, and 30-year-olds who feel 27. We’re all "lagging" behind our actual IDs.

And then there’s the "Conveyor Belt" problem.

By 2023, everything went back to work, but nothing went back to normal. We were thrown right back onto the corporate/economic conveyor belt without a second to process the collective trauma we just sat through. We’re expected to care about "Quarterly Goals" and "KPIs" when we’ve literally seen the world stop. It makes everything feel fake.

Add to that the "Binary Culture" of the internet:

Because of cheap data and the radical nature of places like this (Reddit), the "7/10" experience has died.

• A movie is either a 10/10 masterpiece or 0/10 trash.
• A politician is either a God or a Dictator.
• Life is either "The Best Ever" or "The Apocalypse."

We’ve lost the "Grey Area" because our dopamine receptors are fried by 15-second jump-cut reels. Real life feels "boring" and "slow" because it doesn’t have a transition effect or a viral soundtrack. We’re comparing a 4K, high-saturation digital world to a physical world that is currently expensive (K-shaped economy, anyone?) and exhausting.

It feels like we’re all just "simulation walking"—going through the motions of a 2019 life with 2026 burnout.

Does anyone else feel like they’re just waiting for the "vibe" to shift back? Or is this just how it is now?