Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label consumerism

Terms and Isolation

I found myself talking to the walls during the lockdown. Not in the way people think—no dramatic outbursts or madness—but in that quiet, desperate way you mutter to empty spaces when the idea of being seen has faded. There’s a loneliness that’s not cinematic. No rain, no music. Just the stale company of your own silence, broken only by the endless ping of emails and notifications. But those messages weren’t from people. They were from apps, brands, employers. “You’re essential,” they said, while handing me crumbs and expecting gratitude. The virus separated us physically, sure. But the system? The system kept us isolated long after the virus faded, turning our loneliness into a subscription model. I noticed how every notification wasn’t about connection, but consumption. How grief became a product you could journal through, exhaustion a badge of honor, and self-care a market segment. Capitalism didn’t care if I was broken; it only cared that I kept buying the illusion of healing. I ...

How Capitalism Turned My Existential Crisis Into a Subscription Plan

It’s funny how the deepest questions—the ones that keep you up at night—suddenly have a price. Not in pesos for a coffee or a jeepney ride, but in recurring monthly fees. I wasn’t just lost in life anymore. I was lost in the marketplace of self-help apps and online courses, all promising to fix the parts of me that feel like they’re falling apart. “Subscribe now for ₱399 a month,” one app blared, offering me peace of mind I never thought I needed to buy. My existential crisis had become a product, and I was the customer. Every month, I’d pay just to get a little closer to understanding myself—except the closer I got, the more it felt like I was leasing my own identity. I downloaded reminders to breathe, to journal, to meditate—each with a small fee attached. It’s like the more I tried to fix myself, the more I realized I was trapped in a cycle of consumption disguised as healing. My suffering wasn’t mine anymore; it belonged to the algorithms and marketing teams that turned my confus...