For You
You're Not Broken
You're here because something feels wrong. Maybe you've tried therapy. Medication. Self-help. Maybe some of it helped, temporarily. But something's still not right.
Here's what no one told you.
Read On ↓
Your Feelings Are Data
Every feeling you have is information. Not malfunction. Not disorder. Information.
Anxiety
They tell you it's a disorder. It's not.
You're surrounded by strangers. You can't predict what's coming. You have no control over forces that shape your life. Your environment is full of threats-social, financial, existential-that you can't resolve through action.
Your threat detection system is working correctly. The environment is actually threatening.
Depression
They tell you it's a chemical imbalance. It's not.
Your life lacks visible purpose. You can't see who your effort helps. You're not needed by anyone in particular. Nothing you do feels like it matters.
Your meaning assessment system is working correctly. The meaning is actually missing.
Loneliness
They tell you to work on your social skills. That's not it.
You have hundreds of followers and no one to call at 3am. You're surrounded by people and known by none of them.
Your isolation alarm is working correctly. You are actually isolated.
Addiction
They tell you it's a disease. It's more complicated.
You have drives-for connection, status, stimulation, meaning. Those drives evolved to be satisfied in specific ways. Those ways are blocked. So you reach for what's available.
Your drives are working correctly. The real satisfactions are actually blocked.
Understanding Your Signals
Why You're Here
For 300,000 years, your ancestors lived in conditions that remained remarkably consistent:
- •Small bands of 20-50, nested in tribes of ~150
- •Known faces, stable relationships, predictable social world
- •Daily closure-hunt, gather, make, eat, sleep, done
- •Visible contribution-everyone saw what you did
- •Physical life-moving, outdoors, using your body
- •Real status-evaluated against ~150 knowable people
Then:
- • 10,000 years of agriculture
- • 200 years of industrialization
- • 15 years of smartphones
The hardware hasn't changed. The operating environment is unrecognizable.
The Mismatch
The Machinery
Open Loops
Your brain evolved for closure. Hunt → eat → done. Conflict → resolution → done.
Now nothing ever closes. Infinite scroll. Infinite email. Infinite news. Your background processes are maxed with open loops that have no end state.
The Internal Audience
You evolved to be watched by ~150 people. Your brain simulates what they think of you.
But you don't have 150 people who know you. So the simulation runs on phantoms. You're performing for an audience that doesn't exist.
Stranger Overload
You evolved for a world of known faces. Maybe 1,000 people total in your lifetime.
Now you encounter more strangers in a day than your ancestors met in years. Your brain can't stop assessing. You're exhausted by the sheer quantity of humans.
Status at Global Scale
You evolved to compete for status among ~150. Now you're compared against 8 billion. You see the highlight reels of everyone, everywhere.
Proxy Consumption
You have real needs: connection, status, intimacy, meaning. What you're offered: followers, matches, likes, content. Proxies. Salt water for thirst.
Understanding the Machinery
The Exploitation Economy
Your suffering is profitable. Every unmet need is a market.
- •Social media profits from your loneliness
- •Pharma profits from your signals
- •Food industry profits from your hijacked appetites
- •Dating apps profit from your failed search
- •Self-help profits from your continued failure
- •News media profits from your anxiety
This isn't conspiracy. It's documented business strategy.
You are not failing at life. You are living in an environment designed to fail you.
The Exploitation Economy
The False Solutions
Medication
If your depression is accurate assessment that your life lacks meaning-medication doesn't add meaning. It's covering the oil light instead of checking the engine.
Self-Help
"Change your mindset." If the problem is environmental, mindset change is asking the fish to think positive thoughts about land.
Therapy (As Proxy)
Good therapy is a bridge. But therapy can become a proxy-the therapist as your only intimate relationship. Ask: Is my therapy helping me build real-world tribe? Or has it become the thing itself?
Environment, Not Mindset
What actually works.
Build Real Tribe
Start small. You need 5 people who'd show up at 3am. Not followers. Actual humans.
How:
- • Regular, repeated contact (same people, same time, same place)
- • Vulnerability (share real things, not performance)
- • Practical interdependence (help each other)
- • Physical presence (screens don't count)
Close the Loops
Your brain needs completion.
- • Make things and finish them
- • Have conversations that resolve
- • Reduce open tabs-literal and metaphorical
- • Do one thing at a time, to completion
Replace Proxies with Reality
For every proxy, ask: what's the real need?
- • Social media → actual face time
- • Porn → actual intimacy
- • News → actual local engagement
- • Shopping → actual needs met
Find Visible Contribution
You need to see who your effort helps.
- • Work where you see the impact
- • Volunteer with visible results
- • Care for humans or animals who need you
Get Physical
You have a body.
- • Movement every day
- • Daylight, especially morning
- • Nature when possible
- • Touch with humans you care about
Building What You Need
Demismatch First. Then Augment.
This is the progression:
EEA → MISMATCH → DEMISMATCH → AUGMENTED
You're somewhere in MISMATCH. The path is through DEMISMATCH (returning to baseline) toward something even better.
You can't skip steps. You can't augment from broken. But you can start moving. Today.
This isn't the end. It's the foundation for something better.
See what we're building toward
What Will You Build?
Understanding changes nothing by itself. Knowing you're a fish on land doesn't put you back in water.
You have to build.
What will you build?
- • Your own tribe? (Start with one dinner)
- • Your own closure? (Finish one thing today)
- • Your own contribution? (Help one person who can see you)
- • Or something bigger?
The trap: Reading about mismatch while sitting alone, scrolling, under artificial light is not progress.
Close this tab. Go outside. Find your people. Build something.
The framework will still be here when you need it.