A Wake-up Call for the ‘Modern World’

Everything we want is one click away.

Hungry? Order food and track it in real time.
Bored? Open TikTok, and you’ll be entertained within seconds.

We don’t have to wait anymore. For anything. We live in the age of instant gratification. An age where for many people, desire and fulfillment are basically the same. Is this not the utopia of endless convenient pleasure that we used to dream for? Are you not entertained?

Let’s take a step back.

For most of human history, gratification was delayed by default. You had to plant seeds before you could eat. Write letters before you could talk. Wait years before mastering a craft.

Now, there is almost no delay. And as we start getting more things faster, we’re also getting used to needing them faster, so this convenience is shaping our desire. 

In 1964, philosopher Herbert Marcuse wrote ‘One-Dimensional Man’, a warning about the modern world.

He argued that industrial and technological society wasn’t liberating us; it was flattening us.
Not by censorship or force like in 1984, but by overwhelming us with comfort, entertainment, and convenience.

Marcuse said that we were becoming one-dimensional:
People who no longer question the system, because the system feels too satisfying to resist.

So we trade critical thought for passive consumption.
Real freedom for choices between brands on Amazon.
Real happiness for endless little dopamine boosts on Tiktok.

And when everything is available instantly, there’s no time, or reason, to reflect.

The result is a society that feels free, but isn't.
A self that feels full, but is hollow.

In all this it’s important to remember that we’re not born to be one-dimensional.

We’re complex. We’re layered. We feel joy and sorrow, curiosity and fear, creativity and doubt. We can choose to live in more than one dimension.

To be multi-dimensional isn’t just a ‘rebellion’ against fast-paced consumption. Deciding to quit your phone wouldn’t magically turn you multi-dimensional, but it gives you the time and space to explore the other dimensions of life.

To be multi-dimensional means to return to wholeness.
To return to being fully, radically human.

It means to embrace the entire spectrum of existence: joy and pain, success and failure, stillness and movement.
It means not cowering from change, but seeking it.
It means letting life be messy and uncertain and real.

In an age of instant everything, what we need most
is to remember that becoming human takes time.

Original Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv1F9X0qgjg&t=1s