Diving Deep in Shallow Times

I feel muffled. Muzzled. Hibernating.

The threshold of of the mid-21st century is just so...banal and reductionistic.

Anything flashy is utilized to sell. Curse words thrown around like grains of salt on a meal by people that look like they are 10 who grew up consuming the internet. And the ever subversive world of human politics and power struggles are projected onto the Divine in soundbites for the sheep-like masses.

I....just...can't...even.

I mean, what even is that statement? What even is throwing the word "even" in the wrong place in a sentence because...it's a trend that caught on, probably on TikTok.

Why is everything so....bland and dumbed down?

I can critique it all day long.

I can struggle against it, mentally, and observe my own temptation to use modern means of self-satisfaction.

However, it does not change one solid fact.

I'm here. On purpose.

For some reason, the fragment of consciousness that is Anastasia decided to plop down into this particular skin suit in 1984 and fall into the illusion that this is Me and My Life.

How exciting it must be for Spirit to go on such adventures.

But surely, there are some days, it must look around and wonder....how and why and what are we glorifying on this beautiful planet we find ourselves on?

With all of our smarts, tech, beauty, and capacity for emotion, creativity, and delight, why is the popular music of 2025 so astonishingly horrendous, for example?

I'm not throwing this piece into Grammerly or Chat GPT to make it "better." I'm just not. Not because I don't love them and use them all the time.

But I trade a piece of my soul each time I do. I don't need to be "better" and sound like a well-adapted robot. I need to be real. I need to drink of the real.

Do you not feel depleted? Drained?

Trained...to get to the punchline, fast?

Addicted to the hook? Yet, repulsed by the formulaic nature of it?

Where is the spontenaity? The authenticity? The truth?

No, not your ideological, politically-superficially-motivated, tribally-instilled-for-survival-purposes "Truth."

The truth of the crunch of grass beneath your feet and the earthy smell that wafts up as you step through a field of a million colors.

The truth of a feeling and emotion so mysterious and powerful it feels like it will carry you away or lift you up or drop you hard?

The truth of immediacy. The truth of honesty. The truth of who you really are.

Do you remember?

Do I remember?

Can you remind me?