Why Nothing Feels Exciting Anymore

0:01 Maybe it’s just me, but has the world

0:04 grown less appealing and far less interesting, almost overnight?

0:08 It’s like everywhere I go, every place I visit, I’ve already seen before.

0:15 In cities around the globe, I encounter the same stores.

0:19 Train stations and airports look similar.

0:22 And even people seem to look alike in appearance and manner.

0:26 Everything seems manufactured; originality and uniqueness are fading qualities,

0:32 and many of the things we entertain

0:34 ourselves with have become repetitive and overly abundant.

0:37 It’s as if our planet has lost its magic and life, its mystery.

0:44 It's like the world has transformed from a giant

0:47 enigma filled with riddles and secrets into a massive,

0:50 interconnected shopping mall, where every little spot,

0:54 every place of significance, is on full display, like shoes in a store window,

1:00 and where true adventure and discovery are things of the past,

1:05 and experiences have become commodified,

1:07 sold like prepackaged meals in a 7-Eleven.

1:11 And we ask ourselves: What’s left to wonder?

1:14 What’s left to explore?

1:16 What experiences are truly worthwhile and touch the depths of our souls?

1:21 In a world so heavily globalized,

1:24 shrunk by technology and robbed of its mystique, what’s really the point?

1:30 This video explores why life feels so flat and much less exciting today.

1:37 My name is Stefan.

1:38 This is not an AI voice, I’m a real person.

1:41 Follow me on Substack for all my content, including my podcast,

1:45 and consider supporting me on Patreon if you like my work.

1:50 Thank you.

1:50 And I hope you’ll enjoy this video.

1:57 I remember how the world was shrouded in mystery.

2:00 And mind you, humanity already had its fair share

2:03 of technology back in the nineties when I grew up.

2:07 The Internet was just beginning,

2:09 and mobile phones were still in their early stages of mainstream adoption.

2:13 As a child, I remember being awestruck by the vastness of everything around me:

2:19 the universe, the Milky Way, the planets in our solar system, including our own.

2:25 My city alone struck me as a vast place,

2:28 and at the age of ten or so, with still a lot to discover.

2:33 So, let alone planet Earth, strange countries,

2:36 faraway continents, and giant oceans to cross.

2:39 I remember my father owned a book about North America,

2:44 with beautiful photographs and the Twin Towers of New York on the cover.

2:48 I used to stare at those Twin Towers for a long time,

2:52 as well as the rest of Manhattan’s skyline that surrounded them.

2:56 It was one of the few glimpses I had of that faraway city,

3:00 and I was totally fascinated by it.

3:03 From a relatively young age, I used to scour encyclopedias to learn

3:07 the details about cities all over the world.

3:10 And I was obsessed with city maps (even drawing some myself as a hobby),

3:15 as they revealed the shapes of the streets,

3:19 railroads, and rivers of these unfamiliar places.

3:22 I used to imagine what these places looked like in reality.

3:26 Take a city like Madrid, for example:

3:28 all I had was a map and a tiny photo in an encyclopedia.

3:33 For the most part, the Spanish capital was a mystery to me,

3:37 and to most people who had never been there.

3:39 Despite the world seeming so obscure, I yearned to see more of it.

3:44 The limited information was precisely what evoked that yearning.

3:48 The little teasers of what’s out there:

3:50 a mere name and location, and some peculiar facts about the culture,

3:55 and the number of inhabitants, were the reasons why pondering over

3:59 these unknown places was such an enchanting experience.

4:03 The ‘not knowing’ made them appealing;

4:05 it made them seem far away and mysterious.

4:08 It also made the world big, magical, and exciting.

4:12 During the last twenty years, technology has undoubtedly changed things.

4:17 To see any of the Spanish coasts in detail,

4:20 you can go to Google Street View, and there you’ll find it.

4:24 You can even check any coastal town, check all the accommodations,

4:28 restaurants, tourist spots, and see thousands of pictures, videos, and reviews.

4:34 You don’t have to leave your house for faraway sights.

4:37 Just go on YouTube and you’ll

4:39 find hundreds of influencers who’ve already visited

4:42 the place you had in mind to go to, which they show you in detail,

4:48 possibly in a live stream.

4:50 Your dream of an expedition into a strange, unknown, faraway place?

4:55 That dream is shattered.

4:57 Whatever you’d encounter, it’s already there for the world to see,

5:02 displayed as freshly baked cakes behind glass in a bakery.

5:08 So, what’s left to explore?

5:09 What’s left to wonder about?

5:11 Places that seemed so mysterious and remote have

5:15 now become products we order on our smartphones.

5:18 We just tap and swipe, hop on a plane, to see exactly what we expect.

5:24 Millions have gone before us, and millions will come after us.

5:29 It’s not that traveling isn’t rewarding in any way.

5:33 There’s still a significant difference between being

5:36 somewhere in person and experiencing the places,

5:39 vibes, sounds, and smells, versus just watching a YouTube video about it.

5:45 However, technology has reduced the overall experience of traveling

5:49 and life in general to something rather commercialized and soulless.

5:54 Technology has made things much easier,

5:58 but it has also stripped specific events and experiences, such as traveling,

6:04 dating, or simply being a citizen,

6:06 of meaningful elements that used to be part of them.

6:15 The Norwegian pessimistic philosopher Peter Zapffe,

6:18 born just before the 20th century, already observed the devastating effects

6:24 of technology on people’s experience of life.

6:27 He wrote of ‘spiritual unemployment’,

6:30 as technology has robbed people of the ‘spiritual

6:33 labor’ we perform to survive in an uncertain,

6:38 unpredictable world full of challenges.

6:40 He considered the use of flying machines to explore uncharted land ‘a crime’,

6:46 as it destroys many opportunities for human experience.

6:49 I’m thinking of a journey I made not too long ago to Tokyo,

6:54 which has currently become a hub for mass tourism.

6:58 Even though, from the Dutch perspective, Tokyo is a faraway place,

7:03 situated in the far east of Asia, it’s very easy to get there.

7:08 You take your smartphone, book a ticket, book a hotel, and go.

7:13 It’s fast, it’s safe, it’s comfortable.

7:16 What’s more to wish for?

7:19 Now, imagine being an 18th-century person from Amsterdam

7:23 traveling to 18th-century Tokyo, then known as Edo.

7:27 You must board a VOC ship, travel to the Dutch Indies,

7:32 for a trip of around 6 to 9 months,

7:35 and hope for a lifetime opportunity to embark on a trading mission to Japan,

7:40 which was essentially closed off to foreigners.

7:43 A journey from Amsterdam to Edo was long and dangerous.

7:48 Storms, shipwrecks, malaria, dysentery, scurvy, pirates, tropical fevers,

7:53 and the simple chance of never coming home were all part of the deal.

7:59 However, this was the “spiritual labor” Zapffe was referring to.

8:04 A trip we now make in under twenty hours

8:06 in cushy airplanes has become more of a ‘meaningless inconvenience’;

8:10 we can’t wait to get out of the plane and rush toward our destination.

8:16 But back then, such a trip was a life

8:19 experience of a magnitude that only a few have today; the length, the obstacles,

8:25 and the risks gave it depth and meaning, making it life-defining.

8:31 In the 18th century, a trip from Brussels to Amsterdam was much more

8:36 challenging and adventurous than a trip from, let’s say,

8:40 Berlin to Singapore today.

8:42 Sure, traveling has become increasingly convenient thanks to technology,

8:46 but we also miss out on many valuable experiences.

8:51 We miss the depth and fulfillment that an experience like

8:55 a journey once provided—a journey full of surprises and uncertainty,

8:59 a collision with the unknown.

9:02 And can’t we say the same about other things in life?

9:07 What about dating, for example?

9:09 When I was seventeen years of age, we had MSN Messenger and email,

9:14 but not much more advanced in terms of connecting socially online.

9:19 Dating apps like Tinder didn’t exist;

9:22 meeting someone ‘online’ was something for weirdos.

9:25 There was a place where people my age would go on Friday nights,

9:30 hang out, and drink extremely cheap beer, 90 cents a pop.

9:34 If you wanted to meet someone, that was the time and place.

9:39 So, stuff happened.

9:40 Most of the boys and girls there seized the opportunity,

9:44 as they didn’t have hundreds of Tinder matches in their pockets or handbags.

9:48 The dating pool was limited; essentially,

9:51 it consisted of my town and some surrounding villages, but it was enough.

9:56 The limitation of choice made us appreciate what we had

10:00 and be more receptive to attention from the desired sex.

10:05 Approaching a potential partner once felt somewhat magical: going out,

10:10 noticing someone you found attractive, making eye contact, feeling that spark,

10:15 and wondering who they were as you watched their gestures or their smiles,

10:20 mustering the courage to say “hi”,

10:23 and facing the risk of an in-your-face rejection.

10:27 Flash forward to today.

10:28 Dating apps have undermined the natural

10:31 experience of meeting people in real life.

10:35 They turn potential partners into products.

10:38 It’s almost like they pass before us on a never-ending assembly line,

10:42 as we try to pick the best one while knowing

10:45 that an even “better” one is already on its way.

10:48 No wonder so many experience the paradox of choice when

10:52 these apps give access to a vast, global dating pool.

10:57 In terms of spiritual employment, technology has made life easier and safer,

11:01 but it has also stripped away many

11:04 of the experiences that once gave our lives meaning.

11:08 But it’s not only the loss

11:10 of meaningful experiences that makes life less appealing;

11:13 it’s that the new ones we’re offered all seem more of the same.

11:21 Have you noticed that every city you visit now feels… similar?

11:25 Walking through a shopping street in Tokyo, it kind of dawned on me:

11:31 even though Tokyo is on the other side of the world,

11:34 I see the same brands I see in my own country, the Netherlands.

11:38 There’s Zara, H&M, McDonald’s, Burger King, Starbucks, Apple,

11:43 Nike… as if they’ve colonized the country, just like they’ve colonized mine.

11:49 And thus, people all over the world often walk around with the same clothes,

11:54 the identical cups of coffee, and the same greasy hamburgers as they do here,

11:59 which used to be quite different.

12:01 I can still remember the city of Paris before the hyperglobalization of today,

12:05 when it felt just a bit more… Paris,

12:09 dominated by small French stores, bistros, and local bakeries.

12:13 And how we would go on vacation to Spain and exchange our guilders for pesetas,

12:20 the local currency back then, which was a hassle but, at the same time,

12:26 really gave the feel of being in a different country and society,

12:30 compared to today, where the euro has replaced guilders and pesetas.

12:36 Globalization came with standardization.

12:39 Instead of embracing diversity, whether in cultures, currencies, fashion, food,

12:46 or architecture, humanity tends to move toward ‘more of the same’.

12:51 We prefer uniformity, efficiency, and familiarity over variety.

12:57 Sure, today’s world works a lot smoother because

13:01 all of this, as everything is more predictable,

13:05 less ‘strange’, and easier to understand.

13:07 But doesn’t it also make traveling to another country less appealing,

13:13 because everything looks so familiar, as if you’re part of a global monoculture?

13:18 South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han refers

13:21 to this phenomenon of standardization as the “terror

13:26 of the same,” in which society violently destroys “the Other” and, thereby,

13:32 also destroys itself.

13:33 We can also observe the ‘sameness’ in today’s algorithms,

13:38 which feed us consumers more of the same, stuff that matches our interests.

13:44 We want the same types of series, the same kinds of products,

13:49 and the same kinds of people on dating apps,

13:52 as well as political content that we agree

13:55 with, created by people who think like we do,

13:58 and thus we inadvertently indoctrinate ourselves.

14:01 Han states: One travels everywhere, yet does not experience anything.

14:08 One catches sight of everything, yet reaches no insight.

14:12 One accumulates information and data, yet does not attain knowledge.

14:17 One lusts after adventures and stimulation, but always remains the same.

14:23 One accumulates online ‘friends’ and ‘followers’,

14:26 yet never encounters another person.

14:29 Social media constitutes an absolute zero grade of the social.

14:34 End quote.

14:35 Because of the increasing ‘sameness’,

14:38 and because we’re inclined to avoid the unfamiliar,

14:41 and instead look for what we already know or people that resemble ourselves,

14:47 our lives become more and more narrow.

14:50 Our experiences shrink.

14:51 No wonder everything starts to feel flat

14:55 and grey—no wonder we grow more averse to strangeness.

15:00 Instead of truly encountering the world,

15:03 we merely consume the same existential fast food as everyone else.

15:12 Thank you for watching.