Close your eyes—and listen. Do you hear it? 

 I hear a thousand brains spinning and processing endless information. I see bloodshot pupils scanning YouTube shorts and TikTok and Facebook while blinking for rest. I hear a thousand clamoring voices in my head. The brain is a massive control room, and we’re about to short circuit. 

We’ve been pushed past the brink of what our minds can handle. We’ve unknowingly opened the doors to a flood of angry demons, each vying for control. Theatrical music is pounding and swelling, nearing a tipping point. 

 Most trending music artists write of an underlying loneliness. Gen-Z is more connected to the world than any other generation before it, but somehow we’re so lonely we write lyrics about forgetting how to breathe. 

 

You’re always running. Life is one rasping gulp for oxygen, one heart pounding footstep after the next. You can sometimes almost catch sight of what you want to catch, but most of the time it remains so elusive you can’t even give it a name. 

 Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. 

 It’s midnight and you’re standing under the yellow glare of a streetlight. The sound of silence has the frequency of fingernails on chalkboard and there’s no escape. 

 It’s noon, and you’re staring holes in the sky, begging for rain and Someone you abandoned. The sky is limp and quiet. 

 You know you’ve wasted your Father’s inheritance on one scrolling night after another. You traded the lights of home for the light of the screen. So all you can do now is run to keep pace with a world that’s forgotten how to slow down. 

 I saw a little girl on the bus the other day. Tear smeared cheeks, cross eyed, clutching a phone. I glimpsed her a couple times that day, and she was always holding the phone like the piece of animated unreality was her lifeline to sanity. She looked barely two, and already our dizzying world had her running as hard as she could just to stay where she was. 

 What happens when the control room short circuits? When you’ve finally spent all your money and lost your identity in the whirlpool? Your eyes cross, your throat clogs, and the demons take control. 

 Your feet thump the ground, stirring up dust. You’ve reached a small hill. What if you’d stop running? Would you fall down the hill?

 Inhale, exhale. 

 You catch a glimpse of something far in the distance. Or maybe someone. You stop running—bend over double, gasping for air. When you can finally look up through sweat-drenched hair, you realize with a shock who’s on the road. 

 It’s the Father. He’s running towards you.