This article was automatically translated from the original Turkish version.
Today’s human being can access information, communicate, and experience new things faster than at any point in history. Yet despite all these possibilities, they are adrift in an inner void, a quiet exhaustion, and the heart of an existential crisis. It is as if we have all arrived too late somewhere, as if we have missed something—but we do not know what. Living fast is now presented as a sign of success; yet this speed distances people not from life, but from themselves.
Many people now reach childhood goals at a young age: securing a good job, earning a decent salary, building a “respectable life.” But once these goals are achieved, the silence echoing within becomes a suffocating question: “What now?”
Humans do not live merely for success—they live for meaning. If life consists only of tasks, goals, and repetitive cycles, then over time each day becomes a copy of the last. Going to work and returning home, eating, sleeping… When there is no difference between yesterday and today, even time loses its meaning.
In the modern age, attention has become our most precious treasure, because everything now competes to steal it. We constantly watch, listen, and scroll—but rarely do we truly focus. Deep thinking, patience, and the effort to understand a subject are becoming increasingly rare skills. In an age of information overload, wisdom disappears. We consume content, but content does not nourish us internally. At the cost of living fast, we drift away from mental depth and emotional connection.
Cities are crowded, yet people are alone. Homes are modern, but emotions are exhausted. Millions of people who work from nine to six spend the rest of their day staring blankly at their phone screens. Human relationships are superficial; bonds are temporary.
The most tragic part is this: We can no longer hear ourselves. Because we lack the courage to be alone with ourselves. The reason we constantly crave stimulation is precisely this: Being alone with our inner voice feels terrifying.
“All of humanity’s unhappiness stems from the inability to sit quietly alone in a room.” — Blaise Pascal
Great revolutions always begin in silence. In this age, revolution means slowing down. Stepping away from social media, reading a book deeply, having a conversation with someone while making eye contact… Though these acts seem small, they are what restore humanity to the human being.
The inner collapse of the modern age resonates differently within each individual. But the solution does not lie outside—it begins within. Perhaps we need not a new goal, but a new direction. Perhaps not grand plans, but small meanings…
The Silence After Early Achievements
The Death of Attention and the Evaporation of Meaning
Lonely Crowds and Souls Drifting in Emptiness
What Should We Do?
