This piece articulates so much of my own experience! Another powerful essay! There are so many sentences that hit deep and accurately. Will be rereading this one often! Thank you!
I wrote this because I needed to name the feeling.
That strange quiet that comes after the headline, after the sirens, after the footage loops again. The sense that something terrible just happened and nothing changed.
Because I wanted to understand how we got here.
Because we learned to scroll past atrocity.
Because numbness became a survival skill.
Because outrage became content.
I wrote The Flattening because I didn’t know what else to do with the silence.
Thank you truly. I think you’re naming something essential. It’s not just the grief or the noise, it’s the fact that we’ve lost the places where we used to carry it together. No rituals, no pauses, just more. I’m glad the natural world gives you something to hold onto. It does for me too. I’m grateful you’re reading.
Indeed I have! You make many excellent points, but the one I am sitting with is that we are drowning in tragedy and distraction but have no supportive way to process it all. And for many it is pushing them over the edge into despair, violence, numbness and madness. Being in the natural world helps me. Your writing is powerful Tom. Always look for your new posts!
As I read this I kept thinking about the times I've paused for reflection when on the merry-go-round. It stops when I make it. Thanks for the reminder that it can be done.
Thank you for this incredible piece - a lament and indictment - that has me thinking and recognizing these patterns with total familiarity but, thanks to you, a renewed alarm. I keep thinking about this flattening as a new form of colonization - of attention, emotion, memory.....and its encroachment. A colonization of interiority itself....Just subscribed, btw. Thank you again.
That’s beautifully said and thank you. Your reflection on the colonization of interiority hits with startling precision. There’s something insidious in how we’re trained to surrender not just time, but depth: our emotional range compressed into algorithms, our memory repackaged for engagement metrics, our attention parceled out in scroll-sized fragments. That you recognized this “flattening” and named it so sharply is a gift in itself.
Your subscription means a lot, but more than that, this kind of resonance is what keeps the fire lit. If this piece stirred something, it’s because that something in you already knew the landscape,perhaps even before the words named it. Thank you for carrying it further.
I think this is one of my favorite pieces that you’ve ever written. It is so accurate in its message. Thanks for posting this. I hope you’re doing well.
My experience of the protests is that they provide some opportunity to process through actions and conversations. What could we develop at the community level to help us process our grief, shock, and fear? Naming it is the first step. 🙏
Thank you. As I read, I was aware of my own distractedness coming up- even in the midst of this story about individual and collective pain and scrolling past it.
Thank you for sharing that. I think that moment of noticing your own distractedness,right in the middle of the piece is part of what The Flattening is really about. Not judgment, but recognition. The way we’ve all been rewired. I feel it too, even while writing. I'm grateful you stayed with it.
“The platform has trained us to believe that bearing witness means broadcasting, that solidarity means going viral, that justice means getting likes.
But what if bearing witness meant something different? What if it meant sitting with discomfort instead of sharing it? What if it meant changing your life instead of your bio?”
This is very powerful and I will be sharing it. Thank you for articulating the flattening so powerfully. I hope it breaks through some people’s numbness.
My only disagreement is that I often read articles against social media that cannot quite say we ought to stop using them. But I am coming to feel for myself that using Meta/the big 9 products is complicity. It is the complicity that silence is not.
In Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry for the Future, things really start to shift when people move to open source, communally owned social networks. These already exist and so I am in the process of moving there. (Without the algorithm they are palpably less addicting which I imagine will feel like boredom if you’re not aware of that.)
Otherwise, this all has the tenor of addicts claiming we can have ‘just one’. We’re not that powerful on their turf. But we do have the power to remove our attention from the machine.
Thank you. This is such a thoughtful and necessary addition. You’re right to name it,there’s often a hesitation, even in the most incisive critiques, to follow the logic all the way through. We circle the edge of the fire but don’t step into it. What you’ve said here is the hard truth: continued use is not neutral. It’s not just “being online” it’s entrenchment in the very systems we’re lamenting.
I’m especially struck by your framing: that this is not silence, but complicity. That lands. We’ve been taught that presence equals participation, that our engagement is resistance but that’s a lie told by those who profit from our endless scrolling. Moving to open, communal platforms may feel like absence, like withdrawal. But it’s the opposite. It’s presence on our terms.
The Ministry for the Future reference is a powerful one. Imagining a different infrastructure is the first step in building it. And yes, that quietness, that unfamiliar sense of boredom without the dopamine loop that’s not a loss. That’s what it feels like to get your brain back.
Thank you again. Stay with us. There’s more to come.
Yes, exactly that. You’ve taken my pint and pushed it on a bit. I’m definitely sticking around.
And I don’t write from any moral high ground - I’ve been circling the drain on leaving SM for a year or more - like a bad relationship you keep giving one more chance. In this I think the enshittification is a gift - they’re making it easy/easier to reject, just ads and AI slop. I’ve felt a measurable uptick in joy since I took them all off my phone.
when we know something is inevitable is it then that we grieve? we have passed so many planetary boundaries already maybe with each new post we are just catching up to our grief we already feel deep down.
i kept a journal all thru COVID so i would not forget. so one day i could look back and remember. i am going to start a journal for this virus a well. thank you.
This piece articulates so much of my own experience! Another powerful essay! There are so many sentences that hit deep and accurately. Will be rereading this one often! Thank you!
I wrote this because I needed to name the feeling.
That strange quiet that comes after the headline, after the sirens, after the footage loops again. The sense that something terrible just happened and nothing changed.
Because I wanted to understand how we got here.
Because we learned to scroll past atrocity.
Because numbness became a survival skill.
Because outrage became content.
I wrote The Flattening because I didn’t know what else to do with the silence.
And maybe you’ve felt that silence too.
Thanks for reading.
Thank you truly. I think you’re naming something essential. It’s not just the grief or the noise, it’s the fact that we’ve lost the places where we used to carry it together. No rituals, no pauses, just more. I’m glad the natural world gives you something to hold onto. It does for me too. I’m grateful you’re reading.
Indeed I have! You make many excellent points, but the one I am sitting with is that we are drowning in tragedy and distraction but have no supportive way to process it all. And for many it is pushing them over the edge into despair, violence, numbness and madness. Being in the natural world helps me. Your writing is powerful Tom. Always look for your new posts!
As I read this I kept thinking about the times I've paused for reflection when on the merry-go-round. It stops when I make it. Thanks for the reminder that it can be done.
In my mind's eye I have a picture of the young child in Aleppo sitting in the ambulance. It cut so deeply that I cannot forget.
Thank you for this incredible piece - a lament and indictment - that has me thinking and recognizing these patterns with total familiarity but, thanks to you, a renewed alarm. I keep thinking about this flattening as a new form of colonization - of attention, emotion, memory.....and its encroachment. A colonization of interiority itself....Just subscribed, btw. Thank you again.
That’s beautifully said and thank you. Your reflection on the colonization of interiority hits with startling precision. There’s something insidious in how we’re trained to surrender not just time, but depth: our emotional range compressed into algorithms, our memory repackaged for engagement metrics, our attention parceled out in scroll-sized fragments. That you recognized this “flattening” and named it so sharply is a gift in itself.
Your subscription means a lot, but more than that, this kind of resonance is what keeps the fire lit. If this piece stirred something, it’s because that something in you already knew the landscape,perhaps even before the words named it. Thank you for carrying it further.
I think this is one of my favorite pieces that you’ve ever written. It is so accurate in its message. Thanks for posting this. I hope you’re doing well.
Thanks for all your support!!!
You’re very welcome, my friend!
Wow.
Exquisite. Powerful. Beautiful, and oh so painful, too.
Thank you. Deeply, thank you.
Thank you Margi, so much!!
Brilliant. Thank you.
Wow!! Thank you, that’s so nice!!
My experience of the protests is that they provide some opportunity to process through actions and conversations. What could we develop at the community level to help us process our grief, shock, and fear? Naming it is the first step. 🙏
Thank you. As I read, I was aware of my own distractedness coming up- even in the midst of this story about individual and collective pain and scrolling past it.
Thank you for sharing that. I think that moment of noticing your own distractedness,right in the middle of the piece is part of what The Flattening is really about. Not judgment, but recognition. The way we’ve all been rewired. I feel it too, even while writing. I'm grateful you stayed with it.
Fuck, Tom.
I’m gonna have to sit with this awhile.
lol yeah it’s a doozy.
Repeat: fuck
Thank you.
“The platform has trained us to believe that bearing witness means broadcasting, that solidarity means going viral, that justice means getting likes.
But what if bearing witness meant something different? What if it meant sitting with discomfort instead of sharing it? What if it meant changing your life instead of your bio?”
This post brings to mind the song "Stay Alive" by José González. Thank you for writing it.
Thank you for reading.
This is very powerful and I will be sharing it. Thank you for articulating the flattening so powerfully. I hope it breaks through some people’s numbness.
My only disagreement is that I often read articles against social media that cannot quite say we ought to stop using them. But I am coming to feel for myself that using Meta/the big 9 products is complicity. It is the complicity that silence is not.
In Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry for the Future, things really start to shift when people move to open source, communally owned social networks. These already exist and so I am in the process of moving there. (Without the algorithm they are palpably less addicting which I imagine will feel like boredom if you’re not aware of that.)
Otherwise, this all has the tenor of addicts claiming we can have ‘just one’. We’re not that powerful on their turf. But we do have the power to remove our attention from the machine.
Thank you. This is such a thoughtful and necessary addition. You’re right to name it,there’s often a hesitation, even in the most incisive critiques, to follow the logic all the way through. We circle the edge of the fire but don’t step into it. What you’ve said here is the hard truth: continued use is not neutral. It’s not just “being online” it’s entrenchment in the very systems we’re lamenting.
I’m especially struck by your framing: that this is not silence, but complicity. That lands. We’ve been taught that presence equals participation, that our engagement is resistance but that’s a lie told by those who profit from our endless scrolling. Moving to open, communal platforms may feel like absence, like withdrawal. But it’s the opposite. It’s presence on our terms.
The Ministry for the Future reference is a powerful one. Imagining a different infrastructure is the first step in building it. And yes, that quietness, that unfamiliar sense of boredom without the dopamine loop that’s not a loss. That’s what it feels like to get your brain back.
Thank you again. Stay with us. There’s more to come.
Yes, exactly that. You’ve taken my pint and pushed it on a bit. I’m definitely sticking around.
And I don’t write from any moral high ground - I’ve been circling the drain on leaving SM for a year or more - like a bad relationship you keep giving one more chance. In this I think the enshittification is a gift - they’re making it easy/easier to reject, just ads and AI slop. I’ve felt a measurable uptick in joy since I took them all off my phone.
when we know something is inevitable is it then that we grieve? we have passed so many planetary boundaries already maybe with each new post we are just catching up to our grief we already feel deep down.
Brilliant. Thank you.
i kept a journal all thru COVID so i would not forget. so one day i could look back and remember. i am going to start a journal for this virus a well. thank you.
You are welcome