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📓 Sunday, October 12 — 5:03 p.m.
Today I felt something shift.
Not in a dramatic way—more like a quiet click in the gears.
I was standing in line at Costco, waiting for a hot dog and a slice of pizza, surrounded by a crowd of people. That’s when I noticed a couple. They were taking turns photographing each other while their friend stood nearby, scrolling through someone else’s life. Everyone around me was on their phones — recording, posing, distracted. It all looked like performance—robots pretending to be human—and for a second the world felt staged, like a dream building itself in real time.
I didn’t feel angry or scared. Just awake.
Part of me wanted them to notice the gaze, to feel the discomfort I was feeling. Not to be cruel—just to remind them (and maybe myself) that presence still exists.
I realized I’d had what they have—the relationship, the sync—and lost it. You can find that rhythm again, maybe even keep it for a while, until one person drifts a half-step off. Then the illusion cracks and the song ends. Maybe love is just two people managing to stay in time long enough to make a life together.
Everything around me felt both real and unreal: the wind, the smell of pizza, the soft hum of people buying things they don’t need, including me. I thought about how our senses build this whole world frame by frame. Maybe the universe renders itself through attention. Maybe that’s why ignorance really is bliss—because once you see how fragile it all is, you can’t un-see it.
Curious. The dream feels real, and for now that’s enough.
This is what the plastic man thought while he was at Costco.
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