The Descent
The Descent
A Dimension Of The Tech Oligarchy
Dots blink, then disappear—pupils wide, heart racing, fear.
"Can we talk?" The message read—stomach drops, pain and dread.
Scrolling through endless night, doomscrolling, panic, fright.
News grows darker than before, the mind craves more.Instagram shows your perfect smile, jet-set life and luxury style,
but in the dark, calculating: pills or rope or knife?
"Inspiring," comments say beneath the polished post—
becoming less alive, becoming more a ghost.At work not human—just a title, just a brand,
identity erased, slipping through like sand.
The laptop glows at 3 AM, working from the bed—
boundaries between sleep and work exist only in your head.Notifications endlessly, the phone becomes a curse,
each buzz another panic spike, each ring another hearse
carrying pieces of sanity in silence away—
the quiet hum of burnout feels like violence on its way.Nomophobia—terror when the battery starts to fade.
Who needs you? What if plans collapse, arrangements made
without your constant checking, answering, being there?
Worth measured in response time, everywhere.Pushing through the warnings that your body screamed in pain—
ignored the chest pains, blurred vision, fog inside the brain.
"Just one more deadline, one more meeting, then I'll rest"—
but rest kept moving backward like some horrible test.Your stomach burned through lining, acid eating through.
Doctors prescribed more pills but never asked what's true—
who's dying slowly from socially accepted death?
"Productivity" was strangling every precious breath.The wall approached in shadows, looming, tall and raw,
climbing it gradually, but then—the crack, the flaw—
slip and stumble down like shattered glass,
the cliff just opened underneath, a dark and gaping pass.Rock bottom isn't solid ground—it's quicksand pulling down.
You think you've hit the lowest point, but then you drown.
Four months to understand the damage, years to heal the scar—
PTSD from pushing way too far.Relationships lay broken, scattered pieces on the floor.
Your family watched you disappear behind the office door—
faces you don't remember from those years missed,
moments sacrificed to some productivity list.Phubbed at dinner, scrolling through your phone—
feeling invisible, together yet alone.
The typing never stopped even when they tried to speak—
distance from life reached its horrifying peak.See them now? The walking dead in business suits and ties,
the students cramming, never sleeping, terror in their eyes,
the parents phubbing children while the family falls apart,
the doctors, lawyers, teachers with their failing hearts.Go ahead, celebrate the grind, worship exhaustion's shrine,
trade lives for paychecks, tell ourselves we're fine.
Instagram feeds glow with lies of wellness and success
while behind the screen we're drowning in the mess.No choice, they say—endless circles, rationalizations made.
The three dots haunt sometimes, that pregnant, waiting pause—
notification anxiety with no certain cause,
the FOMO that convinces you you're missing something real,
the nomophobia that makes you shake when you can't feel
the phone inside your pocket, when the Wi-Fi drops away—
terror of disconnection in this hyper-connected day.Here's the truth they won't tell you in productivity blogs:
burnout isn't tiredness—it's watching yourself through fogs
as you become a stranger, hollow, empty, burned away,
until there's nothing left of you but work and dread and gray.Some stay trapped forever in that dark and twisted place
where stress becomes normal and you can't recall your face.Hear me when I say this: you are closer than you think
to falling off that cliff edge, into the dark, the brink.
The edge is not a metaphor—it's real and it's right there,
and burnout doesn't care if you're exceptional or rare.It comes for all who push too hard, too far, too long,
who think that they're invincible, who think that they are strong
enough to beat biology, to override the brain—
until they learn the hardest way: we're all the same in pain. 