We read Philip K. Dick and felt smart, non-conformist, maybe even a little prophetic. We watched Blade Runner with Vangelis’ soundtrack, and it felt beautiful, poetic, fascinating.
Now here we are, in 2025. In the cities, people don’t talk to each other; electronic eyes are scattered everywhere; algorithms know more about us than we know about ourselves. Hyper-connectivity leaves us exhausted; speed consumes us. Loneliness is the new poverty—strange, elusive, and not just economic, but spiritual, relational, and cognitive.
A poverty of “good time,” of presence, of meaning. We have slipped into a scenario that overlaps terrifyingly with what literature and cinema thirty years ago had imagined as a dystopia. One scroll at a time, one software update at a time, one “I accept cookies” at a time.
And now? How do you stay human in all of this? I don’t have definitive answers, but I know that the hands know things the mind has forgotten. That a needle and thread can be tools for reconnection—with a different rhythm, with a truer sense of time, with a part of us that never stopped breathing softly, despite the habits that have crept into our lives.
Embroidering, drawing, modeling, sewing, hoeing, kneading, building—it doesn’t matter what—are all forms of silent resistance. Of taking a stubborn, persistent stand. It is a wonderful way to exercise our birthright of freedom.
And then, every once in a while, writing. Even just a few lines. Even just to capture a moment that would otherwise be lost in the continuous flow. A note on the edge of reality. Perhaps this is the true punk gesture today: slowing down. Not becoming an extension of the machine. Not giving in to cynicism. Continuing to look for small openings. Small fires.
Perhaps those of you here reading this right now are already looking for them. Perhaps we can find them together, while the world out there resets itself.
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