Lately, I’ve been having these odd, harmlessly dystopian thoughts. You know, the kind where you fantasize about waking up in a completely changed world. Not like a “new job, new car, new hairline” kind of changed. More like “everyone has calmed down, politics aren’t blood sport, and people at Thanksgiving actually talk to each other” changed.
I know, I know—it’s a wild idea. Maybe even reckless. But bear with me.
In the past few years, it’s felt like every dinner, reunion, or random street-corner conversation has morphed into a full-contact debate club. Political flags have replaced welcome mats. Everyone is mad, everyone is right, and no one is fun anymore. I had one friend say they couldn’t associate with me because I still use email. Not what I emailed. Just… email. It’s boomer tech, apparently.
And sure, my circles have always been full of friendly (and occasionally not-so-friendly) sparring over religion, politics, and who really ruined “Game of Thrones.” But now? Now it feels like I need a legal team just to host a barbecue. When did we all collectively decide that ideological purity was more important than birthday cake?
The answer, as it turns out, is forever ago. Humanity has always divided itself like a cheap futon. Religious schisms, philosophical feuds, nations torn in two because someone allegedly said something about someone else’s goat 800 years ago. Remember the Civil War? We’re kind of still having it—just with better lighting and more hashtags.
Which brings me to the spiritual patron saint of “I’m outta here”: Rip Van Winkle.
For those who forgot, Rip was a charmingly useless man with a knack for avoiding chores. One day, he wandered into the mountains, drank with some oddly dressed strangers (definitely a red flag), and took the mother of all naps. He woke up decades later with a beard you could hide a squirrel in, only to find that his entire world had changed. His wife was gone, his kids were adults, and the American Revolution had happened without him. (That’s right—Rip slept through a whole-ass war. Iconic.)
Now, here’s where things get weird: I think I am Rip Van Winkle.
Okay, not literally. I didn’t conk out on a tree root in the Catskills. But it’s entirely possible I fell asleep sometime around 1978 after drinking something suspicious at a Grateful Dead concert and have just recently awakened to this technicolor fever dream of a world.
People film vertical videos on purpose. Billionaires are launching midlife crises into orbit. And “friendship” is now measured in likes, swipes, and whether or not you retweeted someone’s infographic about the socioeconomic impact of breakfast cereal.
So yeah—I woke up, metaphorically, with a long white beard (or at least one rogue gray eyebrow hair that won’t stop growing sideways) and realized that my village has changed. A lot. And nobody seems to recognize anyone anymore.
And while I’ve missed a few revolutions—social, technological, emotional—I’ve decided that maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Rip came back to his village a little older, a little weirder, but also a little wiser. He stopped trying to fix the chaos and instead started telling stories. And maybe that’s the key. If you can’t beat the algorithm, mock it gently in a blog.
So yeah, I sometimes wish I could wake up to a completely different world. But here’s the twist—I already did. And like Rip, I’m going to sit back, grow out my metaphorical beard, and tell stories. Because in a world that doesn’t make sense, the best we can do is laugh, connect, and not accept drinks from strangers in the woods.
Moral of the story: Be careful what you wish for. And never trust a guy in colonial garb offering you moonshine.
