Essays

Essays examining psychological clarity, emotional regulation, identity, and the conditions that allow coherent thought and action.

About this series

This series consists of long-form psychological essays focused on understanding how attention, emotion, identity, and meaning function under modern conditions. These pieces are analytic rather than reactive, and explanatory rather than persuasive. They are written to clarify underlying psychological structures, not to comment on current events or offer personal guidance. The emphasis is on coherence: how inner life organizes itself, where it breaks down, and what allows it to stabilize again.

Mind RJ Starr Mind RJ Starr

Bread and Circuses 2.0: Performance, Distraction, and the Illusion of Engagement in the Social Media Age

We live in an age of constant performance and manufactured urgency. From viral dances to breaking news, today’s attention economy blurs reality and reaction, connection and spectacle. This essay explores how distraction has become a societal default—and what it means to reclaim silence, depth, and presence in a world that never stops performing.

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