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You’re Not Awake, You’re Just Fucking Scrolling With Your Eyes Open.
By Zen Prem
I was travelling on the Subway recently. Thirty people in the carriage, every single one of them staring at a screen like they were plugged into the Matrix. Heads down. Faces glowing like altar candles to the Church of the Screen. Bodies present, souls elsewhere.
Then I watched a bloke at the café order his flat white, check his phone, sit down, check his phone, take a sip, check his phone, and leave, without once looking at anything actually in front of him. He wasn’t there. His body was, sure. But he was somewhere else. Everywhere else. Nowhere at all.
That’s most of us now. Present in body, absent in everything that matters. Scrolling through a life that’s happening to someone who vaguely resembles us.
You think you’re awake because your eyes opened this morning … You’re not.
You’re running on code written decades ago. Your mum’s fear of what the neighbours think. Your dad’s rule that rest equals weakness. The ex who taught you love means pain. The culture that sold you busy as holy and numb as fine.
You call it a personality. It’s programming.
You’re having the same fight with different faces. You scroll at 2 a.m. because silence feels like death. You work until you break because stillness makes you anxious. You say “I’m fine” until three drinks in, when you’re absolutely not. You choose chaos over calm because calm feels foreign.
That’s not preference — it’s a pattern. It’s programming. A fear-based operating system mistaking itself for free will.
Awareness isn’t peace descending like a weighted blanket …
It’s catching yourself mid-pattern and whispering, “Oh fuck, I’m doing it again.” It’s watching your thumb reach for the phone to avoid a feeling and stopping long enough to ask, “What am I running from?” It’s recognising that the argument about the bins isn’t about bins — it’s about your lack of presence and terror of being seen.
Real awareness hurts.
It burns through denial, performance, and comfort. It kills off every version of you that survived by pretending.
So ask yourself: What am I actually avoiding?
Not “I’m stressed” or “I’m tired.” What feeling are you scrolling/drinking/working to not feel?
Say it out loud. Even if you’re alone. Especially if you’re alone.
Then pick one thing you do on autopilot — checking your phone, saying yes when you mean no, picking fights to avoid intimacy.
When you’re about to do it, stop. Count to ten. In that pause, you’ll feel uncomfortable as fuck. That’s not a problem. That’s what being awake feels like. That’s the work. Just breathe.
You don’t become enlightened. You become honest. Some people will call you difficult. Some relationships will fall apart.
Good. They were built on your performance, not your presence.
You’ll grieve the old you. Then, slowly, you’ll breathe as yourself for the first time.
Most people will read this, nod, feel a flicker of recognition — and scroll away. They’ll go back to pretending, performing, and calling it life.
Or maybe you’ll do the uncomfortable thing.
You’ll sit in the silence, feel the ache, and stay awake for five fucking minutes. And in those five minutes, you’ll realise:you’ve been asleep for years. The question isn’t whether you’re unconscious.
You are.
The question is — are you done with your own bullshit yet?
Not next week.
Not when you’re “ready.”
Now.
WTFU Koan
You checked your phone
147 times today.
Not once
did you check
if you were still here.
Awareness isn’t enlightenment.
It’s just noticing
you’ve been gone.
Zen Prem
Co-author (with Samantha Spiro) of Beyond Bullshit to Bliss
A field guide for waking the fuck up and coming home to what’s real.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
And my new book The Lie About Love – out soon
#TheLieAboutLove #BeyondBullshitToBliss #ZenPremWrites #WakeUp #Awareness #RealNotPerformance #TheActualWork
© Zen Prem 2025
Terug naar: Marianne Williamson
Terug naar: Mijn grootsheid en mijn kleinheid
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