Freedom is tiring. A catalogue of reasons why we are unable to enjoy the land of milk and honey of our times

We’re absolutely fine, we’re just a bit on edge. A constant, pervasive sense of exhaustion, an irritation that itches beneath the skin, starting at your fingertips and reaching right to the tips of your hair. It’s not anxiety; sometimes it feels like an uncategorised kind of boredom mixed with a sense of foreboding sadness. Perhaps it’s the strain of navigating two worlds – online and offline – or perhaps it’s information overload; the fact remains that people in this current millennium feel a bit light-headed. And so, we can’t even really enjoy this land of milk and honey we’ve been living in lately. Let’s look at the reasons why.

Notifications – in other words, we’ve got a built-in intercom where everyone rings the bell. Every minute we’re there, like fools, on call; we’ve even put up with the empty knock, the priest’s prank, the phone vibrating to tell us that nothing’s happening, that someone’s given a ‘like’ to your latest WhatsApp message where you simply said ‘see you tomorrow’.

Watching yourself whilst you speak. The phone’s camera was already a curse, then came the call – also known as a video conference – which I’d abolish by royal decree tomorrow. It is madness to have replaced face-to-face meetings, which had one phenomenal advantage: they were extremely rare because you had to get too many people moving and out of their way. It is an unprecedented drain on energy; I do not understand why, but I come out of video meetings feeling worse than I do after a visit to the dentist. It is a psychiatric delusion: a third person is introduced into the conversation – ourselves. It’s impossible to look solely at the person you’re speaking to; there’s the spectacle of our own face, tired and contorted. Did I really go out with my hair like that? Where on earth did all those dark circles come from? And who on earth is that? Constant video calls drain our energy and weaken our character; we aren’t built to spend so much time staring at ourselves.

Emotional accessibility. Tools of romantic criminology are everywhere; no one will ever again be able to disappear and have a lost lover chase after them. Are you the sort who’d rather not know the nasty things people get up to behind your back? They won’t even let you do that anymore.

The constant comparison. There are millions of people smiling everywhere – even if it’s just for show – affluent and on yachts; it’s a daily assault.

Similotherapy. Even at the tram stop, they’ll tell you what’s wrong with you. A diagnosis, like a glass of water, is something you can’t refuse.

Your face. Our features aren’t really our own anymore. Are you forty? You’ve got to look thirty-five. Are you fifty? Still thirty-five. And what are you going to do, have you seen yourself in those clothes? Do you want to stay flat-chested? Take this Ozempic, come on!

The obligation to have an opinion. Every world event – and there are quite a few of them – comes with the burden that we must all have our say. Want to opt out of giving an opinion? Oh no, my dear, here we hate the indifferent; we’ll even give them a good thrashing.

The catastrophe played out live. An age in which curiosity has been reduced to a mere trifle. You’ll see it all, even if you don’t want to. Rapes, faces sucked out of the windows of crashed aeroplanes, massacres, terrorist attacks and hospital beds will leap out at you from the screens.

Artificial intelligence and the final decision. It’s all down to technology. Memory: which route should I take, what music might I like? The last soldier to fall in battle is writing: make this email a bit friendlier, and ask for this and that. Say a warm hello, but remain formal.

The emperor algorithm. Television used to be like a well-run convent: you took whatever came along, and you’d even stumble upon a good film you’d never deigned to consider, some interesting character – I’m not talking about Carmelo Bene, but a nice programme, yes. That useful lack of free will is over. The machine offers a thousand possibilities, almost all of them poor, and we no longer know what to choose. One unpredictable discovery of the post-post era is this: so much freedom simply means so much exhaustion.