We do indeed live in the stupidest timeline
No news today. Just a little light-hearted Collapse Life rant.
How does it feel to get roasted by a dictionary? Ask Gen Z.
The very generation that called doing the bare minimum at work “quiet quitting” is now calling time off from work a “micro-retirement” — and Merriam-Webster’s social media team is having none of it. Screenshotting a Fast Company article that described “micro-retirement” as taking a one to two-week break from work, MW quipped:
“Vacations. The word is ‘vacations.’”
Then they took it a step further, sarcastically squealing:
“Micro-comas involve taking a 6–8 hour consciousness break every night…”
We do indeed live in the stupidest timeline, as theconfuzzledwriter says in the comments (pictured above).
Look, it’s not that Gen Z is lazy — it’s that they’ve grown up in a collapsing system where everything, even rest, has to be sold back to them in app form with a pastel color palette and a productivity angle. They can’t just take time off — they need to craft a narrative arc, film a TikTok montage, and give it a name that sounds like a boutique wealth management strategy. Micro-retirement: It’s like paid time off, but with better lighting and higher engagement rates.
Now, every time we write a piece like this where we call out the cultural erosion around us, there’s someone in the comments who whispers:
“Be kind. Every generation struggles. This isn’t helpful.”
No. Sorry. This is helpful. What’s not helpful is pretending society (and an increasing number of its members!) doesn’t need correction.
We’re not being mean. We’re being honest. And frankly, someone has to be. Because somewhere along the way, the adults have not only checked out, they’ve left the building completely and now the kids are setting the place on fire and calling it “self-expression.”
You don’t need to rename a vacation to give it meaning. You don’t need Walgreens points to remember to pay your friggin’ rent. You do need rules, consequences, and a society that still believes in drawing the damn line. Merriam-Webster might call it ‘accountability.’
We were literally cheering out loud reading
’s recent piece about the dad who took his screaming kid out of a restaurant and calmly left him in the car until he was ready to rejoin the table.
As gato says, we need a lot more of that in our society, and a lot less infinite empathy with zero guardrails. Polite society is a dance and when someone starts screaming or throwing a tantrum it throws off the rhythm. Why should we let the most entitled toddlers set the tempo and expect everyone else to clap along? That’s just stupid.
You want to pretend you’re on “micro-retirement” while you go on vacation? Cool. While you’re at it, call your next sip of water a nano-hydration rebellion. Just don’t get mad when we laugh (or even taunt), because this isn’t innovation and we’ve really got a lot more important crap to worry about.
Gen Z isn’t a uniquely broken group of people, that’s for sure. They are simply the logical product of a system that replaced boundaries with feeling, consequences with content, and respect with branding.
So yeah, we’re the old man on his front lawn yelling at the cloud. We’re the grumpy old lady in the grocery store shaking her head at the brightly colored cereal boxes. We’re mad because we still remember the days when you got sent to your room until you were ready to behave. Because maybe you needed that. We all do some days. That’s not old fashioned thinking; it’s the kind of stuff that builds civilized societies.
So here’s our Collapse Life Tip of the Day: Put down the smartphone. Pay your rent on time and don’t expect a friggin’ parade. Take a walk and breathe deeply. Don’t call it a mental health day. Don’t call it self care. Don’t post about it on social media or wait for likes and shares.
Just do it — like a functioning adult.
Substack Live — Sunday, July 13 — 9am PT / 12pm ET / 5pm BST
and are hosting a live conversation to unpack The Salt Path — the best-selling memoir recently adapted into a feature film... and just as recently revealed to be not quite the whole truth.Once hailed as “unflinchingly honest,” the book is now under scrutiny for factual distortions, omitted backstory, and a much messier reality than the author let on. So why are we still talking about it? Because the tension between truth and narrative, between collapse and reinvention, is exactly what makes this book worth discussing.
Join us and bring your questions. Let’s talk about the stories we tell in a post-truth world.
Hear , hear, this made me laugh, at the absurdity, yet it raises serious cultural issues .
Destroying the culture , either by design or default is a symptom of collapsing systems.
Caroline Myss says there are two main archetypes that have dominated our culture since the 1970’s.
That of Entitlement and Victimhood, such an interesting combination and so relevant to this discussion.
Excellent rant! It needs to be spread far and wide!