Nate Hagens

Most people in our lives do not share this model.

So the DMN is also running social simulations.

How do I talk to my brother about this?

Why does my partner not see this?

What do I tell my children?

These layered simulations probably multiply the load that we carry.

Fourth,

Our vocation itself requires default mode network engagement.

If you're a metacrisis researcher or writer or just an attentive citizen, your job is to run the simulations.

You cannot stop.

The DMN is your professional instrument or tool.

So the very mode that is eating our present life is the mode our work depends on.

So lastly, and this one, well, they all do, but this one really hits home because it implicates me directly.

There is a moral dimension that licenses the absence.

The metacrisis aware person can rationalize, often correctly, that their preoccupation with the future is necessary and appropriate.

that being fully present at a birthday party while the world burns would be kind of an obscenity or feel that way.

This is the trap because it's easy to feel like it's the only logical conclusion.

The moral seriousness that drives this work enables or licenses chronic absence from one's own life.

And then the absence becomes a sign of how much one cares.

But I've learned absence is not care.