Pain & Presence

I was talking with my cousin Rachel the other day about how everyone seems so distracted. Not just phone-scrolling distracted (I mean, that too), but distracted in a deeper way. Going through the motions. Present in body but absent in spirit.

It feels like standing outside a subway watching people through the glass doors (or the streetcar if you’re from Kansas City like me). You can see them clearly, but you can’t reach them. They’re moving through their lives in this protective bubble of distraction, and you’re on the outside looking in, hyperaware of patterns they can’t see in themselves.

When you’re going through real pain, the kind that’s too big to ignore or push away, something shifts. All the usual distractions stop working. You can’t scroll away from grief. You can’t Netflix your way out of heartbreak. The pain demands your attention, forces you into a kind of unwilling presence that most people spend their whole lives avoiding.

And once you’ve been shaken awake like that, you start seeing things differently.

A Thousand Yard Stare

We talk a lot about digital distraction—phones, social media, binge-watching TV. Those are obvious problems. But what I’m seeing goes beyond that. Even when the phones are put away and the TV is off, there’s still this palpable absence you can feel when you’re with someone who isn’t really there.

They can be looking right at you, responding to your words, going through all the motions of conversation, but there’s something missing. Their consciousness is somewhere else entirely—replaying yesterday’s problems, planning tomorrow’s tasks, or just floating in this kind of mental static that keeps them from actually landing in the moment with you.

I’ve become uncomfortably aware of this because I recognize it in myself. There’s a certain vacancy you can spot in people’s eyes if you know what to look for—a thousand-yard stare that says someone is anywhere but here. I know it because I’ve worn it myself, showing up to family gatherings physically present but emotionally checked out, hoping nobody would notice.

They noticed.

Life On Autopilot

Most people aren’t living their lives so much as they’re being lived by them. Wake up, work, parent (if you have kids), watch the game, repeat. It’s a perfectly fine life—the same rhythm that generations have found comfort in. But when you’ve been forced awake by crisis, that autopilot existence starts to feel suffocating.

The real tragedy isn’t the routine itself. It’s how unconscious it all is. Parents dropping kids at school with their minds already at the office. Friends hanging out but never really connecting. Family dinners where everyone’s physically present but emotionally scattered.

I started noticing this everywhere—the exhausted relative who can barely engage when you visit from out of town, even though you only see each other once a year. The perpetually upbeat friend whose performance can’t quite hide the exhaustion underneath. People who respond to your pain with a vacant nod before quickly changing the subject.

Distraction becomes a protective cocoon. But sometimes that cocoon becomes a prison. I watched someone close to me choose increasingly destructive ways to avoid facing their shame and regret. It started innocently—wanting more friends, going out more. But it escalated to some pretty bad habits, then to completely changing their personality, until even the closest people in their life didn’t recognize them anymore. That’s what avoidance can become when the pain gets big enough: a complete erasure of self.

Nothing To Lose

Pain, for all its devastation, gave me something unexpected: the inability to pretend anymore. When you’re at rock bottom, when you’ve already lost everything that felt important, there’s nothing left to protect. You can afford to be real in ways that people still holding their lives together simply can’t risk.

This has made me bolder about being vulnerable with new people, about having conversations that go deeper than surface-level pleasantries. I’m not looking to dump my trauma, but I’m also not willing to hide behind small talk when something meaningful could happen instead.

The response has been surprising. People are hungry for real connection, even if they don’t know how to reciprocate it yet. They might not share their own struggles, but there’s often a visible relief when someone else is willing to be genuinely human.

But it’s also isolating. When you’ve experienced what real presence feels like, surface-level interactions feel almost painful. You’re still watching people through that subway glass, wanting to connect but unable to break through their protective distraction.

Choosing Consciousness

There’s a meditation technique where you notice when your mind wanders, acknowledge the distraction without judgment, and gently return your attention to the present moment. Crisis taught me to do this in real life.

When I’m with my daughter and feel my mind pulling toward worry or regret, I’ve learned to catch myself: This is silly. I’m in my head. She is here right now. This is life. This is everything. The pain in the past, the anxiety about the future—none of it matters as much as this moment with her.

It’s not perfect. I still get pulled away. But I’ve developed a sensitivity to presence versus absence that I never had before. I know what it feels like to be truly here, so I can tell when I’m drifting—and when others are too.

Maybe the point isn’t to find some radically different way of living. Maybe it’s about bringing consciousness to whatever life you choose—refusing to sleepwalk through your relationships, your daily interactions, your own existence.

The most heartbreaking part isn’t just witnessing all this distraction. It’s seeing how it gets passed down. Family patterns of emotional unavailability. Generations of people who never learned how to have real conversations about hard things. Kids growing up thinking that surface-level interaction is all relationships can offer.

From Knowledge to Wisdom

I used to make rap music, obsessing over technical perfection—syllable counts, rhyme schemes, vocabulary choices. The result was impressive on paper but lacked soul. When I’d freestyle in the car years later, it sounded better despite being less “perfect.” It had something the technical version was missing: life.

That’s what this awakening feels like. I’m not interested in accumulating more knowledge anymore—more podcasts, more self-help books, more ways to optimize and improve. I’m seeking wisdom instead. The kind that comes from actually living your life rather than thinking about how to live it better.

Sometimes it takes losing everything to realize what actually matters. Sometimes the worst thing that ever happens to you is also the thing that finally wakes you up.

I don’t want to spend my life watching it happen from behind glass anymore.