Sunday Essays #15: Reading From a Script That Doesn't Exist

observations from a barstool in mid-2026

The real world is an awfully interesting place to be when you’re obsessed with where the modern world is heading.

I was sat at a bar the other night, using up whatever psychological resources I had left after a marathon lifting session, splitting my attention between my friend's conversation and the people around us.

In theory, it should’ve been a more raucous atmosphere.

On the cusp of summer, NBA+NHL playoffs in full swing, college has let out.

The ingredients were there, the resulting effect was not.

It then dawned on me that this bar was afflicted with an inescapable feeling I’ve noticed at the airport, in coworking spaces, coffee shops, the gym, even standing on line at Whole Foods.

Quiet Anxiety and the Hum of Malaise

If I were to try and quantify this phenomenon into a phrase, I’d say it’s a “general societal feeling of unease”.

We’re here, there, and everywhere….but never truly present.

Yes, the screen time statistics and the notification checking habits have gotten completely out of hand.

That’s not news.

Rather, it’s like we’re all quietly collectively squirming in our seats.

The professional and social world has taken on the low-level anxiety of a doctor’s waiting room.

The conversations around me were the most telling.

Normally the environment lends itself to the usual endearing sports bar BS- living and dying with spread, completely obvious Geek Bar rips said user thought were discreet, the one group that’s way too loud but bringing a vibe so it’s all good.

This wasn’t that.

Sure, there were minor instances of normalcy.

That being said, there was also more than one conversation I overheard about AI, and not in the “look what I’m shipping I’m so excited” type way, and more of a “when are the barbarians going to be at the gate” kind of way.

Conversations lamenting COL, exasperation at housing costs, general weariness with the overall political landscape.

Guys sitting alone looking completely fried, with the vacuous look that betrayed the fact they thought the traditional path would’ve gotten them further by now.

Reading From a Script That Doesn’t Exist

Looking at it from the overhead, this societal arc begins to make more sense.

The vast majority of us were sold a script, and to the credit of many, they followed it to a T.

Try hard, get into the college, get the degree, get the good job.

That gets you the house and the car and the stability.

Everyone has begun to see the cracks in this and started reading the writing on the wall, and the downstream effects are stickier than the floor beneath my feet.

My friend- a quiet, polished, finance guy…is asking me about personal branding.

About Substack, about talking on camera, how I got involved with Elevated Thoughts.

It wasn’t in the “that’s so cool, bro” type of way, but rather it was a super bright guy realizing that sole proprietorship and personal brand creation are looking a hell of a less like a “maybe” and a lot more like a necessity.

People are looking around and hearing about threats of job automation and the potential future institution of UBI, while reading New York Post articles about how TikTok Live girls in cat-ear headbands or people eating food on Twitch are raking in multi-five figure months.

It’s part dystopian, part absurd, and entirely unsettling.

The Escape Hatch is Closed

The sports bar has always been the Great Escape, especially for the American male.

I have lost count how many times as a younger guy I was struggling with whatever it was, only to ease the pain by indulging in the bliss of an intra-division Islanders game with my best friends.

Even that has changed immensely.

I’m looking up at the NBA game on the screen above my head, and it seems like the current meta to win the world’s most prestigious basketball league is to shoot the ball while throwing yourself into the defender in an attempt to draw a foul.

Whether the ball goes in the hoop or not is an afterthought.

There’s a Dodgers game on, but the familiar scene of a pitcher, face buried in his hat glaring in for the catcher’s signs after he checks on the runner at first, is gone.

Now he gets instruction from the “Pitch Com” in his ear, makes sure he throws the ball before the 15 second timer elapses, paints the corner (or so he thought), only for the batter to tap his head and overturn the strike with an ABS review.

It’s a collection of people sitting around, sick of the fact that everything from their job description to their fitness routines are becoming optimized, automated, quantified, and mediated by technology, trying to escape.

The problem?

The familiar safe harbors have been…optimized, automated, quantified, and mediated by technology.

Oh So We’re Doomerpoasting Now?

Hardly.

I also can’t change flight path here into a “It’s all gonna be great, here’s how you leverage the changing world!” etc type thing.

I’m sure you’ve all had your fill (and then some) of “how to use AI so you’re not like the NORMIES” articles.

Rather, I’d just like to sit in the observation for a moment.

Take stock of what a bizarre, unprecedented time we live in.

At a certain point, of course, the levee breaks.

This could be a wholly positive experience.

It could be dimorphic, it could be disastrous.

Only time will tell.

Until then, we sit in our collective waiting rooms, putting one foot in front of the other, doing what we can to prepare ourselves for a world we never thought we’d see.

There’s no instruction manual this time around, no playbook.

If nothing else, we can take solace in the fact that some of the greatest lines and monologues of all time were off-the-cuff or ad-libbed.

History tends to remember the people who improvised, not the ones who waited for instructions..

Which is good, because we sure aren’t getting any.

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Enjoy the day 🫶🏻

-John Abbate

5.31.2026