Say No to the Invisible Anesthetics

As night falls, I go about my usual routine, turning on the lights one by one. The floor lamp lights up first, shadows begin to stretch along the wall. The three pale lights on the ceiling glow with the clinical brightness of a doctor’s office. The room is warm, but the intensity of that light makes me feel as if I’m under a surgical knife — exposed, uneasy.

I sit at my desk, recalling something the philosopher Slavoj Žižek once said — it hit my brain like a needle: “What we desire is not the thing itself, but the permission to want it.”

It’s hard to grasp at first, but think about those nights scrolling endlessly through short videos. You know each next one will be worse, but you can’t stop. Or that fleeting satisfaction after a purchase — the “payment successful” chime fades like smoke. You say you’re happy, but in truth, you’ve been gently, precisely anesthetized.

I think back to those years when a small incense burner sat on my desk. Before writing, I’d habitually light a stick of agarwood — it gave off a sweet, elegant scent that softly filled the air. I believed it was self-care, a touch of spiritual refinement. But later, I realized it was like a colorless drug, soothing me into calm when I should have been angry, letting me “work peacefully” amidst what was deeply unreasonable. The fragrance itself wasn’t wrong — but what it concealed was. Like Žižek said: the true “surplus enjoyment” is not what you choose to desire, but what the system lets you think you’re freely enjoying — while taming you into obedience.

Labubu plushies, healing anime mice — these dangle from young people’s bags, phone cases, sleeves, swaying with a manufactured sense of safety. They allow you to be “a little quirky,” while quietly sanding down your real strangeness. No one questions exploitation anymore, or the system, or hollow hope. Fingers stroke synthetic fur over and over, and the sting of thought dulls. Silence here doesn’t hurt — but that’s what makes it so dangerous.

“Is this really what I want — or just what they want me to want?”

Maybe real awareness is about holding on to that stubborn, nagging dissatisfaction. But in truth, more often than not, the choice you think you’re making has already been made for you.

Imagine this: if “positive energy” only means silence, submission, overwork, and swallowing daily injustices — then it’s just another scent diffuser. Gentle. Pleasant. Devoid of edge, and of awakening.

Real positivity is never sugary. It must carry a spark of defiance — saying no to pointless overtime, to blind compliance, to a world that only cares if you look happy.

It’s late. I close my iPad, but the blinding lights still hum in the room. Maybe the current still runs through the walls — I can’t be sure. But in one fleeting moment, something inside me clicked. Not pain. Just the quiet jolt of awakening. A voice whispered:

“Happiness isn’t the end goal. Restlessness is proof you’re still alive.”

So next time you tell yourself “I’m quite happy,” try asking yourself, quietly —

“Is this happiness truly mine?

Or am I being gently, silently erased?”