A month and a half ago I left my start-up. I was working full time in a company I had been involved in from almost zero. I could see a financial return and the working environment was not bad. But I just couldn't go back to the same place.
At first I didn't know what the reasons for this were. I think there was physical and mental fatigue. But more than that, something inside me was broken.
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Only recently have I finally realised this. Humans are creatures driven by 'joint illusions'.
This is what Yuval Noah Harari wrote in The Complete History of Sapiens, Only humans can "share the illusion". Nations, religions and corporations are built on this illusion.
It was also the reason I was able to run in a start-up. Not the financial rewards, but the illusion that we can achieve something together. I could say things like "this team can make it" or "this business will change society", That "story" was what drove me.
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But when I stopped feeling ill, I suddenly realised. It was an illusion.
Of course, it is not that illusions are bad. Rather, people cannot move without illusions. But once you realise that it is an illusion, You can no longer run in the same groove.
Once I realised this, I couldn't work like I used to. Rather than burnout, It's more like I've 'come back to reality'.
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I think this event is more about a way of life than a way of working. We are all more or less moving in a story that we share with someone else. But when we realise that the story "doesn't belong to us", That's where we have to stop.
Perhaps the phenomenon of "inability to work" and "lack of motivation", which is increasing in today's world, is, not just a mental problem, It may be a natural reaction of people who have become aware of their illusions.
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That is why, as a way of life from now on, I would like to return to the direction of "handwork". Something that is not an illusion, but something that can be confirmed with the senses of the hand. It doesn't matter if it's a cord, woodwork or clay. I want to touch something that is definitely "there" in front of me, I would like to regain a sense of reality once more.