Gregory didn’t suffer. Suffering was for the unproductive. Gregory was productivity incarnate. His life was a perfectly tuned assembly line for manufacturing a better version of himself. He was the Perpetual Student, and his soul resembled a meticulously catalogued library of certificates: “How to Scale Your Startup,” “Emotional Intelligence 2.0,” “The Art of Effective Negotiation,” “AI for the Humanities.” He felt no discomfort. On the contrary, each new checkbox in his achievement log gave him a deep, almost physical satisfaction. He was proud of himself.

But at night, just before the sleep tracker captured the onset of slumber, he dreamed. And these weren’t mere dreams. They were projects. Monumental ones. He didn’t want to simply write a book-he aimed to craft the next “Great Gatsby.” He didn’t just want to launch a business-he wanted to build a bridge to the future, a company that would change the world. He didn’t merely want to fall in love-he craved a romance people would turn into legend.

Between his tidy, bite-sized accomplishments and those colossal phantoms lay a gap. A chasm. And that chasm tormented him. It was a silent, gaping reproach. Each grand phantom whispered that all his real, tiny certificates were nothing but dust. So he ran harder. He kept running, hoping the sheer quantity of diplomas and courses would one day assemble a bridge across that abyss-or at least make enough noise to drown out the silence rising from it.

Gregory’s life was a massive information cocoon. Morning brought a podcast, showers meant audiobooks, evenings were for webinars. Not a single second of quiet in which the dangerous question could surface: “What is this all for?” Friends stopped inviting him out because he turned every conversation into a lecture about whatever course he’d just completed. Partners left, exhausted from competing with his ideals.

The catalyst wasn’t tragedy. It was statistics. One evening Gregory decided to catalogue his achievements in a new personal productivity app. He entered all 147 certificates. He plotted a chart. An impeccable upward curve appeared. He stared at it, expecting a rush of pride. Instead he felt… nothing. Emptiness. The chart existed, but any sense of fullness did not. The gap between his real self and the imagined giant yawned straight in his face for the first time.

True to form, Gregory approached the problem methodically. No panic. He issued himself a diagnosis: “Information overload. Digital intoxication is suppressing satisfaction levels.” The solution was obvious. He needed a detox. And naturally, not just any detox-the best, priciest, most efficient program money could buy.

He signed up for a weeklong “Digital Detox” retreat. They confiscated his phone, laptop, and smartwatch. The first two days were hellish. Silence was physically painful. It wasn’t the absence of sound-it was the exact, deafening echo of the same chasm inside him. Phantom itches bloomed where his phone used to rest. He caught himself trying to “scroll” the landscape outside his window. But Gregory was a fighter. He endured. He completed every assignment: meditated, walked barefoot in the grass, sculpted clay. He approached resting like any other task that needed an “excellent” rating.

And he completed it. At the end of the week they presented a diploma. Not paper, of course, but an elegant PDF that landed in his inbox the moment they returned his phone. “Certificate of Successful Completion: Digital Detox.”

He went home. To his immaculate, quiet, empty apartment. He sat at the table, opened his laptop. Downloaded the certificate. Created a fresh folder for it: “Mental Health.” Admired it for a few minutes. Felt that familiar, warm prickle of dopamine. Checkbox ticked.

Then he opened a new browser tab. And typed into the search bar: “Advanced meditation techniques. Best online courses.”