Performance Is Exhaustion Disguised as Connection

Performance is a hungry thing. It feeds on approval, applause, likes, and nods. For a while, it can feel like connection: the text back, the smile across the room, the compliment after the meeting. But a connection built on performance isn’t a connection at all.
It’s an exchange: I give you the version of me you want, and you give me enough validation to keep doing it.

That kind of connection is thin. It keeps you busy, but it keeps you hollow. You can spend years in that loop without realizing you’re trading your presence for approval. When you step out of it, you notice something:
The ones who can’t stop. The ones who’ve mistaken performance for presence, who cosplay self-awareness but can’t live without an audience. Some will be drawn to you, curious about your stillness, but they aren’t looking to join you there. They’re looking for a stage.

The alternative to performance isn’t isolation. It’s presence: grounded, unscripted, unarmored. It’s the weight of your shoulders dropping without you telling them to. It’s hearing your own breath without rushing to fill the silence. It’s realizing you don’t have to prove anything to belong here.

The hard part?
We’ve been trained to believe that slowing down is dangerous.
If you’re not moving, you’re falling behind.
If you’re not producing, you’re wasting potential.
If you’re not being seen, you’re disappearing.

That’s the trap.

We confuse movement with meaning.
We confuse visibility with worth.

If you need constant applause to feel alive, you’re not living, you’re auditioning. And you can only audition for so long before you forget who you were before the stage lights.

Stillness isn’t the absence of life, it’s where life catches up to you.