Are You Just Another Brick In The Wall Or a Damn Rebel with a Cause?

Lost In The Algorithms — Odyssey # 71

The other night, while wandering the streets lost in thought, life threw a little irony my way. A woman, so lost in her phone she might as well have been glued to it, crashed right into me. No apologies, just a mumbled curse as she continued her march, eyes never leaving the glowing screen.

It’s a scene as common as it is symbolic — a perfect metaphor for modern life’s distracted dance. Just like in Pink Floyd’s anthem “Another Brick in the Wall,” where conformity is critiqued, and rebellion celebrated, here we are, marching to the beat of someone else’s drum, hardly noticing the world around us.

It got me thinking about how we all get so caught up in the minutiae and constant digital buzz that we miss the forest for the trees. And not just miss it but completely forget it exists.

Isn’t that just the perfect setup for a breakdown of what greatness really means? Not just achieving but noticing, appreciating, and being part of life's vastness beyond our screens and self-imposed blinders.

So, what does it mean to stand out today — or, hell, just be a human — in such a world? Does the grind turn us all into mere bricks in the wall, or is there a way to break free, to…