Let's Raise Unawareness
25% less aware. 25% more present.
I want to start a foundation.
We’re raising UNAWARENESS.
There will be a 5K. Maybe a benefit concert. The logo is still in workshop but I’m picturing a ribbon, except blank. I’m not totally sure how charities actually work, but if we get a few people to sponsor and someone’s mom makes the t-shirts, I figure we can get the average person about 25% less aware by Q3.
It’s a joke. But it didn’t leave my head all week.
Before I’d brushed my teeth
I picked up my phone this morning and within 90 seconds I learned about 3 wars I cannot end, a disease I cannot cure, a hostage I cannot bring home, a layoff round at a company I do not work for, a celebrity I had never heard of who died, and a new study that says the thing I have for breakfast is probably killing me.
I had not brushed my teeth.
This is what awareness looks like in 2026. Exposure dressed up as participation. We used to read the morning paper and now the morning paper reads us.
The whole emotional weight of the species, served before coffee. Every day. Forever.
The empathy muscle goes limp
Researchers have a name for what this does to a person: Compassion Fatigue.
The body was not built to grieve 10 things before lunch, so eventually it stops grieving.
We scroll past a child in a war zone the same way we scroll past an ad for protein powder. The empathy muscle has gone limp from overuse.
That’s the actual cost. The heart, exhausted, eventually stops showing up at all. We cared so widely, and so shallowly, for so long, that the muscle forgot what caring is supposed to feel like.
You can be aware of everything and present for nothing. Most of us already are.
The Reuters Institute publishes an annual Digital News Report. Their most recent edition recorded the highest level of news avoidance they’ve ever measured.
40% of people now say they actively avoid the news – up from 29% in 2017.
44% say they feel worn out by it – up from 28% in 2019.
The reasons people give are predictable. The news is repetitive, it’s negative, and it makes them feel anxious and powerless.
The data confirms what your nervous system already knew.
The people who share your area code
Here’s what I’ve noticed.
While I’m being aware of 3 wars and 4 health crises and a hostage situation in a country I have never been to, the friend who asked me to grab a beer 2 Fridays ago is still waiting for me to text back.
My brother and I haven’t spoken in 2 weeks.
My nana is getting old and wants nothing more than to see her grandkids as much as she can.
We have infinite capacity for headlines but finite capacity for the people who share our area code.
That’s the trade. We spend our attention feeling helpless about strangers we will never meet, while the people we could actually love well sit one text message away.
Permission to log off
So here’s what I’ve been telling myself lately.
You’re allowed to not have a position on every news story.
You’re allowed to log off.
You’re allowed to care less broadly so you can care more deeply.
Care about the 5 things your hand can actually reach. Your family. The friend who texted. The thing in front of you that’s quietly falling apart while you’re being made aware of something happening on the other side of the planet.
25% less aware. 25% more present.
That’s the foundation I actually want to start.
Awareness is free. Caring is finite. Spend it where someone can actually feel it.
Almost Something is for anyone who’s tired of caring about everything and ready to start caring about something.