Today, ego and comparison govern the lives of several generations, on Earth as it is in the Matrix. They are the new invisible forces: a religion with no gods, yet with algorithms.

Ego—that digital cocaine we snort with every scroll—has us addicted to vapid validation, to the desperate need to appear beautiful, happy, and successful in the treacherous mirror of social media. And comparison, that shadow constantly whispering, "look what the other chap has," pushes so many into reckless decisions, into running races with no finish line, into attempting to reach standards designed to be utterly unattainable.

But this didn’t begin with the Internet, oh no.

Back in the '70s and '80s, long before Wi-Fi and Instagram filters, the television series Little House on the Prairie was peddling a fantasy just as toxic: the ideal family of Charles and Laura Ingalls, eternal love, the exemplary father, and the obedient mother. Its script, as simplistic as the Westerns that influenced our grandparents, was an emotional blueprint for an entire generation. Sweet, yes... but lethal.

Because in that perfect postcard, so many of us felt we were outside the frame, impure, mistaken, incomplete.

And that, my dear reader, is where the great disconnection began.

Today, all of that still vibrates, only multiplied tenfold. Social media—which are neither social nor truly networks—have woven an invisible and sticky web where the real, the imagined, and the fake are all tangled up. Many of us live there, dancing on a stage of hypocrisy, pretending that everything is perfectly fine while being devoured by the hunger to be someone else.

And thus, the intangible—the image, the appearance, the empty promise—continues to have a brutal effect on the tangible: the body, mental health, our choices, our very lives.

And without us even noticing, happiness has become a private spectacle that no one truly feels, but everyone applauds.

My name is Pablo Mera—Pablo E-M to the Anglophone world—and some chums call me "trompo." I'm rather fond of Metallica and Oasis, I play rugby, I'm A+, and I stutter, and none of the above is ever going to change.

mailto:tromp@tromp@hotmail.com

• Pablo E-M is the artistic name of Pablo Mera ,a man who has lived many lives in one. Born in Montevideo and shaped in Asunción, he has been an entrepreneur, cultural curator, soul DJ, keen observer of human nature, and emotional architect of language. Today, he writes, reflects, and creates from the threshold between memory and desire.

His work — be it in words, music, or thought — delves into the subtleties of human behaviour, the unseen forces that shape the tangible world, and the quiet beauty found in contradiction. With an urban sensitivity and a cosmopolitan spirit, Pablo E-M weaves past, future, and the miraculous into each phrase he pens and every idea he sets free.

He believes in what cannot be seen, but can be felt.

And in that which goes unspoken, yet moves the world.