Culture Notes: The Emotional Recession
When you're low on energy, curiosity becomes a form of care
This weekend, I had the house to myself and a long list of romantic ideas about how I’d spend it.
I’d surf in the morning, try a barre class, cook something elaborate and seasonal. I’d take myself to coffee in a new neighborhood, maybe even write something beautiful and wise. I had plans to stretch, to read, to wander. The kind of solo weekend I usually crave—one with movement, intention, reflection.
Instead, I crashed. The weather was bad (for the millionth week in a row), I woke up exhausted, and everything felt like a Herculean effort.
I ended up going to a spa I hadn’t been to before, read The Rachel Incident in one long stretch, and binge-watched The Residence. I didn’t move much. And while a spa trip and a book usually sound good, I didn’t really feel great. I didn’t even really enjoy it. Mostly I was quiet, a little sullen, and deeply uninterested in doing anything I’d told myself would feel good.
[Note: Don’t worry, I’m not going to spend more time complaining and this is not an attempt to garner sympathy. I know how lucky I am and how good I have it. This is simply my way of telling you that it’s okay to have a great life and to also run out of energy.]
At first I resisted—I tried to shift my mood, re-engage, recalibrate. But eventually I realized this weekend wasn’t about rest, at least not in the way I had envisioned it. It was about coming down. After a few nonstop weeks, I’d reached my edge. I didn’t need an elevated experience, I needed to disappear from my own ambition for a minute.
I’ve been thinking of it as an emotional recession—not dramatic or even particularly profound, just a quiet drop in what I have available to give. A contraction. A soft shutdown. No urgent fixes required, just acknowledgment. A gentle, inward pause. I believe this is a real and necessary part of our cycle. Especially if you spend a lot of your time caring, building, giving, or tending to others, you eventually hit a point where your inner economy slows to a halt. And the only thing left to do is stop spending.
That’s what happened to me this weekend. I had nothing left to give. Not even to myself.
And interestingly, that pause in activity and surrender to silence made me notice something else: how bored I am with the conversations we keep having.
If you know me well, you know I have an allergic reaction to clickbait and shallow content. I open my phone and often feel myself pulling back. Not because I don’t care, but because I do—and I don’t want to waste my attention on things that don’t move me, teach me, or challenge me in meaningful ways.
We’re so used to the churn of hot takes and trend cycles that it’s easy to forget what real curiosity feels like. Not performative knowing, not rapid-fire reactions. But the slower, quieter kind—the kind that takes time to arrive. The kind that asks something of you.
Lately I find myself wondering:
What questions aren’t we asking?
What ideas would emerge if we weren’t rushing to package them?
What does it mean to curate your own mental landscape, to tend to it as carefully as your physical one?
I don’t have clear answers yet. But I know I want more nourishment, more space to think slowly, and more encounters with other people’s careful, original thought.
If you’re in a similar place—tired, curious, craving something deeper—here’s what’s been helping me:
Read one magazine cover to cover. We used to do it all the time as teenagers, but when’s the last time you sat down with a physical magazine and read the entire thing?! I love Emergence and Nomad for their rhythm, range, and the inspiration I get after each article.
Pick three or four longform pieces from outlets you trust (or want to get to know better). Not to skim, but to read in entirety. The Atlantic, Noema, The New Yorker, Lux, Astra—anything with layers. I’ve been trying to make a habit of this every Sunday and when I do prioritize it, I’m always in a more introspective place.
Start an article club. Like a book club, but lighter. One piece a week, two friends, a short chat or voice note. No pressure to sound smart—just a chance to feel something, learn something, think together. I heard about this concept years and years ago (maybe from Cup of Jo?) and loved it. Much to my chagrin, people usually don’t read the books assigned for book club, but an article is far more manageable.
Let yourself emotionally recess. Don’t be as stubborn as I was in trying to resist what I needed. Do what feels right, vent with no desire for solutions to your best friend or partner. If you sit in the recession, you’ll come out knowing what you want and need next. If you ignore it, it will catch up to you at some point!
If you ask me, we don’t need more noise. We need deeper inputs and small, meaningful places to put our attention.
The world is still interesting and there are good and profound things happening. I’d challenge all of us to really ask: what conversations aren’t we having? And if you’re feeling your own little emotional recession, let me know in the comments how you’re moving through it :)
Yes to all of this!