Times like this get lonely, yeah (yeah), fuck around with me, get lonely, yeah (ooh)
I don’t wanna hear your story, nah, I ain’t tryna hear your story
-Lithe
Contextual awareness asks a deceptively simple question: where do we stand in relation to the past forces that shaped us, and the technologies that now shape our future? We must hold two sometimes-contradictory truths at once.
This plays out in the foods we consume, the laws we write, and the ways we imagine what is possible. Our intellectual understanding of concepts often outpaces our collective behavior.
Sugar, abundant in the 80s, is now often discussed in the same moral register as intoxicants. Yet despite knowing sugar is addictive and linked to chronic disease, it remains a staple in children’s breakfast cereals. While the narrative is changing, sugar is not regulated with the same seriousness as alcohol or tobacco. That begs the question: why is one substance regulated vs. another? Is the arbiter long-term damage to oneself (permissible) vs. short-term harm potential to another person (not permissible)?
The same goes for our digital lives. We are 40 years into the consumptive computer age, yet we are sometimes forced to tolerate faxed medical records and usually must sign forms by hand - in triplicate - every time we go to the Dr.’s office.
The evolution of drug consumption offers a clarifying lens on how societies adapt to new realities. If we define “drug” expansively albeit accurately: sugar alongside cannabis, psilocybin, etc… we see how public discourse, regulation, and behavior evolve. Cannabis, once the subject of moral - Reefer Madness - panic and criminalization, is now legal for recreational use in 24 U.S. states as of 2025. Over 50% of Americans support legalization.
Psychedelics, banned in the 1960s, are being reintroduced as therapeutic tools for depression and PTSD, with FDA approval for MDMA-assisted therapy expected soon.
These shifts rarely happen because of new scientific knowledge alone; more often, they reflect society’s readiness to accept new paradigms
Coffee, once banned in Mecca and condemned by European authorities as a dangerous stimulant, has been a mundane part of daily life for centuries.
As Thomas Kuhn argues in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, paradigm shifts …
… enable society to expand the set of questions that can be asked AND answered. But we are reticent en masse to listen to such answers when the shift happens. As the shift progresses, repeated cultural exposure converts what was once stigmatized into ordinary choice: coffee vs. wine, cannabis vs. stimulants, AI vs. analog. What we see every day becomes normal, and what is normal becomes invisible.
Regulation is a lagging indicator
Industries and technologies reshape expectations and norms faster than laws or institutions can adapt. And it’s not always a power grab by incumbents; often, it’s a failure of mental models. Policymakers and the public are simply not equipped for the speed of change.
Generative A.I. tools reached 100 million users in just two months. We are living in a world where the next “drug” or tool can reshape society before we’ve even finished debating the last one.
The central optimism of our era
Technological advances now let people move beyond metaphorical “invent your future” toward literal creation. Our parents dreamed, but with limited means to manifest ideas. Maybe they wrote poems or stories. Maybe they painted pictures or made balsa wood models.
Today anyone with a laptop can sketch, prototype, and launch a product or movement in days, if not minutes. We can generate visual art, write code, and even help design new drugs.
With this power comes responsibility. Contextual awareness must accompany invention. Our evolutionary frames and social understanding should guide how we deploy technologies, so the futures we build align with humane values. It’s currently the wildest time ever to be alive. The opportunities before us are so vast. We could spend a lifetime exploring and still barely scratch the surface.
