When You Step Off the Conveyor Belt, the Illusions Start to Show
It’s strange how the world can look exactly the same – yet appear completely different – depending on the rhythm you carry inside. Before I moved out to the cabin in the woods,
When Everyday Life Becomes Branding Instead of Reality
I also saw the bread packages, the wraps, the commercial slogans and all the things lining the supermarket shelves. But I didn’t really see them. You just grabbed something that looked “fine,” paid, and went home. It was just daily routine. Nothing to question.
But after eight months out here, with firewood, silence and slow mornings as my new normal, everything stands out like a stage set now.
As if you open the door to something that’s supposed to be a house – only to find that it’s just painted walls made to look like one.
Egen Bild:
Food That Pretends to Be Food
Rye bread with 12% rye.
Chicken wrap with 12% chicken.
No real pieces of chicken, just flavoring, fillers and a carefully staged image on the package to suggest abundance.
It’s the same feeling everywhere. Food that isn’t food. Words that don’t mean anything. Everything is designed to appear as something it is not – as long as it can be sold.
And maybe that’s why people feel that quiet, dull tiredness. Not exhaustion from work, but a soul-level fatigue from constantly moving through half-truths.
Simplicity as a Lens for Seeing Through Illusions
Once, people ate real food. Now, they eat concepts.
Once, people heated a house. Now they “manage indoor climate.”
Once, people lived. Now, they consume experiences.
Out here at the cabin, it’s simpler. Wood is wood. Water is water. There is no marketing around the firewood stack, no slogan printed on the water bucket.
I know exactly what I’m looking at – and that brings a strange kind of safety. Not just physically, but mentally.
Read more about Preparing for winter in the cabin
The Cabin as a Filter Against Modern Illusion
It hits me sometimes: It’s not us who became strange. It’s the pace and performance of modern life that grew distorted. And when you step off the conveyor belt, even just a little, you begin to notice it.
Not in the form of some dramatic revelation, but through small everyday distortions. Bread without the thing it’s named after. Wraps without what they promise. Words without substance.
And in the middle of all that, a simple stack of firewood can feel more honest than the entire supermarket.
Petter Hansson är frilansskribent och digital nomad med hjärtat i Dalarna. Han har under många år rest, vandrat och deltagit i evenemang runt om i landskapet och delar här med sig av både egna upplevelser och faktagranskade tips. På Dalarna.nu vill han lyfta fram det bästa av regionens natur, kultur och historia – från små byar och dolda pärlor till stora festivaler och klassiska resmål.
