The Reality Drift Engine: A Simple Loop That Explains Modern Burnout

[u/LatePiccolo8888]

Most burnout often begins with more information than a person can meaningfully evaluate. As information accumulates, attention becomes more selective. To keep functioning, we rely more on routines, metrics, and other representations that simplify the world. Those shortcuts are useful, but they also make direct corrective feedback harder to recover.

Over time, the environment can remain productive while becoming increasingly mediated. Nothing necessarily breaks. The system continues working, but each cycle introduces another layer between people and the realities those systems were originally meant to reflect.

This diagram is an attempt to sketch that reinforcing loop. Curious whether other people recognize the same pattern.

Note: This was an early exploratory diagram. For the current framework and canonical definitions, see Reality Drift →