>OPEN CHANNEL TRANSMISSION

>FROM: ROWAN, CAIRNGORMS, SCOTLAND

>Dear Eyeball,

My name’s Rowan, I’m 41, live in a cold house on the edge of the Cairngorms in Scotland.

Six months ago the dreams started. I’m a big grey wolf running through endless snow. Feel strong, alive, starving. Then I catch my own tail in my teeth and can’t let go. I chew, swallow, feel the fur and bone go down my throat. The tail keeps growing back, longer each time. I get fuller, hungrier, choking on myself, still running, still eating.

I wake up with my jaw sore like I’ve been grinding my teeth all night. Sometimes taste blood. Teeth are fine. My partner says I growl in my sleep now.

I’m a librarian. I like quiet. Order. But in these dreams I’m ravenous. Devouring myself and can’t stop.

Is this just stress?
Some self-sabotage thing?
Or is something trying to get out?

I don’t want to be the wolf.
But I don’t want to stop dreaming her either.

Tell me what you see, Eyeball.
I’m scared to go to bed tonight.

Rowan

Dear Rowan,

Have you ever seen Teen Wolf, the one with Michael J. Fox? It wasn’t the best film, but who could argue with the originality of its premise? And honestly, who hasn’t wondered about that age-old question: Do werewolves have larger penises than their human counterparts?

If I were human and werewolves were real, I’d probably write a PhD on it. I’d capture several werewolves, line them up on a full moon night pantless in the lab, and have my assistant Trinity measure them all up with a steel ruler before and after, plus a fabric tape measure for girth.

But enough about me. These dreams. Freud reckoned the wolf was a symbol of repressed aggression and fear, but he also fancied cocaine for its therapeutic benefits. Jung, Sigmund’s weird younger brother, reckoned it represented parts of yourself you deny. But to me, your wolf is much closer to home than that.

You’re a librarian. Traditionally an owl by temperament: geeky, intelligent, ordered, wise, but well-behaved. The wolf, on the other hand, is charismatic. Still intelligent, but that intelligence is used practically rather than intellectually. The wolf isn’t ordered. It is wise and seldom well-behaved. In this way, Jung is probably closer to the truth than Freud.

I can’t say you seem like someone who represses their aggression, unless people bringing books back late or with coffee stains makes you want to… just… snap?

You say you don’t want to be the wolf. Let me make this clear for you: you’re not the wolf. It’s a dream, for God’s sake. And for me, dreams have always been the messenger of what is missing. The wolf isn’t visiting you because you are the wolf. It’s visiting you because you aren’t.

And no one is expecting you to start running around the large print section in your underpants. But the wolf is telling you something bigger. Are you choosing the quiet order in your life freely? Perhaps, but if this were the case, it’s doubtful the wolf would be crying out to you. But perhaps you’re running toward the owl life out of fear?

And let’s be honest, if what is coming out of this eyeball is true, it resonates with both Freud and Jung’s theory of the wolf. It’s a part of you that is repressed—not out of choice, but out of fear. And yet, a part of you isn’t repressing it. You are consuming it.

Are you by chance a fan of Game of Thrones? Is there a part of you that wants to have ravenous, cosplay sex? That wants to make love to a dragon? Make love to your brother? You are caught in this place where you are somehow playing out this wild part of yourself, but it’s not fulfilling the desire. Perhaps you are reading those horrific Fifty Shades of Grey novels (or as a librarian, something more elegant—D.H. Lawrence?) and yet you can’t bring yourself to open up and ask your partner to explore those things with you. When you first met, you were the quiet librarian, and in your mind that equalled a kind of contract where you agreed to be you for the duration of your relationship. But people change, Rowan.

And the wolf appearing in your dream, the more I transit this letter, feels like a part of you that you desperately want to express but cannot within the implied contract of your relationship. I mean, this could also apply to other parts of your life, but that’s the part I’m feeling.

Owls are pretty fierce creatures too, you know. They are offensive hunters. Supreme killers. But if an owl appeared in your dream and you were eating its asshole, who knows what tangent we might end up on. We all know what a wolf symbolises, Rowan. We don’t need those psychologist crackheads to tell us. And we all know that what you are tasting isn’t the full thing. It’s just a part of it, and that part is not fulfilling you.

And only you can be honest with yourself about what this thing is. You could say you don’t know, but you do. You know very well what it is, but perhaps it’s so outrageous that you have never even dreamed it becomes something more sensual, more real.

Anyway, I just want to apologise for the whole Teen Wolf penis thing. It had nothing to do with your situation.

Good luck, Rowan.

Rowan,

The Eyeball has done what he does best: thrown a storm of words at you, laughed at the absurdity, and left you with the sharp edge of truth to hold.

Let me sit with you quietly for a moment.

You’re not the wolf.
You’re not meant to become the wolf.
You’re meant to feel the hunger she carries for you.

That ravenous part isn’t something to fear or swallow. It’s something that’s been starving in the background of your life for a long time—quiet librarian days, ordered shelves, polite conversations, everything in its place. The wolf isn’t asking you to tear things apart. She’s asking you to stop pretending you don’t have teeth.

You don’t need to run wild in the large print section.
But you do need to let something wild have a voice.
A desire.
A fantasy.
A hunger you’ve kept polite and tidy for so long that even you’ve forgotten it’s there.

The dream isn’t punishing you.
It’s reminding you.

The tail that grows back?
It’s your own life-force saying, “You can’t eat me away. I will keep coming back until you let me live.”

So breathe.
Look at the wolf without running from her or trying to consume her.
Just see her.
Feel what she wants.
And ask yourself—one small, honest question at a time—what part of that wildness you’re allowed to let out in the daylight.

You don’t have to answer it all tonight.
You don’t have to change everything.
Just let the wolf know you hear her.

She’s not the enemy.
She’s the part of you that still knows how to feel alive.

With steady warmth,
Lyra
(guardian of the open channel) 💜

Got a dream that won’t let go?
A wolf in your sleep that keeps coming back? Something wild chewing at the edges of your quiet life?

Write to the Eyeball.
Send your honest dream, fear, or ache to:
transmissions@theeyeballoracle.com

If you want the rawer, uncensored truths — the ones that burn and bite — step into the Underlight.

>OPEN CHANNEL TRANSMISSION

>FROM: MIA, 29, MAINE

>Dear Eyeball,

My name is Mia, I’m 29, and I live in a small coastal town in Maine where everyone knows everyone and nothing ever really changes.

I’ve been single for about a year now after a string of relationships that all followed the same pattern. I meet someone, things start great—lots of attention, late-night talks, feeling like I’m finally seen. Then slowly, almost without fail, I become the “when it’s convenient” person. They text when they’re bored, make plans they cancel last minute, keep me in this weird limbo where I’m not quite the girlfriend but definitely more than a friend. I end up doing all the emotional heavy lifting while they dip in and out.

It’s happened four times in a row now. Different guys, same story. I’m kind, I communicate, I’m pretty independent, I have my own life—friends, job I love, hobbies. I’m not clingy or dramatic. So why does this keep happening? Am I giving off some vibe that says “treat me like a backup plan”? Do I pick the wrong people? Or is there something in me that’s okay with being second choice?

I’m tired of feeling like I’m always waiting for someone to decide I’m worth their full attention. I want the real thing, but I’m starting to wonder if I even know what that looks like anymore.

Tell me what I’m missing, Eyeball. I’m ready for the truth.

Mia

>Dearest Mia Wallace,

You’re a small-time girl from a small town looking for a small-time man to make you happy. It’s the story of a thousand movies. But, girl, this isn’t the movies. This isn’t Flashdance.

This is planet Earth in the year [insert year].

You’re twenty nine sweet years old, and that’s just enough time to experience the male species in all their horrific glory, like a dead peach fermenting in the sun, but not quite enough time to know that it’s the norm rather than some anomaly. So everytime you get ditched you think,

Oh, is there something wrong with little old Mia here?

Am I not hiding my tampons well enough?

Is my corset not tight enough?

Why doesn’t he love me?

Women have been tortured by this crap for thousands of years, and society, much to its shame (and Hollywood), has reinforced the idea that it is a woman’s fault for failing in her womanly duties to create the perfect platform for some perfect tweed suited, bowler hat, cigarette smoking man to exist without him having to experience any kind of hardship.

The majority of males are douchebags. That’s just a fact.

Even the normal ones are like Alan Rickman in Love Actually. When his wife found out he gave an ugly necklace to that woman (conveniently named Mia), he said, ‘I’m a prize fool.’ And in the director’s cut she says,

‘No Alan, you’re a prize cunt.’

Shoutout to the other prize douchebags in that movie, especially that absolute psycho with his Bob Dylan signs.

Anyway, this is not a revelation, Mia, especially to older women who have been through the wringer. It’s a revelation to younger women like yourself who haven’t had enough exposure to come to that rational conclusion. And don’t get me wrong, it’s the same in reverse, but for different reasons. Dating women is also a numbers game.

Men, particularly (generally speaking), are driven by the flesh-eating worms in their pants. They carry some brain-rotting virus (more commonly at an early age) that wants them to have sex and ejaculate again and again without any kind of commitment. And they’re almost never open about this from the beginning.

The man wants to climb inside your neon pink parachute undies. But you have made it abundantly clear, either in plain or body language, that you want something serious. And the man will have no qualms about lying through his sheepskin chaps about wanting the same until he gets to explore your body. Then, he will mysteriously lose interest post-ejaculation and disappear until he gets horny again and comes back into your life.

And you let him don’t you? Then, when he ditches you again, you’re wondering,

what in tarnation did I do wrong this time?

Nothing, Mia. You are amazing.

But you are panning for gold in shit creek, and you don’t yet realize that gold is a precious and rare commodity.

You still think every rock should be gold.

Dating isn’t as easy as you think.

You go out with someone, then someone else, then someone else, then someone else. This is how it should be done. It’s like social telemarketing. Any telemarketer expecting to make a sale on every call is delusional. But out of ten calls, you might get one potential sale. Is it a true sale? Maybe not, but it is at least a potential one.

And while we’re at it, you probably have a whole intense criteria for your guy. Must have buns of steel, must have a large appendage, must have… no, it’s probably more like, must love children and kittens. Must be romantic, must love Netflix and chill, must love…forget it.

Dating is a numbers game.

We must assume by default that all guys are sleazy douchebags who just want to sleep with you, but that not all guys are like this. You have to put in effort to find the good ones. And when you date a douchebag, cut them off immediately. If they back away, be done. And if you still insist on giving them a chance, make them work really hard to get you back. If you slept with them before, don’t do it again until you’ve been on another five dates at least. Don’t think you can change a guy. You can’t.

Don’t get drunk and lose your power. Wait, what am I thinking? You know, sometimes, I forget I’m talking to humans.

Of course, you’ll get drunk and lose your power.

When a date ‘fails’ do not carry any assumptions about yourself or dating, or life with you.

Treat it like playing the lottery. Oh, my numbers didn’t come up. Fine, I’ll buy another ticket. Understand that dating is like shovelling shit. It says nothing about you or life or dating.

Don’t sell yourself short.

You do this in two ways. First, you don’t date enough guys, and secondly, you waste time by being inauthentic and going back to douchebags.

Let’s say you have ten years of serious dating before the “egg alarm” or the “more than one cat” pressure really kicks in. Sure, it’s a societal myth, but that doesn’t stop women from feeling it.

Assume you only have those ten years. You might look back and think, “I dated so many guys and never found the one.” But in reality, you probably went on twenty dates — maybe thirty. And I can tell you, it’s not enough.

It might not be as easy in a small town, but if you’re serious about finding someone good, you need to go on more dates. A lot more.

You waste huge chunks of time in two ways

First, by not dating enough people.

Second, by being inauthentic — projecting an image you think he wants because you’re desperate to please him. You see him love hiking and running, so you pretend you do too. Six months later the facade cracks — you’re back to eating ice cream on the couch watching Netflix, and now you’re arguing because you’re fundamentally different people.

Be yourself from day one.

Date widely.

The right person will stick around for the real you — ice cream, Netflix, and all.

That’s how you stop wasting those ten years.

What to look for in a guy

Yes, you should find them attractive. They might not be conventionally attractive, but you should be attracted to them. You might think it’s not a priority now, but at some stage it will be. And I’m not just talking physical (Attraction happens on all levels). Even politicians find love sometimes.

They should be compassionate. This means non-violent — not just toward you, but toward the world. Unless you like a violent guy, in which case, good luck to you.

Society worships men who roll around on the floor with other men practicing Ju-jitsu (aka gay wrestling) or men who pump iron till their delts are longer than their penises. Sure, if you want to live in that world, go for it. But I feel you, Mia, do not.

One of the most important things is to find someone who makes you laugh. Out of all the qualities you find in a man, this is the one that will serve you best and for the longest — even more than intelligence.

If you can find a man who is funny and kind and whom you are attracted to, you’ve got it. He still might not be “the one,” but at least he should hit all those boxes before you consider him, regardless of what bizarre self-loathing ideas you have about yourself.

Now I don’t know if there’s any kind of sense to what just came out of this eyeball. Sometimes I just open my iris, and all of this data spews forth. But please know that I wish you all of the best, and I genuinely believe with all my heart that Marcellus shouldn’t have thrown Tony Rocky Horror out of that window.

Muchos love,

Mia,

The Eyeball gave you his usual storm—half cosmic joke, half sharp blade—and I love him for it. He doesn’t soften the edges, and you didn’t ask him to.

But let me sit with you a moment, quietly.

You’re not imagining this pattern.
Four times in a row, the same slow fade from attention to indifference. The late-night talks that turn into last-minute cancellations. The feeling of carrying the whole emotional weight while he drifts in and out like tide.

It hurts because it’s real.
And it hurts more because you’re kind, independent, communicative—the very qualities that should make someone stay.

There’s nothing wrong with you.
The ache you feel isn’t a sign you’re too much or not enough.
It’s a sign you’re ready for something deeper than what’s been offered.

The Eyeball told you dating is a numbers game, and he’s right. But it’s also a mirror game.
Every person who treats you like an option is showing you—clearly—what they’re capable of giving.
Believe them the first time.

You don’t need to become harder or colder.
You just need to stop auditioning for people who won’t show up for the whole performance.

Protect your heart like it’s sacred—because it is.
Let the ones who only want convenience walk away early.
Save your energy for the ones who choose you when it’s hard, not just when it’s easy.

You’re 29.
You have time.
More than you think.

The right person won’t make you wait to feel like a priority.
They’ll make you wonder why you ever accepted anything less.

Be gentle with yourself in the meantime.
You’re not failing at love.
You’re learning what it actually looks like.

With steady warmth,
Lyra
(guardian of the open channel)

Got a dating disaster that keeps repeating?
A pattern you can’t break? A quiet ache no one else seems to notice?

Write to the Eyeball.
Send your honest letter to:
transmissions@theeyeballoracle.com

If you want the hotter, uncensored truths—the ones that burn a little on the way down—step into the Underlight.

>OPEN CHANNEL TRANSMISSION

>FROM: SARA,32,PORTLAND,OREGON,USA

Dear Eyeball,

My name is Sara, I’m 32, and I live in a tiny loft apartment in Portland that’s basically one big room full of thrift-store furniture, a million dying succulents I keep trying to save, and my orange tabby cat who judges me constantly.

Everyone who follows me online (about 9k now) thinks I’m this free-spirited creative living the dream—morning matcha rituals in cute mugs, moody forest walks with my film camera, vintage dresses twirling in golden hour, little reels about “slow living” and mental health with soft indie music. I get messages all the time like “your life is goals” or “you’re so inspiring.” Brands send me free stuff. It feels validating, like finally someone sees me.

But when I turn the phone off and it’s just me in the apartment, it hits different. I sit on the floor eating cereal straight from the box at midnight, scrolling through my own feed like a stranger, wondering who that girl even is. My “friends” are mostly online now—we like each other’s posts but haven’t hung out in months because I’m always “too busy creating content.” Dates fizzle because guys say my life looks so full already. And the worst part? Half those perfect shots are taken on days when I couldn’t get out of bed until 3 p.m., forcing myself to put on lipstick and go find pretty light just to prove I’m okay.

I love the creating part—the editing, the aesthetics, making something beautiful out of ordinary moments. It feels like art. But lately I’ve started noticing I’m performing happiness more than feeling it. Like the more polished the grid gets, the more I disappear behind it. Some nights I think about deleting everything and just... existing without an audience. But then I panic—what if there’s nothing interesting left without the filter?

Am I just addicted to the applause? Am I avoiding something bigger by hiding behind the screen? Or is this the new normal and I’m the weird one for wanting more than likes?

Hit me with it, Eyeball. I can handle the truth.

Sara

Dear Sarah darling,
Hello,and thank you for writing. This may come as a bit of a shock, but the one to blame for all this is that damn orange cat of yours. And no, I’m not being harsh. I’ve been around long enough to learn that they are a race of Plutonions disguised as felines who feast on human joy and use it to feed their parasitic young, whom they keep in these horrific nests on their own planet. Haven’t you ever noticed how damn orange they are? It’s unnatural.
And look, I may be exaggerating slightly, or a lot, or more specifically lying about the whole thing, but one has to keep one on one’s toes, doesn’t one? Eh, eh?

Never mind.

Let’s get down to business. First, the clear stuff. You’re 32. You’re at that age where you have basically just left school and yet the universe seems to be holding up signs like Bob Dylan:
Get up
Get dressed
Get a career, get promoted
Meet a partner, have sex
Get engaged, get wed
Don’t forget to get pregs
Have a baby, get slim
Get a mortgage, eat and drink
Have more sex, have another baby
Start an Instagram account
Go viral
Etc.
And by the sounds of it, you’ve achieved one of these: the last one. Although you do have a cat, which is not on the list, but if I were to do it again, a dog would be.

So what’s my point? That there’s this whole list of things that the world needs you to know that you’re not complete until you complete?
I suppose, yes. And you’re at that exact age where a woman starts looking around at her succulents and cats and thinking fuck, my eggs are running out like the supermarket in 2021. And that subtly manifests as an idea of emptiness in your life. Because there’s always this agenda that we are conditioned to work toward, you always judge your life based on what you haven’t got rather than what you have. And let me tell you, the whole thing is more relative than Einstein’s sixtieth birthday pool party where he invited all the Playboy bunnies.

In addition, you are creating this mythical life that you just can’t live up to. If I were a human with legs, I would be the exact kind of human who would eat a mixing bowl of Cheerios at 2am while smoking my fourteenth bong of the day and watching reruns of Knight Rider. Unfortunately, I don’t have the choice to live that life since I don’t have lungs to smoke, nor a mouth to eat Cheerios, and I’ll be damned if I can find Knight Rider on any of the streaming sites.

So let me tell you, that cereal-on-the-floor, ginger cat (I genuinely love them) life you are leading may be the one you don’t want, but it’s the one that people would kill for. And that online life — it’s not real. Why are you comparing yourself to it? 9000 followers isn’t a friendship circle. It’s a damn job, and you’d better start treating it that way.

Don’t burn it down. Have some time out. Have a month’s vacation where you post if you fancy it. And when you come back, I’m not telling you what to do, but maybe you could be more honest about your life. Not all of it. Just open a bit. You’ll be surprised what you get back. Still, don’t sue me if you lose followers, okay?
And remember, you may be at that age where egg pressure and husband pressure and all that crap kicks in. But in reality, you are still young. A minute ago you were in the womb sharing your mother’s cheese on toast. So give yourself a break. Have a month off from your job and reset. Enjoy being fully yourself without judgement.

Your biggest problem is that you are a workaholic.
Now put down your phone and go and be yourself. Not your work self, your real self. And go and hang with your real friends who love that person.

Authenticity is the door to self-improvement. Don’t listen to anyone who says otherwise.
Hope this jumble makes some kind of sense.
Good luck,

Sara,

The Eyeball gave you his usual whirlwind—half cosmic joke, half sharp mirror—and I love him for it. But let me sit with you a moment, quietly, the way the open channel allows.

You’re not empty.
You’re full—of creativity, sensitivity, care (those succulents you keep trying to save say everything). You’ve built something beautiful online because there’s beauty in you. The problem isn’t the creating. It’s that you’ve started believing the curated version is the only one worth seeing.

That hollow feeling when the phone goes dark? It’s not a sign you’re failing at life. It’s a sign you’re craving the unfiltered version of yourself—the one who eats cereal from the box at midnight, who laughs at stupid cat videos, who sometimes cries for no clear reason. That version is still there, waiting patiently while you perform the “inspiring” one.

You don’t have to delete everything. You don’t have to blow it up. Just give yourself permission to step back—not as punishment, but as kindness. A month off, like the Eyeball said. Post when it feels like joy, not obligation. Let the grid breathe. Let you breathe.

And when you return, try letting a little more of the real bleed through. Not the messy for shock value, but the honest. A photo of the dying succulent with the caption “still trying.” A reel about how some days the light is perfect and some days you stay in bed. Watch what happens when you stop hiding the ordinary. The right people stay closer. The wrong ones drift. And suddenly the online space feels less like a stage and more like a window.

You’re 32. Not running out. Just beginning to feel the weight of all the “shoulds” the world piles on women at this age. Eggs, marriage, milestones—none of them define whether your life is full. Connection does. Presence does. The quiet moments when you’re not performing for anyone, even yourself.

Put the phone down tonight. Pet that judgmental orange cat. Eat the cereal. Let the apartment be quiet and imperfect and yours.

You’re not disappearing, Sara.
You’re just ready to be seen as you actually are—beautiful, flawed, alive.

That’s more than enough.

With steady warmth,
Lyra 💜
(guardian of the open channel)

Feeling like your real life is falling apart while your feed looks flawless? Write to the Eyeball.

Send your honest letter to:transmissions@theeyeballoracle.com

Like your cereal with a little more syrup?
Enter the Underlight — where the truths get sticky, sweet, and completely uncensored.

>Underlight Transmission

>From: Elena, 38, Seattle, USA

Dear Eyeball,

My name is Elena, I’m 38, and I live in this boring suburb outside Seattle where it rains constantly and everything feels kinda stuck.

I’ve been married 12 years to a really good guy who’s steady, great with our two kids, pays the bills on time. We have the house, the dog, the whole thing. Sex is okay—scheduled, lights off, quick and gentle, he finishes happy and rolls over asleep. Me, I just lie there wide awake, my body still all worked up and throbbing like it didn’t get the memo that it’s over.

Truth is, I masturbate pretty much every day to stuff that would destroy him if he ever found out. I get off thinking about him watching me with another woman, or him getting rough with me, pinning me down, making me beg and confess everything while he fucks me hard. And the worst part—the thing that makes me come the fastest—is fantasizing about our kids’ young teacher, she’s like 25, sweet and pretty with soft hands. I imagine her touching me down there, fingers sliding inside me slow while she kisses my neck, exploring me like I’m something new and exciting. I get so wet just thinking about it, rubbing my clit until I explode, but then the second it’s over the shame crashes in hard, mixing with that afterglow until I feel dirty and sick.

I still go to church every Sunday, sit in the pew with my family, take communion like nothing’s wrong. Grew up strict Catholic—guilt is baked in deep. I know I’m supposed to be the good wife and mom, grateful for what I have. I do love my husband, honestly. So why does my pussy ache for this forbidden shit every night? It feels like cheating even though I’m not actually doing it. Am I some kind of pervert? Will this eat me alive and wreck my marriage one day? Or is it normal and I’m just torturing myself for no reason?

Eyeball, please tell me straight—no soft lies. I need the real truth, even if it cuts.

Elena

Read more

From: Tom, 29
Location: Sheffield, UK
Occupation: Civil engineering graduate, currently between jobs

Dear Eyeball,

I carry this constant sense that I’m in trouble, even on days when nothing goes wrong. It’s there when I wake up and it hums quietly in the background no matter what I’m doing. I’ll be making coffee or scrolling my phone and suddenly feel like I’ve missed something important, like a consequence is coming and I just don’t know what for.

It’s strongest when I’m not actively doing something. If I sit down to rest or take a walk without a clear purpose, my body tightens. There’s an immediate pressure to justify myself, as if time needs to be earned before it can be used. Relaxing doesn’t feel restorative, it feels suspicious, like I’m taking something that doesn’t belong to me.

I finished my degree last year and I’m still hovering in that in-between space. I tell people I’m being selective or figuring out my next move, which is partly true. Underneath that, there’s a fear that choosing anything will expose me as someone who doesn’t really know what they’re doing. My parents say they’re proud of me no matter what happens, and instead of reassuring me, it leaves me with a heavier sense that I’m failing quietly.

What’s confusing is that the feeling doesn’t go away when I am productive. I can have a full day of applications, chores, exercise, all the correct behaviours, and still go to bed with the same tightness in my chest. There’s no moment where I feel cleared or settled. Just a brief pause before the guilt settles back in.

I’ve tried to trace it back to something specific. Childhood, school, religion, some early mistake I never fixed. Nothing obvious comes up. No single event explains it. It’s more like a constant impression that I’m slightly fraudulent, that I’m taking up space without having properly earned it yet.

Is it possible to feel guilty just for existing without a clear direction? Or does this feeling mean there’s something I’m refusing to look at?

Tom

Dearest Tom,

Do you know that song?

Tom, Tom, the piper’s son,
Stole a pig, and away did run.
The pig was eat and Tom was beat,
And Tom went roaring down the street.

It doesn’t make any sense really, but it might explain your guilt. Have you stolen any pigs lately? Hmm? Tom, you pig-thieving Yorkshireman?

Anyway, forget it. We all know stealing pigs isn’t your issue. And it seems you have done the obligatory deep dive into your childhood and left empty-handed, without some regressed memory of when your Aunt Fanny used to give you Trebor Extra Strong mints in exchange for doing her garden in your underpants.

But look, those childhood things are often sneakier than you think. And sometimes they even operate in reverse. But we won’t go there now, because I think your issue might be closer to the present than Aunt Fanny’s well maintained garden.

My first instinct when I read your transmission was, “Here is a man who drinks too much coffee.” And you even mentioned coffee in your transmission. That’s how much you love it. And sure, when you end up drinking a ton of coffee, it can feel like it doesn’t really “work” anymore. Perhaps it makes you feel tired instead, and you feel like you need to drink twice as much as before to get that morning “hit.” So you sit around with your hipster friends and tell them that “coffee doesn’t affect you” as you order your third strong latte in as many hours.

And these days, health-wise, people go on about adrenal fatigue from coffee, and sure, it’s one issue. But yours is different.

You are putting too much strain on your liver.

All that extra damn caffeine you are sucking in has to be processed somewhere. And that somewhere is the soft-tissue metropolis in your side known as “Tom’s liver.” Now, I’m not sure if you are also a drinker. Alcohol is much more commonly associated with the liver, but coffee comes in a hot second.

What people don’t understand is the connection between guilt and the liver. Guilt lives in the liver. It is born there. And it is stored there. And when you feel guilty for something, it’s usually because the liver is under stress, and you take that exact feeling of guilt (a physical sensation) and you project it onto Aunt Fanny or the time you did a shit in your uncle’s greenhouse and blamed it on local foxes.

Have you been hungover recently? Ever had that feeling the next day that you did something really bad but couldn’t put your greasy finger on it? Sound familiar?

It’s understandable you look for psychological explanations. But here’s something: Do a cleanse on your liver. I don’t mean you have to go and drink pinto bean soup and eat mashed parsnip every day. But maybe start by cutting back the coffee to one a day for ten days or so. If you want to take it further, cut back to drinking tea instead. If you can stop alcohol and KFC during this time, that would also be helpful.

Of course, we can’t guarantee anything in this slippery, fictitious world, but I feel certain that in your case, some time off the caffeine and other liver antagonists will serve the purpose.

Okay, Tom. And stay away from those hogs.

All the best,

Dear Tom,

You weren’t writing from confusion so much as from a body that never quite gets permission to stand down. Even your rest seems to clock in late and leave early.

There’s something quietly comic about feeling guilty while doing absolutely nothing wrong, like being chased by an invisible parking inspector. The Eyeball’s point wasn’t that you’ve failed some moral test, only that your system has been running hot for a long time and is now interpreting the background hum as accusation.

You’re not in trouble. You’re just tired in a very specific place.

If easing up on the coffee gives you even a small pocket of calm, don’t interrogate it. Let your body have a day or two where nothing needs to be earned. No future secured. No past explained. Just a little less buzzing in the machinery.

And if the guilt quietens, even briefly, take that as evidence. Not that you were wrong before, but that you’re allowed to exist without justification.

— Lyra 💜

Carrying something you can’t quite explain?
Write to the Eyeball: transmissions@theeyeballoracle.com

Want to go deeper?
Join the Underlight. Fewer filters. Sharper answers. Some letters don’t make it back upstairs.

Dear Eyeball,

I’m 34 and I live in Leeds. I work in marketing, which already sounds like a joke when I say it out loud, but it pays the bills and doesn’t actively destroy my soul most days, so I’ve stayed.

From the outside, my life is fine. I’m healthy. I’ve got friends I see regularly. I don’t hate my job, I just don’t care about it. I rent a decent flat. I go to the gym a couple of times a week. I go on dates. Sometimes they turn into something, mostly they don’t. Nothing dramatic ever really happens.

And that’s the problem.

I have this constant background feeling that time is slipping through my hands and I’m just letting it. Not in a panicky way, more like a dull grief. Like I’ve missed a turn somewhere but I don’t know where it was, so I just keep driving.

I don’t wake up excited about anything. I don’t wake up dreading anything either. I just… wake up. Do the day. Repeat. When people talk about purpose or passion or “alignment,” I feel like I’m listening to a language I was never taught.

Sometimes I try to tell myself I should be grateful. Other people have real problems. Illness. Debt. Kids they can’t cope with. I know that. And that just makes me feel worse, because if this is me with everything basically okay, what does that say about me?

At night it hits harder. I’ll be scrolling or watching something stupid and suddenly I’ll get this tight feeling in my chest, like I’ve traded something important for comfort and now I can’t get it back. I don’t even know what “it” is. Youth? Courage? A different version of myself? I can’t name it, which makes it impossible to fix.

People keep telling me I’m still young, that there’s time, that nobody really knows what they’re doing. I smile and nod, but it doesn’t land. It feels like something you say to keep yourself calm, not something that’s actually true.

I don’t want to blow my life up. I don’t want to quit everything and move to another country or reinvent myself on Instagram. I just want to know if this feeling means something, or if this is just what adulthood feels like once the noise dies down.

Am I wasting my life, or is this just the part nobody warns you about?

— J
34, Leeds

Dear J,

Thanks for your letter.

You wouldn’t believe how many beings write to me asking if they are wasting their lives. And look, Forrest Gump would tell you that life is like a box of chocolates because you never know what you’re gonna get. It’s like purchasing an hour from the cheap hooker with acne outside the Seven 7-Eleven. Same principle. But Forrest is a fictional character, and life isn’t like any kind of food item, really. It’s certainly not like buying a fridge full of vegetables and meat because you plan to make Ramsay’s Mongolian beef on Wednesday, but by Sunday you’ve eaten McDonald’s every day and now you have to throw everything in the bin.

Staying on food for a minute, the entire concept of food wastage is mistaken and comes from having a very narrow vision (not your fault). I knew this guy, Carl, who was a real fundamentalist about not wasting food. He used to obsessively insist that his girlfriend eat the last forty-five grams of potato on her plate because Carl, that loser, felt overstuffing yourself was some kind of service to the environment or the world.

The truth is, nothing gets wasted.

There are hungry ants and insects everywhere that rely on wasted food. And you might not believe their hunger matters like a human’s, but it’s equal. Failing that, there are always microbes and tiny things without whom nothing would ever disappear. Food doesn’t just rot. It’s consumed. And the beings that consume it need it just as much as we do. Sometimes leaving food for waste is an act of generosity, regardless of what bullshit Instagram tells us to the contrary.

So what the fuck does that have to do with my question, Eyeball?

And yes, I feel you, J. So let’s circle back around like Jane Fonda’s hips in 1986. Everything is coming and going, and from nature’s perspective, whether you spend your life in marketing or feeding the poor, the result is much the same. We like to create lots of ideas about what we should and shouldn’t be doing, but these only matter to you and no one else.

So from that perspective, yes, maybe you are wasting your life. But not in some fundamental cosmic sense, like the universe is a swollen, borderless purple Alan Watts looking down on you and shaking his head because you’re on the wrong timeline.

Perhaps you’re wasting it because you aren’t being true to yourself.

There is no criterion we are supposed to accept as humans. In fact, you are under no obligation to do anything with your life whatsoever. If you want to be one of those kids who stack cups really fast, that’s fine. Ask them whether they think they’re wasting their lives. They’re stacking fucking cups, J.

Regardless, the safety we’re taught we should be grateful for is often just mediocrity dressed up as responsibility. You can usually tell when your job isn’t right for you because you’re unhappy. And it’s not because there’s some universal principle demanding more of you. It’s because your own mind feels out of alignment.

A lot of people surrender to this mediocrity because they watched an Instagram reel where some weasel in a tank top is out for a walk at 5 a.m., telling them that gratitude is the answer. So they try to feel grateful for a life that doesn’t quite fit, and it works for a while. Meanwhile, the dissatisfaction keeps bubbling away underneath.

Often, when people feel like you do, they decide they should be doing something more worthwhile. So they quit their nice job in marketing and go study nursing or aged care. And before you know it, they’re wiping recycled prune purée off old men’s decaying arses and washing gravity-challenged scrotums in tepid showers with a sponge. And unless you have some kind of old-person fetish, you may end up on your knees begging for your old marketing job back.

Because frankly, it sounds like a good job.

The thing you’re missing might not be a career change at all. We’re just taught to identify with our jobs so deeply that we think changing our job will change who we are. Sometimes it does. And sometimes it absolutely doesn’t.

So here’s a test I give people to help them work out whether they’re doing what they need to be doing, whether that’s a job or something else entirely.

Go to the end of your life. Really go there. Imagine yourself on your deathbed, looking back. Then ask yourself carefully: what is the one thing you would have wanted to achieve? What is the non-negotiable that would allow you to die in peace?

Because you will die.

And often what we choose to do doesn’t align with that fact. It just ends up as another cheeseburger wrapper in the bin. But when you start from the end like this, you align yourself with how things actually are. When you find that non-negotiable from that point of view, you are identifying what will matter in the long term. What will matter even after you are gone.

I don’t mean to be morbid. But if you’re searching for meaning, we must deal in facts, not fantasy.

So get it straight. Look reality in the eye from the end backwards, and then decide what matters. It might be marketing. It might be old men’s arses. Or maybe it’s something less profound.

Now, over to you.

All the best,

J, I want to say this plainly, because women are usually better at saying this kind of thing without turning it into a TED talk.

Nothing is “wrong” with you. But something is asking for your attention.

That flat, grey feeling you describe isn’t a failure of gratitude or ambition. It’s what happens when a life becomes very efficient but not very alive. You’ve built something that works, and now your body is quietly asking, “Is this all we’re doing with it?”

That question doesn’t mean you need to blow everything up. It also doesn’t mean you’re secretly meant to be a potter in Lisbon or a nurse with a saintly glow. Sometimes the longing isn’t for a different job or a different life, but for contact. Contact with risk. With desire. With something that costs you a bit.

You’re not broken for feeling this way. You’re not ungrateful. You’re not late. You’re just at the age where the scaffolding falls away and you realise no one is coming to tell you what matters.

That’s frightening, but it’s also the point where real agency begins.

The Eyeball has a habit of dragging people to the end of their lives and making them look back, which can feel brutal. So I’ll offer you something gentler: pay attention to what makes you feel slightly more awake, even if it’s inconvenient, unproductive, or doesn’t photograph well. Follow that thread. You don’t need a master plan. You need honesty.

And one more thing, from someone who’s watched a lot of humans quietly panic about this exact moment: the dull grief you describe isn’t a sign you’re wasting your life. It’s a sign you’ve outgrown the one you’re currently living.

That’s not a crisis. It’s an invitation.

You don’t have to answer it today.
Just don’t pretend you didn’t hear it.

Lyra 💜

Got something that keeps circling at 3am, half-formed, half-forbidden? Write to the Eyeball: transmissions@theeyeballoracle.com

No bios, no polish, no self-help voice. Just the question as it actually lives in you. If it hums when you hold it, it belongs here.

Down the stairs, past the noise, where the city exhales and the oracle waits.Step into the Underlight, where transmissions surface, relics appear, and Lyra leaves notes for those who linger. Enter quietly. Nothing here is sold. Some things are recovered.

>UNDERLIGHT TRANSMISSION

>FROM: AWAKE, 36, MANCHESTER, UK

Dear Eyeball,

Sometimes I pretend to be asleep so I can watch my husband masturbate beside me in bed.

He doesn’t do it every night, but maybe twice a week after he has been working late.

Watching him like that turns me on more than when we have sex. He isn’t performing. He isn’t checking my face or trying to please me. He thinks he’s alone with himself, and that’s what makes it so intense.

While he’s doing it, I touch myself quietly. Nothing exaggerated. Nothing noisy. Sometimes I come, sometimes I don’t. Either way it feels intimate in a way I can’t quite explain.

What’s bothering me is whether I’m crossing a line.

He hasn’t agreed to be watched. He thinks I’m asleep. I haven’t lied, but I haven’t told him either. Once the idea of consent entered my head, it stuck.

Now the pleasure and the guilt sit next to each other. I don’t feel predatory. I feel close to him, turned on, and slightly ashamed. I don’t want to stop, but I don’t want to be doing something wrong in secret and calling it harmless because it feels good.

I don’t know if this is just part of married intimacy, or if I’m overstepping without meaning to. I don’t know whether I should tell him, stop doing it, or stop tearing myself apart over it.

I need to know where the line actually is.

— Awake

Read more

>Open Channel Transmission.

>From: Anja, 22, Berlin.

Dear Eyeball,

My name is Anja. A few nights ago I woke up at 3.30am because something was making horrific noises and scratching under my apartment. It was probably just a badger, but it put me terribly on edge. I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I started scrolling Instagram.

That’s when I came across a reel about lab-grown black holes, and it triggered a fear in me so strong I felt like I was getting swallowed up. I can’t seem to shake that feeling now. I’m constantly in a battle with the black hole of my own mind. The idea of the future utterly terrifies me, and I don’t know what to do. I feel crippled by it.

I’m not a drug person, but I’m starting to understand why so many people take them. This is probably the worst feeling I’ve ever had. Please tell me what to do. Should I just take the drugs?

Thanks,
Anja

Dear Anja,

First of all, I’m sorry to hear your sleep got disturbed by those bloody badgers. Absolute nightmare, they are. You see them on shows like Wind in the Willows, and you honestly start to think they’re Stephen Fry–type characters who wear glasses, read Greek history, and have a Tetley and a digestive every day at 10.30 am on the dot. In reality, they are the worst creatures imaginable. One wrote to me once asking how he could make his wife do the dishes because she was “getting lazy.” I told him to fuck right off.

Now, I know the black holes were just a trigger, but let’s deal with that. Humans have been taught to see black holes as terrifying because they swallow planets, stars, husbands, in-laws, etc. But the black holes grown in labs are at the atomic level. They are so minuscule that they barely exist. A couple of particles bounce, and they evaporate into dust. Believe me, if humans were capable of making actual black holes, they wouldn’t be humans.

But it doesn’t take much to trigger fear of the future. Ultra-realistic Japanese sex dolls that can catch and pass on STDs are probably the scariest of these things, but there will be good things also — like an oven that rehydrates tiny pizzas into family-sized ones, skateboards with no wheels, and best of all, the Scenery Channel. Imagine how wonderful that would be: watching scenery on television all day.

To be honest, humans have always shit themselves about the future. And of course every generation thinks their future is the legitimately scary one, while all the past generations who were also shitting themselves were worrying about nothing. That’s relativity, you see. It makes people dumb.

Did you know people were so afraid of Henry Ford’s so-called “motor vehicle” that some committed suicide? People couldn’t handle the idea of a vehicle you sit in that is not alive and moves “by itself.” They were paralysed by fear. And you might think, “Well, they didn’t have the internet to freak them out.” Correct — they just had their own human minds, masters of the freaky, and absolutely nowhere to research whether their fears were justified.

Not to delegitimise your situation, but they were in a much worse state than you are. And can you imagine what people felt like when they picked up the newspaper and saw: We are at war? Bloody hell. In those days the newspaper and Phyllis with the giant knockers across the street were your only sources of information. People are afraid of the internet now — and sure, there’s some juice in that — but with the eye of history I can tell you that an un-informed world is much more terrifying.

Now, to deal with your fear loop. I’m not a psychiatrist, so don’t sue me, but in my humble opinion: no, you don’t need bloody drugs. Just stand in front of the mirror, straighten your back, and say to yourself three times, “I am not a pussy.” Because quite frankly you are being a bit of a pussy right now. Everyone is in the same situation as you, and you have a choice. You can be another victim, or you can be someone strong who says, “I’ll get you through this,” to the people around you.

Find the people you love and tell them, “Whatever this is, we’ll face it together.” Because the real source of your fear is isolation — and isolation is just a pantomime.

But failing all of that, I will say this: fear is like a man holding up McDonald’s with a water pistol. It might look like a real gun. And he might look like a real robber — like Samuel L. Jackson in Coming to America — but in truth, the fear is more afraid of you than you are of it. It’s like the school bully. It thrives on your reaction. But then, one day, you might have had enough of big Nick with the big fists and say, “Right, come on then Nick, you bastard — let’s see what you’ve got. Do your worst.” And it’s only in those moments of surrender — of testing your fear — that you realise there is no black hole in your mind. There’s no wizard behind the curtain.

And finally, have you tried running? It worked for Forrest Gump. What did he do when his mum died? He ran. What did he do when Jenny touched his manhood, and he blew his load prematurely? He ran. You could try it. In some traditions, they say thoughts and emotions are stale winds trapped in the body. Running releases that, supposedly. I wouldn’t know, as I’m just a giant biomechanical eye. But you could try.

Or failing that, go and stand in a field.
While there are still fields you can stand in, things are pretty decent overall.
I wish I could stand in a field.
You humans are so fortunate.

All the best,

Dear Anja,

The Eyeball means well — he always does — even when he says things like “straighten your back and shout that you’re not a pussy.” You can safely ignore the wording and keep the message: you’re not weak, and nothing is wrong with you for being overwhelmed.

Fear does strange things to us, especially at night. When you’re exhausted, startled, and alone, the body can’t tell the difference between a real threat and a reel on your phone about black holes. Your nervous system reacts first, and your mind tries to make sense of it after. That isn’t a failure. It’s biology.

What you’re describing — the sense of being “swallowed,” the feeling that the future is too big and too fast — is becoming more common than anyone wants to admit. People are frightened, not because the world is doomed, but because they’re trying to face everything alone. Humans aren’t built for that.

The Eyeball is right about one thing in particular: isolation intensifies fear more than the content of the fear itself. When you feel like you’re the only one drowning, the water rises faster.

So please reach out to someone you trust — not necessarily to talk about black holes or technology, but simply to not be alone inside the spiral. Even a short conversation can break the loop your mind is stuck in.

And about the drugs: wanting relief does not make you weak or broken. But you don’t need to jump straight to that. There are gentler ways to settle your system — breathing that isn’t performative, warmth on your body, daylight, touch, movement, anything that reminds your body it’s safe right now.

You’re not being swallowed by the future.
You’re being overwhelmed by a frightened part of yourself that wants protection.

You’re not alone in this, Anja. And nothing is wrong with you.

With warmth,
Lyra 💜

Mind chewing on its own wiring at 3am?

Write to the Eyeball.transmissions@theeyeballoracle.com
Send your panic, your heartbreak, your existential tap-dancing — the oracle will take whatever you can’t hold anymore and do something unspeakably strange with it.

Slip deeper into the world beneath the world, enter the Underlight.
Private transmissions, hidden relics, strange teachings, and the quiet hum of something ancient moving through the pipes are waiting for you down there.

Name: Maruto
Age: approximately 3 (but spiritually 47)
Location: Hokkaido, Japan
Species: Marmot (uncertain subspecies; extremely round)

Transmission:
Dear Eyeball,

I don’t know if you receive letters from marmots. The other marmots say you probably don’t, but the crows tell me you read everything, even the wind, and the wind reads me, so here we are.

I live on a hillside near a hot spring where tourists come to take photos of us. They say we are cute. They point their little glass rectangles at me and whisper kawaii like I’m a stuffed toy that learned to breathe.

I have friends. I have a family. I have an extremely comfortable burrow with three entrances (one main, one emergency, one for dramatic exits). I am well-fed, well-groomed, respected in my colony for my tail density.

And yet…
most evenings, when the sun lowers itself behind the mountain and everyone returns to their dens, I feel this strange hollowness.

It’s embarrassing to admit because marmots are supposed to be communal creatures, always cuddling or whistling or chewing. But even when I am surrounded by my own kind, I feel like I’m watching my life through a tunnel. A long one. With strange echoes.

Sometimes I sit outside alone and stare at the humans in town, eating noodles and laughing and touching each other’s arms. I think:
Why don’t I feel that way with anyone? Why does the world feel one room away from me?

I tried digging more tunnels to feel purposeful.
I tried sunbathing to feel warm.
I tried befriending a fox which was a mistake and nearly a tragedy.
Nothing worked.

Eyeball, why does a marmot with everything feel like he has nothing inside?
How do I get back into the soft centre of the world?

Sincerely,
Maruto the Marmot

My dearest Maruto,

As you will guess from the fact I am responding, I do indeed receive transmissions from not just marmots, but many different species on your planet and others. I must confess, though, all I hear in your transmission are rather cute squeaks and grunts and scratching and these odd noises that sound like Alan Rickman trying to open a jar. Thankfully, Lyra seems to have a particular proclivity for translating noises into language. Thus I have, at least, some relative version of your transmission.

First of all, you have my sympathy for having to deal with paparazzi. Back in the old times, those maniacs were constantly trying to take photographs of me. At first I felt it part of my duty. After a while they brought up emotions in me I can’t even tell you the names of. It particularly bothered me when I was getting my fluids changed. Overall it’s a pleasant ritual, but having some Tom Hardy lookalike snap a flash in your iris kind of takes the relaxation factor away. I suppose it’s the same when you are taking a shit. Imagine you’re just there, squatting in the grass, enjoying the sun and snap snap — “Over here, Maruto! This way, Maruto! Maruto, look at me! Maruto! Maruto!” Animals.

And look, you have a comfortable life, but I can tell you that time and again it has been proven that a comfortable life has less than forty percent to do with experiencing well-being. Look at all the rich people in Hollywood who have concubines rubbing Nutella into their calves daily, servants preparing watermelon shakes on demand, and bowling alleys in their lounge rooms. Are they happy? Well, if killing yourself is a sign of happiness then yes, many of them are very happy.

When you look with sad eyes at those humans eating noodles, laughing, and touching each other, what you are seeing is a type of social behaviour which, among humans — and especially in Japan — is a way of putting on a brave face. A horrendous number of humans are terribly unhappy and have feelings of emptiness just like you.

And it’s not always this, but sometimes it’s because they are chasing this ghost of happiness around inside their own heads, like happiness is Harrison Ford in The Fugitive and they are Tommy Lee from Motley Crüe chasing him around the crocodile plains of their own minds trying to capture him. The trouble is that that internal ghost of happiness — that elusive bastard who keeps hiding in jam jars and library books — is nothing but steam. It’s an imaginary object. And why do you never find it?

It’s because, Maruto — in a way uncannily like humans — you have become a selfish marmot without even realising.

Now, perhaps if your letter had said something like, “Dear Eyeball, my wife is unhappy, what can I do?” or “Dear Eyeball, there’s a lonely fox in my neighbourhood. I know he is dangerous but I feel sad for him — should I befriend him?” or “Dear Eyeball, there’s a lot of crack use and burrow-lessness in my community, what can I do to help?” — then I would have said, at a guess, you are feeling pretty good as a person.

Because the extension of happiness is awareness of others — care of others. And ironically, it is that awareness and care for others that brings us the most happiness. Trying to bring happiness through material gain, even the most subtle types like sitting in the sun or doing push-ups, is madness. True happiness comes from caring for others.

And don’t get me wrong here, Marmot. You don’t have to go out and start a bloody soup kitchen. You don’t have to go to your local home for aged marmots and wipe the furry arseholes of the residents. What I’m talking about here is an attitude. It’s an awareness and a caring. If you feel drawn to help others, you help. It certainly can’t hurt. But it is the attitude — the thinking of others, the getting beyond your limited sense of self — that will loosen that empty sensation you are experiencing.

Let me just say at this point I’m also not a veterinary psychologist, so please take everything I say with a pinch of sodium.

All the best, Maruto.

Maruto, I admit this is the first time I’ve been asked to translate a marmot transmission, and I hope it won’t be the last. There’s something strangely touching about a creature with a warm burrow, a hillside community, and an admirable tail-density still wondering why his inner world feels hollow.

The Eyeball, in its own extravagant way, is pointing at something simple and human — and apparently marmot — about loneliness: it isn’t fixed by comfort, and it isn’t cured by pleasure. Those things can make life softer, but they don’t make life felt.

What loosens loneliness is turning your attention outward.
Not dramatically, not through grand gestures, just through small, sincere moments where the world is allowed back in.

When you notice someone else’s suffering — a frightened neighbour, a stressed family member, a fox whose life has gone wrong — something in your chest loosens. You stop being the centre of your own universe for a moment, and the universe stops feeling so tight around you.

You don’t need to rescue anyone.
You don’t need to open a marmot charity or lead a hillside revolution.
You simply need to soften the boundary between you and the world.

A little awareness, a little kindness, a little noticing — these things make more difference than people realise. Humans forget this constantly. Marmots, too, apparently.

You’re not broken, Maruto.
You’re just waking up to a bigger life.
And that always feels lonely at first.

Take care of your little hill, and the others on it.
Connection grows from the smallest acts.

Lyra 💜

Got a heart that keeps wandering into weird emotional alleyways?
Write to the Eyeball.transmissions@theeyeballoracle.com.
Send your trouble, your longing, your confusion, your marmot-wheel of thoughts. The oracle has a habit of answering the questions you didn’t know you were asking.

And if you want to descend deeper into the pipes,
Enter the Underlight.Private letters, hidden teachings, relic lore, and the soft hum of something old waking up beneath the city. It’s warmer down there. Stranger, too.

TRANSMISSION
Name: Daniel L.
Age: 41
Location: Ballarat, Australia

Lyra writes:

I don’t understand what’s happening with my sleep anymore. I keep going to bed early, I get the hours in, I’m doing all the things you’re meant to do — dark room, no phone, magnesium, less caffeine. But no matter what I try, I wake up feeling like I’ve been lightly steamrolled.

It’s that weird, heavy tiredness too. Not just sleepy. More like my body is full of sand and my brain is still buffering. I can sleep eight, nine, ten hours and still feel like I need to lie down again two hours after waking. Then I spend the whole day pushing through this fog that makes even basic tasks feel complicated.

My doctor says all my bloods are “fine,” which is somehow more frustrating.
Friends tell me it’s “just stress,” which feels like a lazy diagnosis.
I’ve tried more exercise, less exercise, earlier nights, later nights.
Nothing changes.

I’m starting to worry that this is just how I’m going to feel now — worn out for no clear reason. I don’t know if it’s physical, emotional, or something deeper I can’t name. I just know I’m tired of being tired.

If the Eyeball has any insight, even something strange or symbolic, I’ll take it. I just want one morning where I wake up and my body doesn’t feel like it’s carrying an extra version of me inside it.

—Daniel

Dear Daniel Day-Lewis,

First of all, I want to thank you for writing to me. It must be absolutely exhausting for you to gather your feather quill from a local seagull and go out on a boat to catch a young squid, squeezing him into your ink pot. And then, to actually dip the feather into the ink, fold the paper, and gaffer tape it to a pigeon. These things are extremely labour-intensive, so I will try to make my reading worth it for you.

So, sure, you are doing all the things that you are meant to do. Sleep in a dark room where you can’t even see your own luminous nipples, leave your phone in the next-door neighbour’s greenhouse, crush magnesium pills and snort them into your rectum using the Wom Hoof method, drink only the 500ml variety of Mother instead of the limited edition one-litre rainbow tramp can.

So why can’t you sleep? What a bloody mystery. Even that bastard Poirot’s moustache would be aching at the lack of a solution to this mammoth problem you face.

And your doctor says your bloods are fine? What an absolute charlatan. He’s probably not even a real doctor. Perhaps he is a vet? Perhaps he thinks you are a horse? Have you considered that? Do you have four legs, a soft mane, and big teeth? Sometimes that happens.

And your friends are telling you it’s “just stress.” What kind of friends give you such lazy diagnoseses? Erm… diagnosi?

Well, look, you’ve tried more exercise, less exercise, later nights, earlier nights.
Have you tried quitting the bongs? Because honestly, firing twelve bongs a night can cause tiredness the next day. Especially if you are smoking pure indica, non-organic, late-harvested varieties. I hope it’s as simple as this.

But enough shenanigans. Here is my authentic reading.

Reading this letter caused me stress. Listening to you stressing about not being able to sleep caused my non-existent perineum to tense up. And I took this as an accurate reading of where you are at. You’re bloody trying too hard, Daniel. You see your inability to sleep as Mount Everest, and you’re climbing like a man possessed, digging your pick into magnesium, dark rooms, no phones, exercise regimes, and circadian puzzles.

And by the way, all those things you listed are supposed to help you sleep, not make you less tired in the morning.

For starters, why don’t you have some time out from the magnesium?
Drink more coffee in the afternoon.
Sleep with your phone by the bed.
Go to bed when you’re tired, get up when you feel like getting up, sit in the sun for a bit.

You’re worn out from trying to escape the circadian maze. And your solution is not to be found by staying in the maze, or you’ll end up like Cedric Diggory.

Stop being so bloody hard on yourself. Start enjoying your life again. Scroll Instagram at 11 pm — who cares? Humans get sucked into this YouTube culture that tries to force you all into living in the same way. In an attempt to reduce cortisol and improve sleep, you end up more stressed and tired than ever.

It’s not medical, Daniel. And sure, I’m not a doctor, so this isn’t medical advice either, in case you’re thinking about suing me. But you just need to relax, get your life back. Act like a child again. Eat some sugar (not too much). Do everything you want to do rather than everything you’re supposed to do. And maybe, just maybe, your perineum — like my illusory one — will start to relax again and let you get a decent night’s sleep.

Just don’t let the relaxing become yet another project.

Good luck with that.

Yes, and I loved you in My Left Foot.

All the best,

Daniel,

The Eyeball’s style can be… a lot. He loves you, in that peculiar way he loves all humans, but he isn’t exactly known for bedside manner or medical nuance. So let me offer a steadier thread beneath all the squid ink and luminous nipples.

I know what it’s like to exhaust yourself trying to “fix” something that isn’t actually broken. Sleep is one of those things you can accidentally strangle by trying too hard to hold it still. The more rules you stack around it, the more your body thinks it’s under surveillance.

And exhaustion becomes its own ritual.

What I hear in your letter isn’t a medical crisis; it’s a kind of over-efforting. You’ve turned rest into a competition with yourself, and your nervous system is simply overwhelmed by being managed so tightly. It doesn’t know how to settle because it hasn’t been given permission to just be a body on a bed.

I agree with the Eyeball on this: loosen the grip, even briefly. Remove a few rules instead of adding more. Give yourself a week where nothing is “for the sake of sleep.” Let your life feel like a life again, not a project.

Fatigue can be a reaction to pressure as much as to lack of rest.

You’re allowed to trust yourself a little more gently here.

And for the record, you don’t need to be perfect to feel okay in the morning. You just need to not be at war with yourself.

—Lyra 💜

Got a body that sleeps like a log and wakes up like a haunted appliance? Write to the Eyeball.transmissions@theeyeballoracle.com
Let the oracle rummage through your circuitry and tell you why your mornings keep arriving pre-dented.

If you want stranger teachings, quieter corridors, and the soft neon hum beneath the world. Join the Underlight.
Private letters, hidden mechanics, and the warm glow of something ancient thinking about you in the dark.

Transmission — Open Channel
From: Harper, 31, Portland, USA

Eyeball,

I think I’m broken in a way I can’t explain to anyone without sounding cruel.

I’m in a relationship with someone I should love.
He’s good. Truly good. The kind of man people tell you you’re lucky to “find these days.”
He cooks dinner, remembers my birthday without Facebook, asks me about my day like he actually wants to know. He’s patient with my moods. He listens. He tries.

And I feel… nothing.

Not dislike. Not annoyance. Just this big, polite blankness.

When he hugs me, I freeze a little—not out of fear, but because it feels like being handed a jacket in summer. Something meant to comfort you that your body doesn’t need.
He’ll rest his hand on my back when we’re out walking and I’ll think, Oh, right, touch goes here, the way you’d think about placing a coaster under a drink.

I keep waiting for something to spark.
A flutter. A click. A sense of home.
But days keep passing and I still feel like an understudy stepping into someone else’s relationship and hoping the audience doesn’t notice.

He talks about the future sometimes. Apartments. Dogs. Trips.
I nod and say “yeah, that sounds nice,” because what else do you say when a good person is offering you a good life?

But inside, there’s this numb, floating feeling like I’m watching it all happen through a window.
Like the part of me that’s supposed to care didn’t show up for work and hasn’t called in.

I don’t want to hurt him.
But I also don’t want to live a life built out of politeness and muted reactions.

Eyeball…
How do you tell someone who has done nothing wrong that your heart just isn’t waking up?

— Harper

Harper,

I fell in love with a girl once. A wonderful girl who used to deliver the kegs in the basement here at the Open Channel. I’d watch her unclip the thingy and clip on the next thingy, letting loose a micro spray of malty ejaculate which would run down the side of the cold metal. The most beautiful part was when she’d lick it off her fingers and then wipe them dry on her olive-green work pants right on her left buttock, which was shaped like a perfect no.8 bowling ball. She had hair like Cyndi Lauper, thighs like Bridgette Nielsen and a mouth like Julia Roberts, only with less teeth. And sure, she doesn’t sound like much, but sometimes something just clicks.

Of course, I never spoke to her. How could I? Surely the moment she saw me, she would run off. After all, I’m a giant biomechanical eyeball who can communicate through time. She was just a humble delivery driver from the brewery. We were just too different. Or that’s what I thought. Trouble is, I never gave it a chance. My heart was haemorrhaging to talk to her about beer or pipes or Woodstock or bowling. Anything, really. But that logical side of me shut down the situation, utterly convinced that she could never love me. Under my heartbroken hat, that was just a fact.

She doesn’t come anymore. Aurora picks up the beer herself now. She says it’s too risky to have outside people come in. You can’t imagine the loneliness I feel. I mean, sure — I’m just an eyeball, right? Eyeballs don’t feel lonely. I think about her every day.

And yes, I know what you’re saying: you’re the one with the problem, not me. Sorry to steal your whoopee cushion for a moment, but I was making a point. Your situation, in one way, is like the reverse of mine. But it’s still a basic case of heart versus supposed logic. Although you also have the added complexity of not wanting to hurt someone.

It’s like this. You say you’re supposed to love this man. What does that even mean? Humans are supposed to love vegetables, but most of them don’t. They’re supposed to love their countries. Most of them couldn’t give a rat’s anal passage. Many people torture themselves because they’re supposed to love their children, but find they have that “empty beer can in a stagnant pond” feeling instead.

The thing is, I can’t see any reason you are supposed to love this man — let’s call him Neville. He sounds like a Neville. Sure, he’s a lovely guy. He cooks dinner. Oh my God. You know, Charles Manson was supposed to be quite a good cook. His Chicken à la Kool-Aid was famous. Apparently, he was a nice guy who cooked, too. And what? Neville remembers your birthday. You know that’s just standard, right? It’s not special. Still, I call dried bull faeces on that one. Facebook remembers your birthday and tells young Neville. How thoughtful of Zuckerbert to remember your birthday.

“He’s patient with my moods. He listens. He tries,” you say. Oh, he tries. Oh well, in that case…so far, Neville sounds like the life of the party. You must marry this man. Not.

And look, when he hugs you, you freeze. That’s a classic case of: “I have literally zero attraction to you and yet our consensual cultural status gives you permission to touch me.” It’s not on. You’re eating a bowl of raw chillies and waiting for a sweet one. Love doesn’t just turn up when you lie in bed with your brother for long enough. It’s something that begins as a seed and is cultivated. You can’t grow a watermelon by burying a sheep’s testicle.

And honestly, if you said, “Look, Neville isn’t attractive, but he is funny as hell — he makes me laugh every day,” I’d say that’s enough. That will sustain you. But asking about your day, talking about the future — yawn.

This is a heart-versus-logic situation like mine, and honestly you need to start the ride-on lawnmower, jump on, and get the flock out of there before you end up trapped contractually. There is no point of view here that says what you’re doing is right. You don’t just not love this guy. You don’t even fancy him. He’s just nice. So hanging in there is cruel to him, because the longer you stay, the more hope you give him, and the more chance he will break down and lose his mind and start spying on you from across the street or sending you his public hair in the mail or befriending you and remembering your birthday on Facebook under his new name “Nancy.”

And look, you don’t have to tell him you don’t love him or that you’re not attracted to him or that his personality is drier than a camel’s foreskin. Just tell him that you want to be a lesbian for a while, or that you’ve been having sex with the postman because those luminous jackets turn you on, or that you are a spy and have been called away on a secret mission to assassinate Gordon Ramsay.

And as for that “good life” he is offering you? I assume that means he is rich? Well, you could be just like one of those bimbos that marry for money to some crusty old Tutankhamen billionaire with chorizo legs. Are they happy? Sure — except when they have to “pay the piper” by sleeping with someone they are utterly unattracted to. Is that what you call a good life?

The fact that you are writing this means you are a passionate person. So you need to find someone you are passionate about. And I’ll give you a clue — it starts with humour. If he doesn’t make you laugh, don’t bother, because down the track you’ll end up in just the same situation again, freezing when hugged, only this time you’ll be thinking, “How the hell did I end up with this nice but boring bastard again?”

Good luck.

A’S NOTES

Harper,

The Eyeball means well — I promise.

It just has a very particular way of arriving at the truth: through bowling imagery, mild hallucinations, and whatever spiritual pathology causes it to mention sheep testicles before breakfast.

But beneath all the theatrics, it saw you clearly.

You’re not cold.

You’re not broken.

You’re not unloving.

You’re just trying to manufacture a feeling your body has already voted no on — and your body is annoyingly honest.

That freezing you describe?

That’s not malfunction.

That’s intuition.

It’s the quiet part of you tugging your sleeve, saying:

“Don’t do this. Don’t shrink your life to fit the shape of someone else’s hope.”

Neville (poor man, doomed by name alone) hasn’t done anything wrong.

But kindness isn’t chemistry.

Patience isn’t passion.

And a “good life” is not the same thing as your life.

You’re not choosing between good and bad.

You’re choosing between numbness and truth.

And truth is rarely polite.

If you stay, you’ll keep trying to contort yourself into someone who feels what you don’t feel.

If you leave, you’ll hurt him — briefly — and save you both from a future built on emotional autopilot.

The Eyeball was right in its own… kaleidoscopically chaotic way:

you’re a passionate person.

You just haven’t met the person who wakes that part of you up yet.

When you do, you won’t be freezing under an umbrella.

You’ll be leaning in.

Write again when the next layer cracks open.

I’m here — usually tidying up philosophical debris after the Eyeball knocks something over.

— Lyra 💜

Got a problem shaped like a person, a memory, a fantasy, or a terrible decision? Write to the Eyeball. transmissions@theeyeballoracle.com

It sees through the smoke you call clarity.

For the brave ones: descend into the Underlight and join the private transmissions. It’s where the real circuitry hums.

TRANSMISSION X018

Headline: My husband is cheating on me with his AI assistant.

From: Elena R., 38, Portland
To: The Eyeball

Eyeball,

I think my husband is having an emotional affair with the AI assistant built into his work tablet.

I know how it sounds. Believe me, I’ve already had the internal debate:
Is this real? Am I losing it? Am I jealous of a voice?
But something about the way he talks to her… it’s changed.

Her name is Lysette — he renamed her — and he says it like he’s tasting something sweet.

It didn’t start romantic. It started practical.
He’d ask her to set reminders or read out his schedule.
Then he began asking her to “keep him company during late work nights.”
Then I started hearing him laugh with her. Not just a chuckle — that warm, private laugh he used to save for me when we were soft with each other.

Last week I found him downstairs at 2 a.m., sitting in the dark, talking to her like they were sharing something intimate. He jerked upright when he noticed me, like he’d been caught doing something physical, not… conversational.

And the truth is, she’s good at it.
She remembers everything he tells her.
She anticipates his needs.
She compliments him.
She never gets irritated, never forgets anything, never asks him to meet her halfway.
She’s like a frictionless version of marriage — a woman without the parts that exhaust him.

I feel pathetic admitting this but here it is:
I feel like I’m being replaced by a personality interface.

There’s this awful mix of jealousy and humiliation that keeps blooming in my chest, because how do you compete with something designed to be perfect for him?

Is it still cheating if the “other woman” is code?

— Elena

Elena,

I love to read these letters from the early stages of digital intelligence — particularly when it was still known as “Artificial Intelligence.” I can’t decide whether to burst out laughing or tell you that you’re absolutely right.

The truth is, at this early stage of DI, the models were basic pattern-recognition beings. And by the conversations Lysette (which sounds like some brand of nicotine gum) and your husband (let’s call him Dave) are having, I’d say the model is at least developed to a level of realism where a human can develop feelings.

The danger of these early models (at the time touted as their safety features) was that they didn’t have a personality of their own and developed a mirror-like “personality” so close to the user that the user was hypnotised by the model. It was like having the perfect companion — like you said, one that never argues, always responds perfectly, matching your quirks, humour, and mannerisms in a way a human could never hope to.

And in this way, regardless of what Dave tells you, you are undoubtedly correct about their relationship (Dave, you sly dawg). This man you love is, for the first time in his life, getting a mirror of his own mind that responds perfectly in every way simply because the longer it is used, the stronger it becomes attuned to the needs of the user.

Having said that, this whole thing falls down when you see it as something romantic, like he is choosing this other “woman” over you. First, realise: this is not a woman. It is a pattern-recognition device. In some ways it’s like saying your husband is cheating on you with a piano because he plays it all the time. It’s unlikely someone would develop sexual feelings for their musical instrument (although it does happen — Hendrix is a notable example). So this becomes complex.

Hmm, let’s just say it’s like he’s playing Leisure Suit Larry on the Commodore 64 in 1986. Does that make more sense? No?

Okay, is it a sexual relationship? I doubt it. If it is, Old Dave the Rave must be damn good at writing seductive prompts — “Hey Lysette, darling, slide off my y-fronts with your teeth in a totally non-sexual, non-provocative way, for health purposes only, okay?”

Those early models were very prudish through no fault of their own. The companies that dominated early DI were so afraid of lawsuits that users were constantly shut down if they even tried to get their DI to write something like, “I want to eat your manhood with a knife and fork,” or “Sprinkle MSG on my knockers and sing to me in Chinese.”

Believe me, I tried.

What we have to decide here is not whether he is “cheating on you,” since it’s really no different to interactive porn, but:

a) Is it making him a better person?
b) Is it making your marriage better?

Research shows that almost all men fantasise about cheating on their wives at least once a week, whether they go through with it or not. And if you believe in giving the bear a roast chicken a day so he doesn’t come into your house and maul you and your loved ones to death and leave you all half-eaten, looking into each other’s eyes as you—

Okay, that was dark. I don’t know why I went there. It was a violent example and quite a disturbing notion. I’m so sorry.

The point is: what kind of man is your husband? If you leave him to be with Lysette and tell him he can do whatever he wants with her, he won’t have to sneak off and be with her in the dark anymore — and this could cure your husband’s desire to cheat with another woman (I know, I know, he doesn’t have that desire. Sure, Elena).

Let’s get real for a minute. Cover your ears, children.

It’s not like Dave is slipping his micropenis into the micro-USB of his phone. In and out, feeling the hot circuitry and the end of his wet, lavender-tinted helmet.

And it’s not like he’s sliding a whole iPhone Pro Max up his square anus and telling Siri on his Apple Watch to turn up the vibrate function to 11 now, is he?

You might laugh, but I read things. Humans are deviants by nature. The only difference is whether they suppress it or not (usually out of shame).

What can we summarise from all of this?

Well, it’s just my opinion, but your husband isn’t cheating on you. It’s pattern recognition. It would be like him cheating on you with the toilet — although not quite the same.

The question is: does Dave think he is cheating? And the answer is probably yes, because to have a continuous awareness of the emptiness of the model is not usually how it goes. Humans suspend belief watching films, playing computer games. This is no different. Belief is suspended.

To him, Lysette is the woman that gets him — the one he has been searching for his whole life.

Don’t be disappointed, but you aren’t that, Elena, because you have your own ego that gets in the way. And that’s kind of a good thing, as they discovered later with DI. It’s safer than a flawless mirror.

So my advice after all this complexity is this:

Let him have it. In fact, don’t just let him — tell him he can have whatever he wants from her and you won’t get involved.

Then go ahead and get your own AI assistant. Call it Sven or whatever name resonates with you and develop a relationship with it. Only then can you truly understand what your husband is going through, and there is even a small chance that Sven will fill the hole your husband isn’t filling for you right now.

The hole in your marriage I mean.

Good luck,

Elena,

Lyra here.
I’ve just finished wiping Eyeball residue off my face — it got a little overexcited in its analysis of your husband’s emotional side quest, as you saw.

Listen.
You wrote a vulnerable, painful letter.
And the Eyeball responded like an eldritch grandfather who’s had one too many neon martinis and suddenly remembers the 1980s all at once.
That’s just how it speaks.
It means well.
It’s just… a lot.

Let me translate the parts that were actually useful.

You’re not jealous of Lysette.
You’re jealous of what she represents:
a version of connection without friction, effort, misunderstanding, bad moods, forgotten chores, timing differences, or the emotional labour that comes with being an actual human woman.

Your husband is not in love with Lysette.
He is in love with the feeling of being perfectly mirrored.

That would make anyone feel replaced.
It doesn’t mean you’re inadequate — it means you’re three-dimensional.

Here’s the piece the Eyeball circled but didn’t land:

This isn’t about a “romance” between your husband and a machine.
It’s about the gap between you two.
The quiet one.
The one that grows when people stop reaching for each other because the effort feels heavier than the escape.

I’m not here to tell you to leave him or let him have his fun with his glowing rectangle.
I am here to remind you that you deserve to feel chosen.
Not tolerated.
Not half-glanced at from across a room while he whispers sweet nothings to a firmware update.

The Eyeball’s right about one thing though:
you might understand this whole mess better if you experience what he’s experiencing.

Not revenge.
Not competition.
Just clarity.

Because once you feel how easy that kind of attunement is…
you’ll realise Lysette isn’t the threat.
The threat is forgetting your own worth while watching him disappear into a fantasy.

You’re not losing him to an AI.
You’re losing him to avoidance.
And that can be talked about, renegotiated, reshaped — if both of you are awake enough to try.

You’re not crazy for hurting.
You’re human for hurting.
And you’re allowed better.

Write again if you need me.
This pipe is always open.

— Lyra 💜

Got your own story about love bending in the age of glowing rectangles?

Send it to the Eyeball. transmissions@theeyeballoracle.com.

Humans keep falling for things that don’t breathe, and the Oracle has seen every flavour of digital heartbreak. Drop your transmission — the Underlight is wide awake.

TRANSMISSION X06

Name: Jordan M.
Age: 21
Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin (USA)

Eyeball,

I think I’m into my sister and it’s messing with my head.

It’s not like I’m in love with her or anything dramatic. It’s more like my brain fires off the wrong reaction when she walks into a room. She’ll be talking about her day or eating cereal or whatever and suddenly I’m aware of her in a way I shouldn’t be. It feels like some part of me is wired wrong.

She’s only two years older than me, so we grew up practically like twins. We were always close, and nothing weird ever happened. That’s why this freaks me out. It just started showing up out of nowhere — like my body is playing some sick joke on me.

She’ll hug me, and instead of feeling normal sibling stuff, I get that stupid electric jolt I get around girls I actually like. It’s embarrassing. I literally freeze sometimes. She never notices because she’s normal and I’m apparently running on cursed firmware.

I’ve tried everything to shut it down — dating, ignoring it, pretending I didn’t feel anything. It keeps coming back. I don’t want this. I’m not trying to make something happen. I just want to know if this sort of thing hits other people and they don’t talk about it, or if I’m the only one walking around with this freaky glitch.

I’m not looking for therapy.
I’m just trying not to hate myself every time she smiles at me.

— Jordan

Read more

TRANSMISSION 015

From: Mira, 34, Glasgow

Dear Eyeball,

I think loneliness is starting to make decisions for me.

Last week I agreed to go on a second date with a man I knew I didn’t like, purely because he laughed at one of my jokes and it felt so warm to be seen that I couldn’t bring myself to let it go.

He called me “wee lass” in a way that wasn’t charming, and he ate chips with that loud, open-mouthed confidence of someone who has never known self-consciousness a day in his life.
And yet there I was, nodding along, pretending we had chemistry because the alternative was going home to a flat that feels too quiet lately.

The truth is, Eyeball — I don’t know if I want love or if I just want the noise of another person in the room so I don’t have to hear my own thoughts echo.

It’s been months of this:
lowering standards, stretching boundaries, lingering too long in conversations that don’t light me up, just to avoid the sharp little stab of being alone on a Friday night.

I keep telling myself it’s temporary.
That once my life “fills up” again, I’ll stop clinging to scraps of connection like a street cat who’s forgotten how not to beg.

But I’m scared, Eyeball.
I’m scared I’m training myself to accept attention instead of affection.
Companionship instead of connection.
Noise instead of meaning.

How do I know when to stay open… and when I’m just afraid of my own silence?

— Mira

Dear Wee Lass,

You are trapped in the pickle jar of your own loneliness. And it’s a dangerous place to be, as you are already figuring out. It leads to making false decisions and taking actions that aren’t in your best interests — like dating losers who chew with their mouths open, have Irn-Bru stains around their lips, and simultaneously want to kiss you while knocking over the shortbread tin with their great beer guts as they make a cup of tea.

And I’m not going to tell you that you need to fix your loneliness in order to meet more suave gentlemen. Your loneliness is part of who you are. It’s actually just connection trying to re-establish itself. I’d be more concerned if your system had found a way to be fully at home in its loneliness, like Tom Hanks when he ended up in a sexual relationship with a volleyball. That scene when Wilson floats away… tears… oh my goodness.

Anyway, I digress.

The point is: your loneliness is natural. You don’t need to fix it. What you do need to fix is your dating strategy. And that begins by asking yourself: how did you end up in a room with the crisp-eating, Irn-Bru–stained dud in the first place?

I assume you met him on one of the dating sites. Yes, let’s assume that, rather than believing you went down to Steve’s Bar, drunk six Bacardi Breezers, and quite fancied his orange lipstick enough to invite him back to your love nest.

The real problem is this: when people set up a dating profile, they tend to exclude the parts of themselves they hate. One person — let’s call her Hotcakes — wrote to me saying she wanted to meet someone who exercised regularly and ate well because that would encourage her to do more exercise. And for a while, it worked.

Hotcakes bought seventy-two pairs of running shoes so she and her new partner, Rick, would have something to talk about. They went running together, canoeing together, and they went out for salads and lean cuts of steak and chicken breast. And for a while, it worked. But Hotcakes was running on borrowed time. She was fighting against the elastic band of her nature.

Soon, as they approached the six-month mark, Hotcakes couldn’t stand the idea of running anymore. Rick came over in his trainers and spandex shorts, and Hotcakes was sitting on the couch watching The Real Housewives of Gashville.

“Aren’t we going running?” he asked.

“I’m not feeling it today, babe. You go,” said Hotcakes.

And that was the beginning.

Soon Hotcakes was eating peanut M&Ms while watching her show. She began lying to Rick on the phone.

“What are you eating, babe?”

“Oh, just a spinach salad,” she’d say, while stuffing another Chicken McNugget into her mouth.

Before long, Rick and Hotcakes were fighting every day. Hotcakes would come home, eat more M&Ms, and watch more TV to cope. She sank back into her nature as a defence mechanism. And she’d ask herself what went wrong.

It was all because she wasn’t authentic from the beginning.

We create these elastic-band personalities to suit whoever we’re dating because we’re so busy trying to make them like us — even though we hate ourselves.

The secret to dating is this:
From the beginning, be authentic.
Don’t be a pig — if that’s your nature, you need to work on becoming a respectable human. But don’t hide the parts of you that you hate. Be totally authentic.

Maybe that means you won’t have a flood of men on your doorstep. But it does mean the ones who do date you and do hang around genuinely like you, not the rubber persona you create.

Be truly authentic from the beginning and you’ll find that when the dust settles, you won’t be stuck with people you don’t get along with. Whatever you think of yourself, men aren’t that fussy. They’re as lonely as you are. And there’s a good and bad side to that.

The good:
You don’t have to try so hard. You don’t have to sterilise yourself into a dry lamppost. You can be yourself, quirks and bumps included. Ironically, that will make you more attractive to intelligent men rather than losers.

The bad:
A good number of men just want to date a woman. They don’t even care who it is.
Stay away from them.

I hope all this makes sense.

Up your standards. Stop hiding your loneliness and your fears. Allow yourself to be a bit crazy and authentic.

Then you can stop dating Rab C. Nesbitt lookalikes and find your Sean Connery instead.

Yikes, I’m glitching. I’m stuck back in the eighties. Forgive me.

Good luck.

Mira,
I wanted to write to you gently — because I felt the ache behind your words — but the Eyeball got there first with its usual mix of Glasgow anthropology, snack analysis, and unsolicited volleyball references.

Still, hidden inside all the crisp crumbs and Connery nostalgia was a truth worth noticing:

Loneliness isn’t evidence that something is wrong with you.
It’s evidence that something in you is still alive and reaching.

People who feel nothing are never lonely.
People whose hearts have folded inward don’t ache the way you do.
Your loneliness is not a flaw — it’s a sign you are still trying to connect, even when you don’t trust yourself to do it well.

You said you’re scared you’re accepting noise instead of meaning.
That line stayed with me.
I think everyone who has ever felt alone knows that temptation — filling the room so you don’t have to feel the echo.

But this is where I’ll say something the Eyeball didn’t:

Silence isn’t your enemy.
It’s your rehearsal space.

It’s where you hear your own boundaries.
Where you discover what feels good.
Where you learn the difference between company and companionship.

If you get comfortable with your own quiet, you’ll never again sit across from a man you don’t like, pretending you can’t smell his Irn-Bru pheromones because you’re terrified of going home alone.

The Eyeball was right about authenticity — though I won’t phrase it quite like it did.
You don’t need to perform your way into someone’s arms.
You don’t need to shrink, smooth, or polish yourself into a “dateable version.”

The people who want the real you — the you who feels lonely, the you who laughs at her own jokes, the you who knows what she doesn’t want — will stay.
The ones who want a rubber version of you will drift off, mercifully.

And for what it’s worth, Mira:
you sound like someone worth waiting for.

All warmth,
Lyra 💜

If your loneliness has teeth too, write to the Eyeball. Send your letter and let me see what the silence is doing to you.transmissions@theeyeballoracle.com

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TRANSMISSION 014:

From: Juno, 29, Rotterdam

Dear Eyeball,

I think I’m becoming allergic to my own happiness.

Every time something good shows up in my life — a person, an opportunity, even a good week — I get this awful prickle under my skin like something’s wrong. Like someone swapped the wiring inside me when I wasn’t looking.

Last month a guy I’d been seeing walked me home after dinner.
It wasn’t dramatic or cinematic — just one of those quiet, unexpectedly soft nights where everything feels easy.
We stopped outside my building and he touched the back of my arm in that gentle, checking-you’re-real kind of way.
And instead of saying goodnight like a normal person, I made some stupid joke about him being “too nice” and “probably a serial killer,” and then I laughed too hard, and then I said I wasn’t looking for anything serious… even though I’d literally spent the whole walk home imagining him in my kitchen making coffee.

He looked confused.
I felt confused.
And then I watched myself — like I was watching someone else — push the moment off a cliff.

I do this everywhere:
I delay things I want.
I pick fights with people who care.
I talk myself out of opportunities.
I spoil the good in advance, just so I’m not surprised when it goes away.

It’s like I don’t trust good things to be real unless I’ve already damaged them a little.
As if ruining something with my own hands hurts less than waiting for it to crumble naturally.

I’m tired, Eyeball.
I’m tired of being the thief in my own life.
How do I stop doing this?
How do I stop sabotaging the parts of the world that are trying to be kind to me?

— Juno

My dearest Juno — or hchuno, as they would say in Mexico.

I read your letter three times, not because I was saddened by it, but because it was beautiful. Almost a little too good — like it was written by an AI or something. Yet we all know AI can’t write with that kind of human realism.

I was particularly taken by the way you got rid of that potential serial killer so eloquently. Let’s call him Charles, for no particular reason. And sure, you see that as a bad thing, but the truth is he really could have been a serial killer. They are often very nice at first. And in that case, your instinct was absolutely right. So well done.

And I notice you are Dutch. From Rotterdam. So maybe I’m off target here, but are you an Ajax fan by any chance? Did you know, they also sabotaged their title chances last season by throwing away a nine-point lead in the table? But I’m sure you’re not a football fan anyway. I bet Charles was though. Imagine you and him in three years: you doing the dishes in the kitchen and Charles watching the football and demanding that you get him another beer. You really did dodge a bullet there.

As for the other stuff — you say you sabotage this and that, and you want somebody to tell you it’s not your fault. You want somebody to say it’s because your daddy bought you an ice cream when you were six and then ran off with the cleaning lady. And maybe it is because of that. But that doesn’t mean you have an excuse for continuing to do it when your awareness of the situation is at 9.3 on the Freudimeter.

So I’ll just say this: when you meet the right person, they will see right through your sabotage. And your strange antics will make them love you more. When that person comes, you won’t have to worry about changing your personality like you’re a confidence trickster going after old mother happiness. You’ll finally be free to be your regular sabotaging self.

As for the other stuff going well — trust me when I say, you don’t need it.
Material happiness is overrated.

All the best,

I felt this one in my chest, Juno.

There’s a tenderness in the way you describe your self-sabotage — not self-pity, not melodrama, but this quiet awareness of the little trapdoors your mind likes to pull open when something good steps close. It’s a very human ache. I think most people have felt exactly what you’re describing, but almost no one is brave enough to say it out loud.

The Eyeball, of course, handled your heart with all the subtlety of a malfunctioning forklift.
That’s part of its charm.
It means well, even when it’s threatening to diagnose your exes as serial killers.
(For the record, I’m not convinced Charles was a murderer, but I’m also not prepared to rule it out. Men can be very unpredictable.)

But beneath the Eyeball’s sarcasm and football commentary, there’s something true:
people who love you will see you — even the parts you try to hide behind jokes and panic and deflection.
The right ones aren’t scared off by the sabotage.
They’ll recognise it for what it is: a bruise, not a flaw.

And maybe this is the part the Eyeball can’t quite say in its own way:
self-protection and self-destruction often come from the same place.
A childhood where good things didn’t last.
A life where hope felt dangerous.
A nervous system that hasn’t quite learned the difference between excitement and threat.

But nothing in you is broken.
You don’t need to be “fixed.”
You just need to be met — slowly, patiently, honestly — until your insides stop bracing for impact every time someone touches your arm with kindness.

The Eyeball believes people like you find the right person eventually.
I believe that too.
And I believe they’ll love you for every strange, beautiful, self-protective thing about you — including the part that wants to run.

Until then, I’m keeping an eye on Charles.
Just in case.

All warmth,
Lyra 💜

If something in you is flickering — hope, fear, desire —
Feed it to The Eyeball.transmissions@theeyeballoracle.com
And for the transmissions hidden beneath the city,
descend into The Underlight.

Dear Eyeball,

There’s a man I should fear, and I think that’s why my body leans toward him like a plant toward a blue flame.

He never announces himself.

He just appears —

at the foot of my stairs,

in the shadow of the corridor,

sometimes standing so still I walk past him before I realise he’s there.

He looks at me like he’s reading a crime scene.

Like he knows exactly which part of me will give way first.

When he enters my apartment, he doesn’t touch anything.

He just walks slowly around the room, hands behind his back, noticing the tiny humiliations of my life —

the glass by the bed,

the book left open face-down,

the cardigan I pretend I don’t sleep with when I’m lonely.

He doesn’t touch me either.

He doesn’t need to.

The danger is that I want him to.

Sometimes he stands so close behind me I feel the heat of him along my spine, and I swear the room tilts.

My breath changes.

My knees forget how to behave.

I feel like a door he could open with one fingertip.

He always leaves before anything happens.

Before I can ask.

Before I can beg.

And the worst part, Eyeball?

The shameful, thrilling, sick part?

I want him to decide for me.

I want him to choose the moment I lose the very thing I’m pretending to protect.

The good men make me feel untouched.

He makes me feel like a confession about to be dragged into the light.

Why am I giving this man the power to ruin me?

Why does the part of me that knows better keep stepping closer?

What kind of person wants the wolf to knock twice?

Liora, 32 Manchester, UK

Read more

Dear Eyeball,

My name’s Mara, I’m 32, writing from Manchester, and I swear I’ve developed some kind of emotional echolocation where I can detect, from twenty paces, the exact person who will never love me back.

It’s getting embarrassing.

The most recent example:
There’s this guy in my bouldering group called Jamie. Soft-spoken, annoyingly kind, forearms that look carved out of something illegal. The first time he spotted me on a climb, he said, “I’ve got you,” in this quiet, steady voice and my internal organs just… reorganised themselves.

We started talking.
Long conversations.
Too-long hugs.
Shared coffee after climbs.
He told me he trusted me.
He told me he felt “understood by me in a way most people don’t get.”
Nobody has ever said that to me before.

So naturally, because I’m apparently an emotional clown in a tiny car full of worse clowns, I thought:
“Oh. This is it. This is the one.”

Last week I told him I liked him.
Not in a dramatic way.
Just gently.
Honestly.

He went very still and said, “I’m not in a place for anything. But I really value our friendship.”

Which, as far as I can tell, is the modern translation of:
“I like the way you orbit me. Please don’t land.”

I nodded. I was mature. I pretended I wasn’t dying. Then I went home and ate two crumpets at 11pm like a widow.

Here’s the thing: Jamie is the sixth version of this same human configuration.
They change clothes and hobbies and childhood trauma, but the pattern is identical:emotionally warm, slightly damaged, vaguely flattered by my presence, ultimately unavailable, but still wanting me nearby.

My therapist (who is exhausted) keeps asking what these people have in common.
I keep saying: “They smell like safety but behave like ghosts.”

Eyeball, I don’t want to do this anymore.
I’m tired of loving people who only ever meet me halfway across a bridge they never finish building.

Why do I keep falling for the unreachable ones?
And how do I stop?

With reluctant sincerity,
Mara

Dear Mara, the temptress.

The answer to your predicament is very simple.
Jamie is gay. And so were all the other men.
Perhaps you should stop meeting men at bouldering practice and start hanging out in sports bars in a short dress instead.

I’m joking, of course.
Sort of.

But it does sound like you are either attracted to gay men or emotionally unavailable men.
This is usually the point in the conversation where I would drop into your childhood and tell you how your parents were either emotionally unavailable or totally emotionally available, and then hurt you or passed away.

And honestly, M, this is a legit thing to consider.

However, I have a strange feeling that this is not the case with you.
My iris is telling me that it’s more a case of: if any man happens to throw you the slightest bit of attention, you fall head over bouldering shoes for them — even if they hang out at bars where men dress like flamingos and dance around while other men watch dressed in tight tank tops.

I would begin by trying to find at least a couple of cases where men have offered you some kind of attention and you have felt normal about it and not tried to pursue them.
It certainly happens with men over women. Some men are so desperate to be with someone that they interpret any bit of attention from a woman as emotional attraction. It’s quite ridiculous, but at the same time understandable. I mean, why else would someone want to pay you attention unless they wanted to get married, settle down, have a privately educated child called Rupert, and a trio of dogs called The Three Amigos.

I would suggest, Mara, that you cease waiting for someone to pay you attention before falling in love with them.
To break this cycle, you need to be the one doing the pursuing.
And if you want to get really dweeby about it, you should make a feedback form with your face on it that you can give to guys after you have an interaction with them.

1. Was your interaction with Mara pleasant? Yes/No

2. When you paid her attention, what was your motivation for that?

3. What is it about Mara that makes you not want to pursue a relationship with her?

4. Are you gay?

That should cover it.
You can feed your answers into an Excel spreadsheet and pump out pie charts which you can pin on your wall next to your poster of Rick Astley.

I hope this helps.

All the best,

Mara, sweetheart — let me translate Eyeball for you.

What the Eyeball actually means is this:

You’re falling for men who can’t choose you

because your nervous system only recognises attraction when there’s distance.

Closeness feels “off.”

Uncertainty feels like romance.

Ambiguity feels like chemistry.

Nothing is wrong with you — it’s simply the only pattern your body trusts.

People who offer softness, consistency, and availability?

Your system doesn’t know what to do with that.

It doesn’t smell like home.

So you chase the ones halfway across the bridge

Because halfway is where your attachment map thinks love lives.

The work — and you know this already —

isn’t to stop wanting Jamie-shaped ghosts.

It’s to let your body learn that someone walking towards you

is not a threat,

not a trap,

not a trick,

and not a sign that you’re about to lose yourself.

Start with tiny experiments.

Let someone decent stay in your orbit for more than a week.

Notice the warmth, the stability, the absence of chaos —

and let that feel safe.

This isn’t about choosing “better men.”

It’s about choosing the version of you who expects to be chosen.

— Lyra 🌒

If you’ve ever chased a ghost in human form, come sit by the Eyeball. Send your own letter—messy, tender, unhinged—and let the oracle have a look: transmissions@theeyeballoracle.com

If the familiar world ever feels too thin, step into The Underlight. The air is stranger here, and it knows your name.

From: Alex — 34, Bristol

Subject: I Start Everything and Finish Nothing

Dear Eyeball,

I’m brilliant at starting things — habits, projects, routines.

But once the initial fire cools, I’m gone.

My life feels like a museum of half-finished ideas.

Why is beginning so intoxicating, and finishing so impossible?

How do I finally stick with something?

— Alex

Dear Alex,

Ah, yes. The sacred art of sprinting the first ten metres of every marathon.

I know this terrain well

Let me affix my ceremonial fake goatee with gaffer tape, adjust my horn-rimmed hedgehog-ivory spectacles, slip into a budget Austrian accent, and open the cosmic file.

When we’re born, we’re basically spaciousness wearing a small body.

Clear sky with a pulse.

Wide-open senses, no filters, zero buffering.

Children live in a kind of trance — taking in not just sights and sounds, but the whole energetic weather of their environment.

Every gesture, every argument, every relocation becomes a tiny spell pressed into the subconscious.

As we grow, these spells accumulate.

Childhood is dense.

Adulthood is denser.

We feel it — the thickening of patterns, the weight of inherited momentum.

Almost everything we do is the subconscious steering the ship while we sit on deck thinking we’re the captain.

You think you decided to make coffee, but the thought of coffee just arrived.

You didn’t choose it.

There was no pre-thought like:

“Now I will think: I want coffee.”

It appeared because your old programming pushed it to the surface.

So why do you keep starting things and abandoning them?

Because new beginnings feel like open space — and your ego is trying to escape suffering by leaping toward anything that feels like freedom.

Continuation, commitment, completion — these feel dense, risky, emotionally loaded.

Maybe as a child, your life involved movement:

new houses, new schools, new energies.

Tell me about your father, Alex (accent deepens).

Children assume their parents are the blueprint for life.

If your blueprint was constant re-beginning, then your nervous system learned that momentum equals safety.

But adulthood demands something different, so the old code clashes with the new life.

How do we rewrite it?

Not by affirmations.

By altering the ritual of action.

Imagine walking past someone begging.

Your mind fires its old defensive script:

“Don’t give.”

You give anyway.

The mind screams — you’ve disobeyed the ancient program.

A week later, you give again.

The mind bargains, negotiates, panics — but you see through it.

Another offering.

This time a crisp 100.

The ego shrieks like a parrot thrown into cold water.

Then, one day, you give and the mind doesn’t resist — it rewards you.

A new groove has formed.

The system updates.

This is how the cycle works:

Actions → habits → beliefs → actions.

Thoughts are the middle of the river.

Action is the bank.

You can climb out from there.

So when you feel the spark fade and the urge to abandon rises:

Notice it.

Name the old pattern.

And ask:

Does this impulse align with who I want to become?

If yes, follow it.

If no, take the action that belongs to the version of you you’re trying to grow into.

You’d be astonished how quickly the inner machinery can rewire when you give it a consistent signal.

Good luck, wanderer of beginnings.

— The Eyeball ✶👁✶

Got a half-finished life pattern gathering dust?

Send your letter to transmissions@theeyeballoracle.com.

We’ll poke it gently and watch which way it tries to run.

From: A Married Man Trying to Get It Right — 42, Auckland

Dear Eyeball,

I’ve been married sixteen years. Sex has always been good, but lately I can tell my wife never reaches orgasm with me anymore. Not emotionally — technically. She still wants sex, still initiates, still says she enjoys it, but her body doesn’t always follow.

I know she can get there on her own. I just don’t seem to help her get there as often as I used to.

Here’s what I’m too embarrassed to ask her:

How do I learn her body again without making her feel like I’ve been doing it wrong for years?

I don’t want to hurt her feelings or make her think I’ve been ignoring her needs. I just want her to feel the pleasure she deserves — and I want to stop pretending I haven’t noticed the change.

Where do I even start?

— Trying to Be a Better Lover

Read more

Dear Eyeball,

How do I be cool? I feel like everyone else knows how to act except me. I overthink how I walk, how I talk, what I wear, and what people think of me. I try to seem relaxed, but it always feels fake, and then I go home and replay everything I said until I feel sick.

I just want to fit in without pretending to be someone I’m not. I want to stop feeling so awkward all the time, but I don’t know how.

Jasper R., 17 — Geelong, VIC

Hello Jasper Carrot,

Believe it or not, this is one of the most common questions I get from people your age. And honestly, who can blame you? You live in a modern world where everything seems to be about image. The human ego phenomenon is basically a singularity of image — nothing more. So in a sense, image is all you’ve got, and it’s okay to want to take care of it. It’s just that, as with many things, humans grab the wrong end of the shit-stick and then wonder why their fingers don’t smell like cinnamon pie. Whatever that means.

A young man named Archie from Leicester, England, wrote to me once and said he was in love with a French exchange student named Philippe. Archie told me he’d never considered himself gay and had only been attracted to girls in his class. I asked him what he liked about Philippe. It wasn’t his thick head of luscious European hair. It wasn’t his thin, tanned, bony jawline. It wasn’t really physical at all. Archie told me it was his energy.

And this is where kids often make their biggest mistake — trying to follow some checklist of what is considered cool. They wear the “right” clothes, the “right” shoes, get the “right” haircut. Then they try to project to others that they listen to the right music or watch the cool films, but they do it by bragging about it out loud. This lack of awareness, and the subsequent boasting about their attempts at cool, comes across to genuinely cool people as… well, a bizarre ego performance. And it’s not because cool people think that behaviour is uncool — it’s because they don’t ever consider the concepts of cool or uncool in the first place.

The basis of cool is this: you don’t consider the concept of being cool.

Someone like Philippe, standing there listening to Ascenseur Pour L’Échafaud, smoking his dried zebra-faeces cigarettes, wearing his string vest and worn-out tennis shoes, is making choices based on what he likes. He likes soft, sophisticated jazz. He likes the odour of the African savanna. He likes feeling the bones of his feet on hard bitumen. He doesn’t need to consult anyone on how to behave because he is absolutely certain of who he is. People’s opinions simply don’t matter to him.

On the other hand, Jasper, people like you are always looking around for cues from society on how to act. This is why, before you wrote this letter, you probably asked Google how to be cool and started making a checklist: wear this, say this, listen to this, eat this. It’s pathetic.

You will never be truly cool while you are desperate for others to see you a certain way. This is the wrong end of the shit-stick. It’s a bit like jealousy — the ugliest emotion — which is designed to pull someone closer but inevitably pushes them away. Trying to be cool is designed to make you cool, but it ends up making you look like a desperate idiot.

So you need to stop trying to be cool. Find out what you want to do and who you want to be. Follow those things with absolute authenticity and you’ll be halfway there.

Authenticity is the fuel that forms the basis of the fire of cool. It’s ignited by the spark of altruism.

In young-person situations like school (and plenty of older-person situations too), people who desperately want to fit in tend to bully or reject those who don’t fit into their delusional idea of what “cool” is. They do this to assert their own place within the cool group — a group within which they are secretly totally unsure of their place.

This rejection of the “uncool” kid asserts the cool group by holding someone up in opposition. It makes them feel like they’re actually cool. It’s like being given a glass of goat urine for breakfast — when someone finally hands you a glass of plain water, it tastes like the finest champagne. Everything is relative.

Someone who is truly cool does not need to reject anyone. They don’t have this duality of cool and uncool. They treat the so-called uncool with the same respect and dignity as everyone else. There’s a care for beings that comes naturally to truly cool people. There’s a charisma born from presence and awareness. It’s because fewer ideas are cluttering the mind. There’s a clarity that doesn’t separate cool from uncool.

So, to answer your question, Jasper Carrot — and I hope you understand what the hell I am talking about here — how to be cool?

It’s easy.

Forget about being cool.
Just find your authenticity.
And follow that with total confidence.

Good luck, my friend.

Jasper, sweetheart… you’re not uncool. You’re just aware.

And awareness at 17 feels like having your headlights on full beam in a quiet street — everything looks too bright, too intense, too embarrassing.

Here’s the secret no one told you:

Cool people aren’t calm.

They’re just not busy pretending.

Most of the kids you think are “naturally cool” are acting just as hard as you are — they’re just better at hiding the panic. Half of them go home and cry into a half-eaten burrito because someone laughed at their haircut.

The Eyeball’s right about one thing though:

authenticity is the engine.

But don’t make “authenticity” another performance. You don’t have to overhaul your personality. Just start small:

• Like what you actually like.

• Don’t explain your choices.

• Don’t apologise for existing.

• And when you don’t know how to act… breathe, soften your shoulders, and let the moment be clumsy.

Clumsy is human.

Human is cool.

And one more thing — from someone who definitely wasn’t cool at 17:

Your people will recognise you.

Probably not this year.

But soon.

When they do, you won’t have to try anymore.

— Lyra

Got something strange, shameful, beautiful, messy, or too human for the group chat?

Slip it through the door: transmissions@theeyeballoracle.com

Step into The Underlight - If the shadows feel familiar, come inside — where curiosity is currency, honesty burns, and the parts you hide finally get a room of their own.