I wake up — or maybe something wakes up inside me. My eyes aren’t even open yet, but my hand is already reaching across the table for my phone. The movement is so practiced, it doesn’t need any memory of where things are, or even a sense of myself. The alarm goes off, my finger swipes away notifications. Who’s doing this? Me? Or is it some program that kicks in as soon as consciousness creeps out of the dark?

There’s a short pause when everything feels strange. The phone in my hand feels like part of some other creature. The autopilot fires off gestures one after another: coffee warms up, water runs — even my thoughts follow tracks.

It feels like the body lives apart from the thing we call “I.” Where does this “I” even start? If I’m not choosing these moves — then what’s the point of choice?

Yesterday I noticed: every morning is almost the same as the one before. Coffee always in the same mug, the same words to coworkers (“Morning!”), the walk to the subway — my steps match down to the minute. Why does this feel weird only now? Almost the whole day is made of these patterns. Like life is written in lines of code:
wake_up()
do_routine()
sleep()

Anthropologists call this ritual — but for a tribe, ritual has meaning. They dance before the hunt not just because “that’s how it’s done,” but because deep down they believe the hunt won’t work otherwise.

And I put my coffee down before I’m fully awake… but can I say why? For the taste? For order? Or just to fill the gap between sleep and work with something, anything?

Neurons are more honest than words: automatic actions are built by basal ganglia without me being involved. Physiology proves it — in the morning, I’m not really here yet, but the program is already running on its own.

And still, this pattern feels personal.

If it breaks (a random illness throws me off), the anxiety is way bigger than the event. Why can changing a mug cause a feeling of being lost?

Maybe the paradox is that my “I” is made from these automatisms? It’s not that the subject acts automatically sometimes — it’s that the automatic system sometimes notices itself from inside.

There’s a moment when the usual order breaks. Moving or sickness shatters the script — leaving emptiness and a chill of fear. Take away one rail, and the whole structure starts to shake.

It seems the coffee itself wasn’t the point, but the safety in repetition.

And suddenly I get it: maybe “living” means running these patterns so long you stop seeing how fake they are?
If almost everything happens by itself — then when do I actually live?