i have this huge midterm tomorrow for sociolinguistics and i havent slept more than four hours since tuesday so i decided to actually cook something real instead of eating instant noodles again bc i thought maybe the tactile process of chopping veg would ground me or whatever. i bought all the stuff for this expensive beef stew like the high end marrow bones and everything which cost way too much but i figured it was an investment in my sanity or something—idk why i thought i could handle a project like that when i can barely handle my reading load right now. i was in the kitchen and the apartment was finally quiet except for my smart speaker playing some lofi beat and i had the stove on low. i usually just tell it to guide me through every single step like "hey siri how much paprika" or "hey google what temperature should the sear be" because honestly my brain is so fried from memorizing phonetic transcriptions and syntax trees that i cant even trust my own eyes anymore. i need the voice to tell me im doing it right or else i feel like im just guessing at being a human. then the wifi just died. like out of nowhere the light on the router turns red and the music stops and the speaker just gives me that annoying "i'm having trouble connecting" chime. i stood there with a spoonful of cumin in one hand and the lid in the other and i swear to god i felt like my heart just stopped. it was like the connection to my own capability was severed. i realized i had no idea what happens next. i dont know what cumin does. i dont know if i already put salt in. i just stared at the pot like it was a foreign language i forgot how to read. the silence was so loud it felt like it was pressing against my skull and i started shaking. it sounds so pathetic even typing this but i literally could not move. i have all these books on my shelf about the cognitive structures of human intelligence and im supposed to be this high-achieving grad student but i cant even season a stew without a computer telling me how many grams of salt to use. i felt so profoundly incompetent like i was a hollow shell and the AI was the only thing filling me up. i was just staring at the raw meat and the half-chopped onions and feeling this absolute TERROR. my roommate cameron came in and asked what that smell was and i just stood there like a statue. he was like hey man you okay and i couldnt even answer because how do i explain that i am paralyzed by a lack of data. i look at the herbs on the counter—thyme rosemary bay leaves—and they just look like dried grass. i dont know the chemistry. i dont know the flavor profile without the prompt. CAMERON just grabbed a handful of stuff and threw it in and laughed and left and i felt like i was watching a god perform a miracle. how does he just KNOW. he didnt even check a phone. i spent forty minutes just staring at the steam. the stew started to smell scorched and i knew it was burning at the bottom but i couldnt bring myself to stir it or add water because the speaker wouldnt tell me how much. it felt like a metaphor for my whole life right now. if the system goes down im just a body in a room. im terrified that my entire personality is just a series of responses to external inputs and i have zero internal logic left. i literally dont have a self without a server. it makes me think about my thesis and how im basically just rearranging quotes from people who actually had original thoughts. what if im never going to be a real person. what if i graduate and get a job and then one day the power goes out and i just stop functioning. i sat on the kitchen floor and just cried into my knees while the pot hissed at me. it felt like the stew was mocking my reliance on the cloud. i just wanted the speaker to turn blue and tell me it was okay but it was just a plastic puck. i ended up throwing the whole thing in the trash. forty dollars of groceries and three hours of prep just gone because i couldnt figure out how to be an autonomous agent for five minutes. i couldnt even look at the bin. the apartment still smells like burnt carrots and i feel like such a failure. i went back to my desk to try and study but i keep looking at the speaker waiting for it to turn blue again so i can ask it why im like this. its 2am now and the wifi is back but i dont even want to talk to it. i feel like i betrayed myself or something. or maybe the tech betrayed me by making me so soft that i cant handle a basic human task. i have to be up in four hours to go argue about the socio-political implications of dialect shifting but i cant even decide if i want a glass of water without checking an app for my hydration levels. my hands are still shaking while i type this on my phone. i wonder if everyone my age is just faking it or if i'm the only one who feels this specific kind of vertigo when the screen goes dark.