Hari Nair—Founder of Leela Life and a global expert in Indic wellbeing—reflects on how modern comfort and self-monitoring subtly erode our ability to observe life clearly.Most of us spend a surprising amount of time thinking about ourselves—though we rarely notice it happening. Not in dramatic or narcissistic ways, but through a steady stream of internal referencing. How should I come across in the next meeting? Was I impressive enough among the other parents? Why did my last social media post land flat compared to the one before? Am I doing all the things I can? Am I happy? Some of these are because we see our life as a constant performance. Others arise because we see ourselves as a project to perfect.
Together, they form a loop. A quiet loop of self-monitoring—adjusting, assessing, comparing. Over time, that loop becomes background noise. The self is always in the frame, always being managed. And without ever intending to, we begin living in relation to ourselves more than to life. We are self-absorbed.
This state doesn’t emerge because we’re selfish. It emerges because modern life allows it—almost forces it. When basic needs are met and survival no longer demands our full attention, we stop needing to engage deeply with reality.
For many, the real world still makes itself felt. A leaking roof in the middle of a storm. A long walk to work because transport failed. A refrigerator that can’t be filled until next week. These are not abstractions—they are daily negotiations with weather, distance, time, and money. But for most of us, such contact with the real is no longer required. Life has ease. Life has comfort. And when nothing urgent pulls our attention outward, it begins drifting—back toward the self, not by choice, but by lack of anything more immediate to engage with.
Both tech and therapy culture reinforce this drift. One rewards life as performance. The other often rewards debilitating introspection. Together—in the absence of the frictions of life—they create a landscape where the self is always the subject. Always being managed, explained, improved, or performed.
What starts as a drift soon becomes a default. The self becomes the centre of every experience. Not because it is inflated—but because nothing else is demanding enough to pull our attention away. Life becomes increasingly filtered through the lens of how it affects us, how it reflects on us, how it positions us. And eventually, almost imperceptibly, we stop responding to reality. We respond only to ourselves, in relation to it.
The real problem with self-absorption isn’t that it’s self-centered. It’s that it breaks your ability to pay attention. You stop observing. You stop noticing. You miss what’s right in front of you—subtle shifts in people, timing, energy, opportunity. You become reactive in all the wrong ways, and numb in all the right ones. You start managing life instead of sensing it. And without observation, there is no clarity. No rhythm. No edge. You move, but without feel. Decide, but without signal.
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