Mujeeb Jaihoon exposes the silent crisis gripping modern humanity—where over-documentation reduces existence to endless forms and logins.
Identity: Update or Obsolete
In today’s hyper-regulated world, simply being alive no longer suffices. You must prove it—through logins, portals, and renewals. Digital breadcrumbs have become the currency of existence. Identity isn’t something you feel anymore; it’s something you update. Forget a password or miss a deadline, and the system quietly erases you.
Born to Be Filed
Before a baby feels the warmth of a parent’s embrace, their name is typed into a system. Birth certificate. ID number. Digital registration. The first lullabies are drowned out by login credentials. What once began with soft whispers now begins with screen alerts. Childhood no longer grows from wonder—it starts with verification.
Parenting: The New Bureaucracy
Today, being a good parent means being forever watchful—not just of your child’s steps, but their documents. Vaccination appointments. ID renewals. School application deadlines. Between bedtime stories and breakfast routines, mothers and fathers juggle scans, portals, and OTPs. Love still flows—but now through files and passwords.
The Super PRO Era
We’ve all become professional administrators of our own survival. Call them “Super PROs”—unofficial personal relations officers juggling passports and portals, not out of ambition, but necessity. We spend hours organizing life, yet forget to feel it. We remember deadlines more than we remember dreams. We’re productive, but rarely present.
The Monster Called Paperwork
Our lives once unfolded in conversations and journals—now they’re sorted into folders and servers. Biometric checks confirm our presence, yet say nothing of our essence. A system built to simplify life now demands we serve it—obediently filling fields, while our spirit remains unacknowledged.
Recognized by Logins, Not by Longing
We carry the weight of modern life in silence. Families live under the pressure of deadlines, not just for school or bills—but for simply staying valid. It’s exhausting to keep proving we exist. We check our passwords more often than we pause for prayer. A single glitch can shut us out of our homes, our work, our sense of peace. The digital version of ourselves demands constant attention, while the real version—the one that dreams and aches—waits patiently to be seen.
And when we reach out, we’re met with programmed politeness. A helping hand has been replaced by a chatbot. A warm word arrives as an automated message. We talk to screens more than we speak to souls. In this hyper-connected world, we may never feel more disconnected. Because being reachable isn’t the same as being comforted.
Undocumented Sanctuaries
Are we really living—or just ticking boxes to prove we are? The giggle of a child, a quiet prayer, a chat under moonlight—none of these come with documents. But they feed the heart in ways no official form ever could.
Let us preserve these undocumented sanctuaries—where the spirit breathes freely, and where poetry isn’t obliterated. We must guard these spaces—not just from technical obsolescence, but from emotional extinction. We were not born to be spreadsheet entries. We were born to be felt.
(Mujeeb Jaihoon is an author and social critic whose work explores the spiritual undercurrents of contemporary life.)