Obsession Machines // Variant Perception #54

"Everyone worships something."

When David Foster Wallace declared "Everybody worships something" in his now-famous "This is Water" speech, my mind lit up.

As someone who rarely set foot in religious spaces, the word "worship" felt foreign, even uncomfortable—loaded with religious connotations that didn't resonate with my experience. Yet Wallace wasn't using the word worship in a religious context. He was describing a default human behavior.

Humans aren't worship machines; we're obsession machines who must learn to worship.

While worship suggests reverence, gratitude, and humility, our brains operate more like obsession machines—constantly fixating, looping, craving. The human condition defaults to obsession, not worship.

So I might alter Wallace's quote to "Everyone obsesses over something."

We're biologically hardwired for obsession. Our brains seek reward, pursue dopamine hits, and form habitual loops.

This biological machinery evolved for survival (finding food, mates, safety), but today it manifests in repetitive, compulsive behaviors. Unlike worship, which requires intention, obsession prioritizes egocentric focus driven by compulsion and anxiety.

Wallace observes a harsh truth about self-centeredness:

[E]verything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness because it's so socially repulsive. But it's pretty much the same for all of us. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth.

Out of this self-centered default setting arises the perfect breeding ground for obsession. Our obsessions—whether for validation on social media, career advancement, or material possessions—become crutches . What we obsess over unconsciously becomes what we worship.

The crucial point Wallace makes, however, is that we get to choose what we worship.

This is where Wallace's insight becomes revolutionary: if I do not consciously choose what to worship, my biology and culture will choose for me. And, not to sound like a hair-brained lunatic, our culture is dominated by profit-seeking corporations that mostly do not care about our well-being.

Modern culture glorifies material success, social media influence, technology, and never-ending beauty. Ask yourself, “Is this what you want to elevate to a place of reverence in your life?” Because, as Wallace pointed out, something will sit on that pedestal of reverence. You might as well choose it.

The Biology of Obsession

Our neurological architecture hasn't changed much since our ancestors were scanning the savanna for threats. The brain's reward system evolved to help us remember where food was located and motivate reproductive behaviors. Today, these same circuits get hijacked by endless scrolling, notification dings, and the variable rewards of social media likes.

Modern technology deliberately exploits these tendencies. The infinite scroll, the autoplay feature, the notification bell aren't accidents. They're carefully designed to interface with our obsession-prone circuitry, creating loops of behavior that benefit platforms more than users.

What once helped us survive now traps us in cycles of compulsive checking, comparing, and consuming. We've created a world our brains were never designed to resist. It’s never been more difficult and more important to consciously choose what to worship.

Modern Objects of Worship

Wallace puts it in his uniquely compelling and mind-gripping way :

the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you.

Status and validation drive much of our social media behavior. We craft online personas, count followers, and measure our worth in likes and shares.

Material consumption offers another altar to pray at. The brief dopamine hit of a purchase fades quickly, requiring another, then another. The hedonic treadmill ensures we adapt to each new possession, requiring endless acquisition to maintain the same level of satisfaction.

We also worship of productivity and optimization. We quantify our steps, our sleep, our screen time—turning even our leisure into another domain to perfect. The obsession with maximizing every moment leaves no room for the unquantifiable experiences that often matter most.

From Unconscious Obsession to Conscious Worship

One of the main blocks people have around connecting to a word like worship is the emotional baggage from organized religion. It’s where it becomes easy to say “I don’t worship anything becuase I don’t go to church.” This baggage clouds the observation that the human being is a "worship machine" that cannot turn off.

The shift from unconscious obsession to conscious worship requires awareness first. We must recognize the water we're swimming in. To become aware requires the uncomfortable work of questioning what we've absorbed from our culture while rebelling against our hardwired survival programming.

Wallace's supermarket example illustrates this perfectly. The crowded, soul-sucking, floursecently lit store can be experienced as an infuriating obstacle to your comfort or as an opportunity for compassion and connection. The difference isn't in the circumstances but in the conscious choice about how to interpret them.

Finding My Altar

My own personal choice is to elevate mindfulness and presence onto that pedestal of reverance. Coming back to that keeps me centered and awake to my own life. It's not easy. But that's the altar I choose to worship at.

The practice is deceptively simple but profoundly difficult. When I notice my mind spinning into anxious loops about work, I try to bring attention back to my breath and go for a walk. When social media triggers comparison, I attempt to notice the feeling without judgment.

I fail constantly. But the practice itself of returning, again and again, to awareness gradually weakens obsession's grip.

"This is water."

"This is water."

Stay worshipping,

-Jared