Tlon: “In the society of the” Benestanchi “the only care is true rest”

This entry is posted on number 22-23 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until June 3, 2025

A few days ago a university teacher, at the end of our conference, approached and confessed to us that what we had said had devastated it. We worried about there, but did not refer to one of the speeches on the technology we had made: it was an opening joke to touch it.

We had said that now, When you say goodbye, to the “Hello, how are you?” We all respond with “Benestanco” or “Benestanca”: all attached, one word. Because the tiredness It has become a business card, an integral part of the social convention. The professor had told us that in fact it was precisely what he did: he immediately put his tiredness in the field because the work he did, in his eyes, no longer made sense. And it was the absence of meaning that generated a very deep tiredness in her.

This bizarre expression, the “goodness”, describes the dominant emotional state of our time. Saying “well -out” means admitting to inhabit an existential condition of chronic malaise: We are no longer simply exhausted after a day of work, we are rooted in a state of permanent exhaustion that has transformed the effort into a structural component of existence.

Recent research conducted by the IMT school high studies in Lucca in collaboration with the University of Florence has shown that Mental exhaustion has precise neurobiological effects: The areas of the brain responsible for self -control literally “fall asleep”, showing brain waves typical of sleep even when we are awake. This phenomenon, called “local sleep”, explains why mental fatigue makes us more irritable and aggressive.

It is not only a psychological question, but a real neurobiological mechanism: the brain exhausted, in some of its parts, stops working properly. Yet in the meantime we continue to live, to have relationships. To work. When the brain is “tired”, consequently we end up making choices that can go against our interests.

The tiredness that crosses our time is not only a psychological distress, but has precise neurobiological roots that can have gigantic consequences. If economic and legal decisions are made in a compromised neurobiological state, in fact, it becomes difficult that they are moved by care, attention, empathy, which require a lot of mental energy.

Faced with this condition, science suggests a way: rest, the real one, not only physical but mental. As a company, we need to regain the times necessary for the recovery, spaces of silence and disconnection, of rhythms more compatible with our biology. Recognizing it means taking a step forward in understanding contemporary social phenomena and, perhaps, in the elaboration of more effective strategies to face them.
Because, if it is true that the exhausted brain cannot make rational decisions, then the first rational decision is to give it the quiet time it needs.

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