In the year 2055, humanity subsists on UBI within tech-controlled cities, while AI handles everything else. With this entirely new world order, we are discovering strange new emotions without the language to understand them. So this book offers new words for a world which has forgotten the meaning of real struggle, and yet strangely longs for it.
"The Luxury of Hardship" is not just a collection of ideas; it is a prophetic lexicon — a fictional dictionary documenting the emotional landscape of a post-human civilisation.
Through threaded micro-stories and a brief projected history (from 2025), we explore the shift from our current human-centric reality to the post-human world of 2055. A world where the algorithmic internet has become absolute, and the various forms of AI-psychosis aren't just common ailments — they've been rebranded as the solution to all our problems (a crafted, curated experience for the sake of our "safety").
What do you call the nostalgia for a time when your mistakes were your own, not a glitch in the system?
This book captures the subtle, often unnamed emotions that arise when humanity is stripped of its burden — and perhaps, its purpose.
But these feelings aren't just fiction. They are already surfacing today, as we drift closer towards a completely algorithmic existence.
"Gave me words for feelings I didn't know I was already having."
This book hit me harder than I expected. I picked it up for the curious concept, but what stayed with me were the emotions it put language around — the strange mix of comfort, unease, and longing that I feel living in an algorithm-driven world. The sample entries were the hook: sharp, poetic, unsettling. It felt like someone had reached into the future and handed me a vocabulary I actually need right now.
"A prophetic, beautifully weird roadmap for dark years ahead."
The Luxury of Hardship doesn't read like fiction so much as a field guide to the emerging human condition. The threaded micro-stories made the future feel uncomfortably close, and the whole thing had that rare quality where you keep wanting to highlight lines because they explain something true about modern life. It's the kind of book you start reading and immediately want to talk about with someone.
"If you loved Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, this is its dystopian successor."
This book is both clever and necessary. It blends speculative storytelling with emotional insight in a way that made me feel seen — almost exposed. It gives readers a sense of belonging inside a world that's becoming increasingly abstract. I came for the sci-fi vibe, but what I found was a creative lexicon that helps me understand my own digital-era disorientation.
