Ep. 10 - Nothing's Good in Excess (The Burnout Society, Byung-Chul Han)

Everyone’s their solopreneur these days, aren’t they?

Everyone’s their own “project”. Shooting for success, self-mastery, popularity.

We go, on and on and on, forever.

Always something to be done. Always something to be achieved.

Never’s the time to contemplate; we’re on a mouse’s treadmill.

Never’s the time to take a pause; we’re in a life that’s constant.

We go, on and on and on, but we cannot go forever.

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Kalispera, Good Evening, Buenas Tardes, Dobry Wietzor. Welcome back to After The Dragon. A reflective, existential podcast about navigating life’s changes.

Episode 10 and Season 1 Finale: Nothing’s Good in Excess.

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Now, it wouldn’t surprise you, nor would you argue against that, we humans have experienced vast differences within the span of the last decades.

Historically speaking, just from the 90s onwards, we’ve seen the world order as we know it disappears. The Soviet Union was no more, bringing the end of the battle between the two polar opposites; one won, and one lost. We’ve also seen rapid technological advancements that revolutionized who we are.

Living in the 90s, for some, felt like the end of history. Such was the claim of “Francis Fukuyama”, with his monumental book “The End of History and the last man”. Many subscribed to such a notion.

And how couldn’t they? 90s was marked mostly by progress & optimism for many in the developed world.

An era of endless positivity was beginning. And while this sounds terrific; there’s a book that explains why it may not be as great as it sounds.

As promised, it’s the “The Burnout Society”, by Byung-Chul Han. A German-Korean philosopher of the modern day and age, his work critiques neoliberalism and its impact on society and the individual.

Within the book, he points out the clear distinctions of the 20th and 21st century, in a series of inspired arguments.

Today’s society, Han argues, is one of 'Yes, we can' freedom, replacing the disciplined world of 'You should not'. Transitioned from an era of the domain of a higher authority to one of absolute liberty and endless positivities.

And, in the book, Byung-Chul Han himself makes the bold claim that we’ve passed into an era of different diseases, too. The last century was centered on autoimmune diseases.

This century? Psychiatric disorders; depression, ADHD, and, of course, Burnout - thus the title of the book, and extension, of our society.

Fast forward from the 90s to 2025, we currently live a profound life; one of “the self” being the most important of each self. One that glorifies a constant “vita activa”, and goes against a “vita completiva” - both terms mean "an active life" and "a thinking life", respectively.

The philosopher wrote the book back in 2010, which makes his work so fascinating. Even back then, he successfully predicted phenomena that are currently at their peak.

At some point, he writes about how everyone’s their own solopreneur these days, a workplace trend that now, in 2025, is at an all-time high.

With endless tools and constant comparison, there are ‘no excuses’ left. You’re not just encouraged to succeed, you’re expected to.

You’re in direct competition with everyone around you. What else can you do but to compete? To constantly evolve, to constantly say “Yes, and” to more things, and to be positive that you can do everything you dream of doing.

You're now in an era, for the first time in history, that there's no master to enslave you. So, you lean towards the ultimate master; an idealized, utmost version of yourself.

And this master proved to be the most effective form of slavery there is. Because you do, and do, and do, you strain yourself even more, against the current of a society that does the same but is opposed.

No one forces you - you force yourself towards exhaustion. You become your own Icarus, the sky's the limit, melting your wings more and more as you go.

Until, one day, they melt away. Until, one day, you snap. You burn out. You get depressed from an internal friction that was there all along.

The effects will be visible when everything comes to a head. Be it from a loss of a job or a loved one? A failure to reach a self-setted goal? Or merely a face-on meetup with the absurd?

It doesn’t really matter. This has been in the works for years before.

It’s the price of what you’ve paid for all your previous actions.

It’s a loan; of an excess effort you never were supposed to maintain for long. One that you, yourself, will visit one day to collect. And, slowly but steadily, no matter how you try to avoid yourself, you will not succeed.

Our economic system. Our pursuits and aspirations. Ourselves.

Our balance sheets are indebted.

How are we expecting not to pay the price of it?

Everything we do is not sustainable.

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The Burnout Society’s end brought an end to a small grace period I’ve been experiencing recently.

I’ve been feeling… uncharacteristically positive and optimistic.

I’ve been fantasizing about success more and more. Self-indulging in positive, yet in excess, poisonous, thoughts.

I do want success for myself, to recover from my recent fall. I want to leave a positive impact on the people around me. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Nothing's bad with aspiring to do good things, to have goals, and to strive for something better.

But my thoughts were shooting a bit too high, without doing the groundwork to justify them. And The Burnout Society did open my eyes to that.

Life has its own invisible ledger. Whether we notice it or not, whether we want it or not, the balance is always being recalculated.

And we seem not to have a better way to bring that balance, but to push towards the opposite direction too much, and too absolutely.

We can see that all around us, living in a polarizing world like never before, of 1s and 0s like computers. of Yes and Nos. We decline to see the whole spectrum of our choices.

Because, indeed, we have a whole spectrum of choices.

It’s hard to believe that Byung-Chul Han is against viva activa or individual freedom per ce; it is against the excess and absolutism we put into these values. He is placing an antithesis on our current thesis. He is attempting to bring, to speak in Star Wars terms: “Balance to the force”.

And he does the “unthinkable”, as a philosopher. He offers a type of solution to such a problem!

He does so with the term "constructive forms of negativity". In a sense, you can see them as acts that are aimed towards bringing you closer to the balance, taking you away from the excess positivity of the modern era, and closer to a sustainable, meaningful existence.

What could be these forms of negativity?

People empathizing with the underground man would benefit from reaching out and being a part of the whole, even facing rejection, disappointments, and all the difficulties one can associate with a social life; as well as people who are too much a part of the whole, living an active, constant life out there, risking the discomfort of being with yourself that many of these people are avoiding all along. The opposite, negative outcomes are, in this sense, constructive, as they balance the ledger of one’s life.

Someone who is “no, but”ing too much would live a better life if they gave “yes, and” a chance a bit more often, yet the contrary is also true.

And being grateful is great, but we humans are a mathematical error in the universe; a parasite going against the constant death out there. To keep living, we need to be active. We need to continue striving for something. We can’t just be grateful for what we are and stop existing, as we will slowly lose them too, without action to protect them.

Living in moderation, not in excess.

What is moderation? What are the criteria to decide?

No one will, probably, ever know for certain.

But to defy that there’s a balance out there is absurd.

And to can't see the ways we're now tipping that balance towards one side, is to lose the forest for the trees.

If you deem yourself to be above it, you’ll be sadly proven wrong.

Just wait, and you'll see.

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Thank you for reaching the end of the 10th episode. And, officially, the end of the first season!

Wrapping this first season, I also want to make an honest announcement. Making these episodes is difficult, time-consuming, and, at the moment, nerve-wracking. I am putting tons of work into them, and I will need that mental space for some other projects coming in soon.

However, I don’t want to stop the show; far from it. But, I’ll be moving to publishing on a monthly basis. Consider it as an act of moderation towards myself; trying to bring a balance not with absolutes, but within the understanding of a spectrum.

Sources: No other than Byung-Chul Han’s The Burnout Society. You can also listen to my favorite Philosophise This’ episodes on the philosopher, as he gets into better detail about his ideas.

That’s all. Once again, help the show by leaving a like, or a review, to follow us on social, and sharing it with others so they can embark on their own journey of self-discovery. I’ll change the term of improvement.

Striving for balance. It’s not sexy. It’s not viral. But it may be the truest path forward.

See you in the next episode, coming on the first Thursday of each month. Meaning, see you back here on the 3rd of June.