I was walking through a city in England recently, which I will not name, mainly because it was all of them.
Everywhere I looked, people had the facial expression of someone who has just remembered they left a lasagne in the oven in 2007.
Nobody was striding. Nobody was beaming. Nobody was even doing that thing where you pretend to look confident by walking slightly faster than necessary while holding a coffee. They were drifting. Hovering. Existing.
It was like someone had turned the global confidence setting down to about 3.
You can see this most clearly in architecture, which has always been humanity’s way of saying: “Look at this! We are amazing! Also we have cranes!”
In the past, we built things like cathedrals. Cathedrals did not mumble. Cathedrals did not say, “Sorry.” Cathedrals shot dramatically into the sky as if trying to escape Earth entirely.
Now we build buildings that look like accountants.
They are grey. They are polite. They are extremely careful not to offend anyone, including other buildings.
They do not soar. They comply.
And this emotional shift is not just in buildings. It is in clothes.
If you go to New York, which is one of the most fashionable cities in the world, you will notice that everyone is dressed as if attending the world’s most stylish funeral.
Black coat. Black trousers. White trainers, if they are feeling flamboyant.
Occasionally, someone will introduce a navy blue scarf, and the rest of the city will gather to stare.
This is not how humans used to behave.
There was a time when people wore hats shaped like cakes.
There was a time when Elvis Presley wore a white jumpsuit that suggested he might, at any moment, either sing a song or repair your bathroom.
There was a time when James Dean sat on a motorbike and made an entire generation think: “Yes. This. This is what being alive feels like.”
Now, the closest equivalent is a man vaping on an electric scooter, dressed like a substitute geography teacher, travelling at 11 miles per hour while staring at Google Maps.
He does not look rebellious.
He looks like he is late for a dentist appointment he does not believe in.
Music, which was once the global headquarters of confidence, has also changed.
In the past, singers opened their mouths.
Freddie Mercury did not approach a microphone like he was about to share a small personal concern. He approached it like he was about to declare war on silence.
Now, many singers perform in cursive. They do not sing words so much as gently connect several vowels and hope for the best.
You can listen to an entire song and still not be entirely sure if it was in English, French, or yoghurt.
Actors, too, have embraced mumbling.
You can watch a full length drama and miss most of the dialogue, which is fine, because the characters also seem unsure about it.
Nobody bursts into a room anymore and shouts, “I have something important to say!”
They enter quietly and say, “I mean… it’s probably nothing…”
Even dancing, which for thousands of years was humanity’s official way of saying “I am filled with uncontrollable joy and possibly wine,” is under threat.
Apparently, young people in clubs are now reluctant to dance, for fear of being recorded.
Which means that instead of dancing, they stand.
They stand in a room full of music.
They stand.
This would have confused every human who lived before 2004.
Because dancing, historically, was not about looking good.
It was about feeling alive.
It was about flinging your limbs around in ways that suggested you might be briefly possessed by optimism.
But optimism is risky.
Optimism can be embarrassing.
Optimism can be recorded.
And so, we mumble.
We wear safe colours.
We build careful buildings.
We move through the world quietly, hoping not to be noticed too much, just in case.
Which is strange.
Because if you look back through history, every interesting moment was created by people who did the exact opposite.
People who built things that soared.
People who dressed like peacocks with credit cards.
People who sang like they meant it.
People who danced like nobody was recording, mainly because nobody was.
Confidence, it turns out, is not just a personality trait.
It is something you can see.
It is in the buildings.
It is in the clothes.
It is in the music.
It is in the way people move through the world.
And right now, if you look around, you can feel its absence.
It is not gone.
But it is quieter than it used to be.
It is waiting.
Probably in a white jumpsuit.
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