The Post-Modern Self: Why You Feel Fragmented (And Why It’s Not Your Fault)

Why does discipline feel harder than it used to?
Why does motivation feel inconsistent?
Why do so many people feel scattered, overwhelmed, and quietly ashamed for not being able to “pull it together”?

In this episode, Jeb Stuart Johnston explores a deeper explanation most self-help and wellness conversations completely miss: we’re living in a post-modern world with tools designed for a modern one.

This is Part One of a two-part exploration into the post-modern self — the psychological, philosophical, and nervous-system realities of living in a world without a single story, a single identity, or a shared definition of meaning.

This episode isn’t about fixing anything yet.
It’s about naming the terrain.

By understanding the cultural conditions shaping your inner world, you can stop blaming yourself for struggles that actually make perfect sense.

In This Episode, We Explore

• Why many people feel fragmented, dysregulated, and overwhelmed — even when they’re “doing everything right”
• How post-modern life dismantled the idea of a single, stable identity
• Why your nervous system already knows the world has changed, even if your beliefs haven’t caught up
• The difference between modern and post-modern ways of understanding truth, identity, and meaning
• Why inconsistency is not failure — it’s a response to complexity
• How artists, thinkers, and lived experience often sense cultural shifts long before psychology and self-help name them
• Why post-modernism is powerful at diagnosis but incomplete as a way of living
• The hidden cost of trying to navigate a plural, unstable world with outdated internal rules

Key Themes

• Fragmentation vs. failure
• Complexity vs. chaos
• Awareness vs. leadership
• Identity as a system, not a singular self
• Nervous system responses to cultural instability

Who This Episode Is For

This episode is for you if:

• You feel like the old rules for success, discipline, or self-improvement no longer work
• You struggle with motivation, consistency, or direction and blame yourself for it
• You feel pulled in multiple directions and don’t know which version of yourself to listen to
• You sense that something bigger than “bad habits” is shaping your inner life
• You want language for what you’re experiencing — not another plan to fail at

Important Note

This is Part One of a two-part conversation.

This episode focuses on understanding the problem clearly — the cultural, psychological, and philosophical conditions shaping the modern self.

Part Two explores what comes next:

• how to build a center,
• how to lead a self made of many selves,
• and how to live with integrity inside complexity.