Destiny and the analytical prism

I keep seeing him on my phone. I don’t even have to look for him; he pops up several times a day. He calls himself Jack—though his actual name doesn’t matter. He gives the impression that he was born with a PhD. He uses the word "prism" so often that I sometimes feel like I’m back in a physics class, specifically the lesson on optics. Clearly, his particular prism isn’t something you can buy on Temu; it’s something you’re born with.
Only the unlucky shop on Temu. Real luck comes from "followers"—that’s the common term, and I’m learning, too!
I’ve never understood how Jack manages to get so many followers. If someone else mentions that autumn mornings are getting colder, it’s just a banal observation—maybe earning a couple of "encouragement" likes from close friends who expect you to return the favor by liking their own posts about cold (or warm) mornings. But when Jack says the exact same thing, it becomes a revelation.
Thousands of users approve, offer congratulations, and share his posts. It’s a whole festival. It doesn’t delight me; it scares me—which, obviously, is a problem. What if there’s something wrong with me?
One morning, I made the mistake of leaving a comment. What a spectacle! I realized immediately that disrupting a ritual is strikingly similar to stirring up a hornet’s nest. The "sting" is verbal—and quite intense.
The real energy doesn’t come from those mechanical, rapid, and only partially correct replies. Instead, a raw nerve is exposed: hands tremble with indignation over the keyboard, letters and insults get jumbled together—in short, it’s an incandescent, bullfight-like frenzy. This is what happens when you can’t find the right words—just like Jack. “A loss for local culture,” the influencer declared the other day, announcing the closure of the Mara cinema in S. due to accumulated debts. “If it was so important to local culture, why didn’t it have any audience?” I might have asked—and once again, I’d have missed the mark. Never mind; you lack the right perspective—just stick to Temu and keep quiet.
Keep quiet, because no matter how hard you try, you’ll remain a nobody. “Who are you, that people should hang on your every word?” someone once asked me. Fair point. I am a nobody. But what about Jack? Who is Jack? That’s a forbidden question. Jack is Jack—end of story. Being naturally curious, I asked, “What made Jack different from the rest of us?” and suddenly found myself in the world of politics—which is no better. I quickly retreated to social media. Online, there’s still a glimmer of hope; in politics, it’s clear that things end badly.
On Facebook, politics goes by the name of “the algorithm.” Ever since I read a bit about the algorithm’s four-step logic, I’ve felt like the Good Soldier Švejk—especially considering that we have no clue how it actually works, which makes us the perfect pawns. Who writes the script? Does it even matter? As long as it isn’t you… Still, it’s some consolation that Jack isn’t the one writing it either. He’s just another toy—albeit with a different barcode. And eventually, every toy grows tired of being a toy—but it has no choice. That’s what you call destiny.