Getting The Last Word

The quietest addiction in the culture—and how to stop feeding it

Getting the last word is one of the quietest addictions in the culture.

Most people don’t recognize it as ego, because it wears the mask of clarity—of closure—of “just needing to say this one last thing”.

But it’s not clarity.

It’s a nervous system trying to land somewhere safe.

The last word isn’t about truth.

It’s about control of the exit.

Control of the narrative.

Control of how it ends, and who looks clean walking away.

Even when the conversation is dead, people keep talking.

Not because they have more to say.

But because they didn’t feel seen.

And they think more words might fix that.

People spend years rehearsing imaginary arguments.

They explain themselves in journals, in group chats, in emails they’ll never send.

They replay conversations with people who are long gone.

Not to connect.

To dominate something that already ended without resolution.

It’s the illusion that if you could say it better, they’d finally understand.

That the right final line will close the loop, will bring peace.

But peace doesn’t come from the last word.

It comes from not needing one.

When you’ve actually integrated truth, you don’t have to win with it.

You just live it.

And there’s no line—no clever sentence or quote or clapback—that will ever feel better than being regulated and quiet inside your own body.

That’s the actual last word:

Stillness.