Excerpt: ".....something dissolved it. The goalposts shifted. The community fractured or revealed itself as a mirage. The cause you championed turned out to be riddled with contradictions you couldn't unsee. Your own values kept shapeshifting, making it impossible to plant a flag anywhere without feeling like a fraud ...."

Excerpt: "...maintaining faith — in yourself, in the long arc, in the whole point of it all — hasn’t been some simple “try harder” problem. You’ve experienced stretches of real inspiration, heartfelt conviction, proper tenth-house mutable heat, where you could see the line and walk it; then something would come along and pull the scaffolding out from under you. The vision would blur, the industry would reveal its uglier incentives, and your nervous system would start throwing up its hands like, "I’m not putting on this performance anymore."..."

Excerpt: "...how much of what you've been calling "staying informed" is actually a slow-acting poison? The doomscrolling. The compulsive need to metabolise every terrible development as if understanding it somehow constitutes action. .... Has your mind become a skip for the world's junk? And have you convinced yourself that clearing it out would be irresponsible — when really, it might be the only sane thing left to do?..."