This is such a wild and kind of heartbreaking psychological loop you see people fall into time and time again: 1. Get legitimately good at some thing. 2. Beco

This is such a wild and kind of heartbreaking psychological loop you see people fall into time and time again: 1. Get legitimately good at some thing. 2. Become known for being better at that thing than others. 3. Have that reputation become a key part of their identity and self esteem. 4. Feel an internal pressure to keep getting even better at that thing to get more of that esteem. 5. Hit a wall where they are unable to honestly progress. 6. When forced to choose between sacrificing a pillar of their identity or their own personal integrity, crumble and start cheating. 7. The cheating buys them some time but the self esteem boost requires not just skill but continual progress. Now that they are already morally compromised, it's easier to continue to cheat. 8. Eventually, in order to appear to keep getting better, the cheating becomes egregiously obvious. 9. Downfall. It's exactly like watching a drug addict build up a tolerance to their chemical of choice.