Such an unblinking read. My only fear is that we are more likely to think this is really about someone else, and not keep these insights only reserved as a tool

Such an unblinking read. My only fear is that we are more likely to think this is really about someone else, and not keep these insights only reserved as a tool for introspection. Even if some hard parts take one by surprise or resonate, sure, reflect, and then I think it's impossible to both recognize those parts and then do anything like them again. That's what makes it amazing writing, when you can't unread it. Edit (later): There is something about psychology that pathologizes everything equally. There came a point where I started looking at what he meant by deprivation, and he makes it into a negative-moralization of wanting to be desired. What makes his analysis so compelling is that it logically lands every single time and does it so satisfyingly because it is predicated on a single basic inconsistency, and when your system is inconsistent you can prove anything in it. Taking the basic human want to be desired by others, pathologizing it into a negative extreme, and then producing these parables that reduce to the characters not disproving the pathologized negative definition of their normal desire, is absolutely his hustle. Maybe I should thank him for letting me know that I was the sort of person he thought he could fool! Love the writing, but when the game rails seep through it feels a bit weird. However, if it's true that economics is the dismal science, I have the impression that psychology is the cruel one.