I was recently thinking about the state of our culture and its bizarre anger, rules, and judgments and I started to realize that the problem I actually have in social interactions isn't that they aren't successful but that I don't even feel permitted to try.

Part of this is that the need to act is ultimately more fundamental than the need to succeed (prevented from acting is something being wrong with the world while prevented from succeeding is just bog-standard difficulty), but another part of it is realizing that success in some domains sounds like it doesn't lead anywhere good.

Sure, some nice things could come from that but I am well aware that I have drifted so far from what has become a very narrow line of acceptable culture that I feel exhausted just thinking about trying to explain that to someone. Failure would affirm existence and even agency but it would also prevent the tedium found in the later kinds of failure.

Of course, some do point out that I wouldn't have to drive that ship, myself. I am not so sure that the modern expectation aligns with what rational people used to know as true. The world is a far less understanding or nuanced place than it once was.

I have been fading into the shadow for some time now. I just wish the eternal dark would claim me so we could end this tedious game.

...Nights