Entry 2: Things That Surprisingly Did Help (Briefly)
“Not healing. Just friction management.”
— marginalia on a form marked VOID
- Closing the door. Not metaphorically. Literally.
- Writing a to-do list that included “burn everything” and then doing one actual task.
- Letting the email rot.
- Dog videos. But only the ones where the dogs ignore everyone.
- Saying “no” out loud while reading the message, then deleting it.
- Switching to cashmere socks during a breakdown.
- Watching someone less competent be wildly praised. A reminder: it’s not personal.
- Drinking tea like it’s a legally binding ritual.
- Remembering that the system doesn’t care—but the chair I’m sitting on might.
- Leaving the WhatsApp group instead of archiving it.
- Reading the biographies of obscure Victorian spinsters who did exactly what they wanted.
- Saying “sounds urgent” and then logging off.
- Making one perfect, unnecessary object and refusing to monetise it.
- Watching a man explain my work to me incorrectly, and realising I no longer needed to correct him. Just walked away. Left him there. Mid-theory.
- Replacing networking with basic metabolic repair.
- Finding one unread book, turning off the lights, and pretending it was 1987.
- Taking the day off and telling no one.
- Deleting all drafts addressed to people who never understood nuance.
- Learning that “thought leadership” mostly meant tall men with ring lights.
- Unsubscribing from someone’s Substack after they used the phrase “my journey.”
End of Entry 2.