The Resignation

The jumping off point for this episode:

Society, at its core, thrives on a delicate balance between conformity and controlled deviation. The deviation is the accepted level of neurosis where society will not call you psychotic. It requires people to give themselves to authority at some level to function—to accept its norms, rules, and boundaries, even as those norms are constantly shifting. Society runs on what could be called the "accepted formulations of psychosis," a shared illusion of order and coherence that allows it to perpetuate itself.

What do the structures of society truly hate? They hate when too many people reach high levels of neurosis—when individuals become unpredictable, chaotic, or ungovernable. These people, through their deviation, challenge the shared psychosis. They become vectors of change, disrupting the carefully curated narratives that keep the majority in line.

Take identity, for example. When society fails to accept our sense of identity, we begin falling into…