The signature behavior of the striver-towards-sanity is ‘clearing the decks’: trying to deal with all the minor tasks tugging at your attention in an effort to arrive at the point when you finally expect to have large stretches of time to focus on what you care about. The trouble with clearing the decks, as we’ve seen, is that the supply of things to fill the decks is to all intents and purposes limitless. So a commitment to clearing the decks leads inexorably to a life spent unendingly clearing the decks.
