There was something a little bit sad about body optimization, I thought, after accidentally spending an afternoon on nootropics in the bathroom with my eyelids taped, watching makeup tutorials and attempting to perfect a dramatic cat-eye. The goal was productivity, not pleasure. And to what end—whom did it serve? Perhaps gunning for high output in one’s twenties was a way to compress the peak-of-life productive years, tee up an early retirement with a still-youthful body, but it seemed brazen to play God with time.
