Throughout my career, I have seen this pattern over and over again. I have given hundreds of jobs to people, many of whom have ultimately cracked and crumbled under the pressure of the possibilities. As the great Negro poet Charlie Mack once put it, “Pressure busts pipes, homie.” We all have to contend with the natural processes of destruction. Everything is impermanent—your body’s going to get old; your best friend is going to graduate and move to another city; that tree you used to climb in front of Stacey Brooks’s house is going to crash down in a storm. Your parents are going to die.
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