She wondered when one human being had last given another human being the benefit of the doubt—2005? And why were all the most selfish people on earth pretending to have empathy burnout? And why were so many people boasting that vulnerability was their only accreditation? And why were people still engaging in the taxing promotional duties of selling themselves as happy? The whole discourse now seemed like someone’s overreaction to someone else’s overreaction to a hysterical response to an innocuous comment. She thought: surely the wisdom of crowds would not be a phrase if someone tried to coin
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