An untitled post once again befalls me. Where do I see myself in a couple of years? Where work fills my time — and it fills nearly all of it now — I find myself taking an unplanned holiday. The official reason is that I’ve earned it. The real reason is that the work has been taking a mental toll on me, and I needed to step away before I stopp...

Here I am at this page again, and again I can’t make myself stay. The reasons are nothing new. What I keep having to remind myself of is the more embarrassing fact underneath them: that I need something to say before I can say it. On the rare occasion I do turn up with something, a pressure settles over me—quiet, sure of itself, as if the silen...

My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

It was a grey February afternoon, the kind where the light drains out of everything before three o’clock, when I first noticed something was wrong with me. I couldn’t focus. The office smelled of stale coffee and dust, and the air-conditioning was ticking that irregular rhythm it always made when the weather turned damp. I’d been at my desk f...