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Competitiveness and Mimetic Traps

Not Overthinking

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Why Do I Keep Up With Physics?

I ended up in physics through stubbornness and an unusual willingness to suffer for the sake of grades. I swapped an absolute goal, which was figuring out how bits of nature work, with a relative one, which was scoring higher on tests than my classmates. When i found myself unhappy, i couldn't leave without feeling like i'd lost something. That social capital sunk. It hurts to leave, and there's nowhere to go. You can spend years ascend ranks in a hierarchy without producing anything that the rest of humanity finds valuable if you value the process itself. Cowardice kept me from acting on this. And after a while, i came to believe i had to succeed in this field that

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