Whenever I don’t sleep for a few nights (-ish)—usually in the name of productivity, sometimes debauchery—my ego, what there is of it, tends to constrict like the membrane of a snare drum, resonating at the slightest emotional disturbance. Because I know this about myself, I’ve learned to dampen the vibrations of anxiety and self-abnegation, but the beat can be awfully insistent some days. Tap tap tap.
