Tolerance for ambiguity, boredom, and discomfort had atrophied in me. Modern life conditions us to flinch from them: which makes sitting in the ambiguity without reaching for distraction a radical act of reclamation. One Sunday I spent three hours writing by hand about a single question: “What does it mean to think originally?” I got nowhere. Every path ended in a hedge or a cliché. But that was the point. I was learning how to stay with a question even when it refused to yield.