This entire process selects for homework-doers, personal entrepreneurs, and individualistic bureaucrats. It's why, like I said, the oracular outsiders, the Pauls of the world, who can't conform to society's expectations to check boxes and become legible to the powers that be, aren't in these programs and aren't getting the opportunities that are downstream of them. It's why you end up with tons of fiction about "my white boyfriend" and "everyone online is mad at me" or "anxious strivers in NYC" or "my annoying polycule." These are the obstacles this class encounters. You can't spend time, like Cormac McCarthy did, living in an unheated cabin in the Smokies, or embedding with the Mujahideen like William T. Vollman, or working as a psychotherapist like Olga Tokarczuk. You must move from strength to strength, always turning in your homework on time, and certainly never suffering a psychotic break.

Cats romp in a cherry tree. Tit, Tiny, and Tittens. 1865.

[Q: Why did you decide to do this experiment?

A: Snake behavior has been generally neglected as a field of research, especially in Brazil. And most studies don’t examine what factors make them want to bite. If you study malaria, you can research the parasite that causes the disease—but if you don’t study the mosquito that carries it, you will never solve the problem. Up until now, the popular wisdom was that the jararaca would only attack if you touched it or stepped on it. But that was not what we found.

Q: Why did you need to be the victim?

A: The best way to do this research is to put snakes and a human together. In this case, the human was me. We put the snakes inside a ring on the floor of our lab until they got used to it, then I stepped in wearing special protective boots. I stepped close to the snake and also lightly on top of it. I didn’t put my whole weight on my foot, so I did not hurt the snakes. I tested 116 animals and stepped 30 times on every animal, totaling 40,480 steps.]