Break the Anne dialogue into one paragraph per line

The exchange was one source line per spoken line, but Markdown joins adjacent
lines into a single paragraph, so twenty-five alternating lines rendered as an
unbroken block. Blank lines between them only; no text changed.

drafts/2026-05-15-sliding-puzzle.md

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+---
+title: Sliding Puzzle
+date: 2026-05-15
+layout: column.njk
+tags: [column, philosophy]
+permalink: /columns/2026/sliding-puzzle/
+---
+
+As far as I can tell, my earliest memory: I was two years old, at my old babysitter's house. I was playing with a sliding puzzle, the kind with a 3x3 grid, one slot is empty, and you have to try getting the numbers back in order. Anyway, the puzzle broke, while I was playing with it. I was sent to the corner for a "time out", and I remember feeling so outraged. It wasn't my fault that the toy had broken. Yet here I was being punished for it.
+
+I don't know how to have fun. I was too sick to play with the other kids.
+
+I see others having fun, and get a gut punch of FOMO that just eats at me for hours.
+
+And the best I can do is to be skeptical, more like judgmental.
+
+I feel trapped in this cycle of work. Just because I'm not throwing myself at my job, doesn't mean I'm not working endlessly. Working on myself, working on my startup, working on my marriage, on my health, on my fitness. I don't know how to have fun. And I feel bitter for it.
+
+And all I've got is the hope, the faith - whatever, that this will eventually pay off. That I will be rewarded in "the ever-after." It's basically religion without the community.
+
+This is what they mean by practice gratitude. Don't succumb to the jealousy.
+
+But can I do that without resorting to judgment, just inflating myself? Can I just do less? Can I simply let it go, not get so caught up in the speculation?
+
+Control: the belief that I have agency, that I can acquire the things I want. So if I see something attractive, and I don't have it, I either blame myself, or try to write the thing off. The belief that it's just about me making the right choices, taking action.
+
+It feels like a con sometimes. The only real gains are what I can enjoy immediately. Everything else is just empty promise, designed to manipulate me. That's the crux of my suspicion. If it doesn't feel good right now, it's just marketing. Just a pitch to get me to dance.
+
+So then I max out the immediate gratification, and predictably suffer in the short to medium or long-term.
+
+The alternative, that feels so much like surrender: I have no control, accept the journey and what life throws at me. Just feels so passive.
+
+Who do you give power to? Any random encounter along the way? You forfeit so much agency to envy. And for what?
+
+And the grief that I have to save myself. That's what it was. There are no retries. I've aged-out.
+
+Gratitude - it wasn't the easy path. What was it then? What did I gain from my fierce independence?
+
+This is enough, but I'm still craving more. Feeling trapped, sometimes, not always. Normal aches and pains.
+
+And all this is the fear that in the end, I won't make peace with my mortality.
+
+I don't think anyone does. It's against our nature.
+
+We fight and struggle, it's hideous. And unavoidable.
+
+Is it? How do we face it with dignity?
+
+Live a dignified life?
+
+What would it look like to sacrifice some independence?
+
+How can I face mortality with absolute thinking? If I claim to be skeptical, to doubt? Upon what unshakable foundation do my convictions lie? I know nothing, and can expect nothing, and can only be present for whatever manifests in the immediate here and now.
+
+Fuck, what happens when literature becomes obsolete? When the best ideas, the sharpest insights come from the bloody machine?
+
+Why bother reading the old authors, or anything man-made?
+
+Learn to ask better questions, I suppose. At least command some order in your reading list.
+
+Heaven is a lot of waiting in line.

drafts/2026-05-16-world-we-made.md

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+---
+title: The World We Made
+date: 2026-05-16
+layout: column.njk
+tags: [column, society]
+permalink: /columns/2026/world-we-made/
+---
+
+You know what sucks? Trying to prepare a kid for the world you expect to exist, rather than the world you're actively building. The future isn't some ambiguous realm of possibility. It's the reality we create.
+
+So it's quaint and perky to prescribe a world view. But the world is not what we hope it to be - what it had been for us - what we expect it to be for our kids, but what we made it.
+
+So fuck tradition. The shackles of outmoded propriety. Get him ready for the world we made for him.
+
+Right and Wrong? Leave it to the judges of today to decide, and those of tomorrow to debate. There is no absolute, only the ever evolving effort toward justice. Bla bla bla.
+
+The virtuous don't kick around. They don't insist upon legacy or memory. Every great king who pretended to virtue and ethics eventually succumbs to the great indifference.

drafts/2026-05-17-character-creation.md

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+---
+title: Character Creation
+date: 2026-05-17
+layout: column.njk
+tags: [column, society]
+permalink: /columns/2026/character-creation/
+---
+
+Something something identity politics... something something D&D character creation

drafts/2026-05-21-manufactured-value.md

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+---
+title: Manufactured Value
+date: 2026-05-21
+layout: column.njk
+tags: [column, society]
+permalink: /columns/2026/manufactured-value/
+---
+
+This feels more like the same cautionary tale that I keep thinking: besides the fact that I've never heard of this company, or any of these engineers, it's that despite (probably) being capable at their jobs, their work was lost to obscurity, and not for lack of talent, but due to political pressures.
+
+So anyone bitter that their talents aren't recognized, or seen by the world, unable to placate their egos, you invested too much on the wrong skills. You tinkered, you entertained yourself. You neglected the people. You see them as adversarial, failures for not recognizing your amazing talent. But at the end of the day, they had the influence to scuttle your work, so... are you just jerking yourself off, or are you actually building something valuable? Is something valued purely for its technical merit, or does it have to be bought (or sold) first? What's the intrinsic value of something that no one buys? 
+
+Value has to be manufactured. If we're just talking dollars, it's more impactful than the thing itself: marketing the thing, getting a buyer to agree to the terms and pay.
+
+To be fair, a sales pitch might get your foot in the door, but securing the value (claimed) has to be supported by some of the intrinsic value of the thing itself. If the value was over-hyped, the thing will inevitably fall short and fail to deliver.
+
+Try to make the other guys on your team look bad - what could go wrong? These guys have way too much to prove.

drafts/2026-05-25-pulled-to-pitch.md

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+---
+title: Pulled to Pitch
+date: 2026-05-25
+layout: column.njk
+tags: [column, philosophy]
+permalink: /columns/2026/pulled-to-pitch/
+---
+
+Agents feel like RCEs as a service
+
+The guitar string pulled taught, summons a specific tune named and identified. We are not unlike the strings pulled into alignment with some timeless name. Our individuality is onyl the temporary distinctness of the tune that our multitude of strings play out, pulled to their particular pitch.
+
+Murdering the other can be celebrated.
+
+What do I think about the death penalty? It's not an absolute right or wrong. It boils down to your allegiances - If your actions align with the prevailing force, you'll probably live, even if those actions would be punishable by death from the other perspective. Killing the enemy - war and such. So what's the universal moral code? Is there such a thing? If it all boils down to agreeability with your neighbors... can anything be said to be absolutely right or wrong? Doesn't seem likely. Doesn't seem possible.

drafts/2026-06-01-dead-weight.md

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+---
+title: Dead Weight
+date: 2026-06-01
+layout: column.njk
+tags: [column, philosophy]
+permalink: /columns/2026/dead-weight/
+---
+
+To be born into the world in such a cold, plodding process.
+
+We've risen above slaves, and are in awe of ourselves, our presumptions of merit and insight, that not despite, but because we rolled in shit for so long we're endowed with a greater gift than those who have carefully guarded their treasures for so long.
+
+Do the great masses have god-given rights?
+
+Am I so desperately trying to convince myself that I'm no longer one of those rolling in mud and filth?
+
+Oh how badly I want to feel safe - like I escaped the misfortune. That I am now one of the blessed few.
+
+But then to witness the silver spoon society, untarnished and unblemished, high and mighty tromping about the world and I feel small. I feel desperate again.
+
+Where is my advantage? Wanting to get further ahead. Like so many others.
+
+When there will be a faster, smarter, smoother other, how do we go on? It's one thing to believe in change - but I will not escape myself.
+
+The ruminating, preoccupied masses, so overcome with their own feeling. And am I one (pretensious asshole)?
+
+This is the work - I am smothered and overcome with my own self-doubts. I do not afford myself the judgment, I deny myself the perception.
+
+Other people suck.
+
+Sitting idly and complacent. Indifferent and passive. No wonder I don't want to connect or try - they're so damned dull.
+
+Is that true though? or am I just making excuses?
+
+I'm trying to say that I don't feel like I belong among the vibrant ones. But that I find the dull ones intolerable.
+
+Am I worthy? What have I to show?
+
+I judge myself. Incompetent, inadequate. Irrelevant. Unnecessary. And am I wrong?
+
+If I threw myself off a bridge tomorrow, the handful of people who might care would also soon forget and move on, or themselves be erased into obscurity after some time had passed. The rest of the world wouldn't even know.
+
+Do we over-value life, simply because we're too afraid to face death?
+
+Do we over-value ourselves? The best kind of dead weight sees itself and cleans up after itself. The worst kind just kicks around like trash in the breeze.
+
+I am unnecessary. I am replaceable. The pain is ephemeral, and so local that it will evaporate instantly.
+
+I guess I don't have anything positive to say.
+
+I want to destroy myself - the only shot I have at living. As if the thing getting in my way is too much dead weight I just want to dynamite.
+
+I don't know - I'm uncomfortable with myself. I'm disappointed, and so stuck in my own discomfort that I can't see beyond it. And the best I can do is imagine upending my entire life because that is the only way I see around the pain.
+
+And why? What right do I have to feel so hurt.
+
+For every president, history is littered with a thousand corpses of also-rans.
+
+I don't take what I went through seriously. As if it wasn't supposed to be a burdeon. But I felt like a failure to launch. Imagine if I had stayed home this whole time.
+
+I can't enjoy the wild discoveries of other people. Because it makes me feel like I fell short. Didn't measure up.
+
+It hurts to see how much further ahead other people get. And to put so much meaning in being stuck in the middle of the pack.
+
+Like I need to know my place and get comfortable.
+
+And the only reason I'm able to make any progress is because of the work of others. But I'll never catch up to those who are so much further ahead.
+
+Fuck everything about this.
+
+Fuck everything about being trapped by childish dreams and wants and desires.
+
+Fuck everything about the melodrama, the self-pity.
+
+At the end of the day, I choose to make peace with myself, or to revolt. What's needed for peace? What are my demands? It just sounds like I'm angry for being myself.
+
+I'm angry for being myself. And don't see the value in my life.
+
+I'm busy looking for parents - people who can pick me up.
+
+I don't know how to look for teammates, partners, people we work together with.
+
+I'm I'm I'm I'm so fucking sick of myself and my myopic attitude, and my 

drafts/2026-06-05-chemistry.md

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+---
+title: Chemistry
+date: 2026-06-05
+layout: column.njk
+tags: [column, writing]
+permalink: /columns/2026/chemistry/
+---
+
+My writing turns to shit when I'm depressed. Drugs definitely help.

drafts/2026-06-15-nebulous-other.md

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+---
+title: The Nebulous Other
+date: 2026-06-15
+layout: column.njk
+tags: [column, society]
+permalink: /columns/2026/nebulous-other/
+---
+
+But who is this nebulous 'other' who failed us? We keep pushing responsibility off onto some other - a decaying society, offensive neighbors, negligent parents. When do we actually hold ourselves accountable for the outcomes in our lives? Or do we just inflict another pain - of being wronged - upon ourselves to distract (for a moment) the pain of our disappointment?