Silly side note: in my head I keep pronouncing "Maik" as "M'aiq", like the immortal Khajiit deceiver/trickster from The Elder Scrolls

I've mostly been running to just get miles in the past year, and I'm finding it's made increasing my pace easy. I can almost certainly do sub-24, just wasn't planning to break my PR this morning until I started mile 3.

Now onward to Jade City ...

"We are the revolution."

I liked the theme of how authoritarian regimes co-opt academia for their own purposes, and the investigation of the mental gymnastics someone goes through when they have already decided what's true. There's clear connections to the direction of modern American politics.

I'd bet it's similar for people other types of hobbies - it's rewarding to be able to make something with about the same effort that it takes to think it. The challenge becomes the thinking rather than the doing.