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[...] when life starts to feel insubstantial, you may be tempted to abuse substances. Wallace hints at this connection between feeling insubstantial and the abuse of substances by consistently writing "Substance abuse" with a capital "S". He does so because part of what's at stake in substance abus…

[...] the more time you spend stuck in your head, ignoring the world, hungry for transcendence and distraction, the more superficial your life becomes. [...]

The general mood is eschatological. We parade the world's end before our closed eyes.