He would often find himself at the collapsing edge of futile strivings as if coming awake for a moment in the dream of his life. That thing, now identified as a contemptible knot of self-occlusion, had moments before been his adventure, his discovering of larger scope. He'd been laboriously pulling himself up on what had started out as a happy meandering in the foothills of spirit. And when a fork in the path appeared he'd unhesitatingly chosen the upward way welcoming the striving and self-discipline that would be needed to persist on it. As the mere inclination faded the will took its place, justifying itself by a sort of faith or by the confidence in a gamble that further openings must arise. When these failed to come the will to persist grew even stronger, riding on the fallacy of sunk costs, and took on a self-punishing edge. But such a harshness eventually becomes indistinguishable from self-contempt and causes the entire project to collapse. There is no rapid descent, simply a discovery that here he was again, in that sweet foul place where all the ladders start. He would have loved to stay forever, make it his home, refuse all invitations, but he knew that the seeds of familiar desires were already stirring freshly in the junk.