The Illusion of Experience
Zhou Sijia
Every so often, a student comes to tell me they’re planning to step away from studying for a while. They want to go out into the world, they say — to gain some real experience. There’s a particular weight to the way they say it, something almost moral in the tone, as if the library has been holding them back from something more honest and more serious. I never argue with them in the moment. But a question has followed me for years, one I’ve turned over more times than I can count: why do we assu