Maybe we should always assume the worst.
With the novels, I usually start from something in my own life that I can't resolve, so I turn it into a metaphor and for months or sometimes years I'll exhaust all of my emotional reaction to this issue by making it enormous on the page.
Everyone smiles with that invisible gun to their head.
He was assaulting the world by assaulting himself.
If you're not drunk and half naked by this point, you're not paying attention.
The laws that keep us safe, these same laws condemn us to boredom.