I used to flood my group chat with stupid memes about nihilism and the call to the void so frequently that my friends banned them. When I kept sending them anyway – Just one more, guys! This one about childhood trauma hard-wiring you for a lifetime of superficial relationships and eating disorders is great! – my friends exited the chat one by one, and then it was just me and a trail of statements that met admission criteria for a month in the CATT ward and jokes that weren’t funny out of context.

It was kind of the global mood at the time. Pre-pandemic, every day began with an ominous fizzle in your subconscious; a Pavlovian response to every news alert on your phone to the tune of, “Oh God, what has you-know-who said or done now?”

And I was in the long grey afternoon and........

© The Sydney Morning Herald