The pleasure machine runs at full tilt

The same week, the expanded World Cup opened across three nations, the NBA Finals reached Game 4, and #LoveIslandUSA sat at the top of X with contestant names trending worldwide. *The gap: the entertainment metabolism does not pause for the war or the quake — it runs alongside them, undimmed. This is not callousness. It is the nervous system's refusal to hold catastrophe and ordinary life in the same hand, so it holds them in separate ones, simultaneously.* ---