You know that feeling when you just… feel like a complete and utter hypocrite? Like, every single day, every single day, you’re out there advocating for something you genuinely believe in, something you POUR your creative energy into, only to then completely undermine it in your actual life? I don't know if this even counts as a confession, maybe it's just… a venting session. But it just eats at me. I work so hard, so incredibly hard, to support local businesses, to promote artists, to champion the idea of community and keeping money circulating within our city. It’s what I went to school for, it’s what I dream about when I’m actually awake enough to dream. And then I get home. And the day has just *taken* so much out of me. You’re just… empty. Drained. All that passion, all that fire you had for your cause, it just fizzles out by 6 pm. And so, what do you do? What do *I* do? I open that horrible, terrible, soulless app, the one I rail against constantly. And I buy everything. Everything from dish soap to cat food to new lightbulbs for my studio, because it's just *there*. And it's just *easy*. And then the box arrives, and it’s the next day, and I’m back out there, trying to convince people to support the small pottery shop down the street or the indie bookstore, and I just feel this immense, crushing weight of phoniness. Like, I'm a fraud. A complete fraud. I know it’s just… exhaustion. I know it's not some grand moral failing, not really, but it *feels* like one. It feels like I'm betraying everything I believe in, every single day. And I’m so angry at myself for it. So, so angry. And at the same time, I'm just so tired. So tired.