Sighing deeply, John flops backwards onto the sand, hefting his backpack up between his head and the ground. He's quiet for a bit, just mulling things over in his head.

"It seems pretty personal to me," he says, eventually, "or like you think it is safer to build a rude wall than change what you are doing that isn't working at all. You keep making things out to be super, uh, fatalistic but I don't think you're right about any of it. Or at least you're making sure nobody knows enough to know if you're right. Why won't you meet me in the middle here? Why does it have to be all or nothing?"