Researching isn’t just a way of finding facts. It’s a way of finding voice. Of sculpting meaning out of uncertainty. I don’t research to be right. I research to feel closer—to myself, to a question, to an idea that won't let me go.

To research is to follow a scent. Sometimes you know what you’re looking for. Sometimes you don’t. Sometimes it starts with a single word you can’t shake, a quote you read in passing, or a flicker of an idea that has no shape yet, just feeling.

I took some literature notes collecting reasons how and why humans act so very differently when they experience scarcity. This was step one, done with an eye towards the argument of the book. I had questions in mind like: Is this convincing? What methods do they use? Which of the references are familiar? But the first question I asked myself when

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