“When did you realize you should stop playing? There was no one moment. Moments of realization are generally seductive lies concocted by unscrupulous memoirists. Typically, the process of epiphany is not instant—your mind doesn’t just crack open. You usually realize something long after you’ve suspected that it might be true, after it’s been lurking there for a long time, in the form of an uncomfortable thought that might have been droning in the background for weeks or years, like the purr of a detuned oboe. What we call “realization” is often the death of a self-serving rationale after it’s been strangled by reality for a long time.”