# On Story Addiction, and the Escape It Offers

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/yesterday-i-went-to-mars-7106663/on-story-addiction-and-the-escape-it-offers
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/yesterday-i-went-to-mars-7106663/on-story-addiction-and-the-escape-it-offers.md
Podcast: [*“Yesterday, I Went to Mars ♡”*](https://stenobird.com/podcast/yesterday-i-went-to-mars-7106663)
Published: 2026-05-22T23:36:00+00:00
Episode link: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/makotowillolympusmons/episodes/On-Story-Addiction--and-the-Escape-It-Offers-e3jt0bt
Audio file: https://anchor.fm/s/fcce555c/podcast/play/120536893/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2026-4-25%2Ffd888998-92a6-03ea-15bb-afde5db0b770.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/yesterday-i-went-to-mars-7106663/episodes/on-story-addiction-and-the-escape-it-offers
Duration seconds: 192

## Resource

This episode looks at the experience of losing track of time inside a book — that sudden awareness that two hours have passed — and what that feeling might actually be doing for us. It touches on the tension between keeping a wide view of life and the quiet cost of that wideness. Work, family, the direction of a business, old age, the planet — when all of it stays visible at once, it wears on a person. There's a small detail from running an eyeglass shop: during the busy stretches, when new store openings pile up and schedules fall apart, the habit is still thirty minutes of reading before bed. Not planning the next day. Just stepping into a story and letting the view narrow — and finding that by morning, a problem that felt unsolvable looks, for some reason, a little smaller. The episode also gently reframes the word "addiction" — not as something shameful, but as a sign that human beings may simply not be built for constant, wide-open awareness. Someone absorbed in love, or in work, or in a story is narrowing their view in ways that look foolish or unproductive from the outside, but are producing something inside. A quiet reflection on why everyone needs something at hand that can absorb them — and on the idea that seventy percent reality, thirty percent something absorbing, might be just about the right balance for a life.

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/yesterday-i-went-to-mars-7106663/episodes/on-story-addiction-and-the-escape-it-offers/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/yesterday-i-went-to-mars-7106663/on-story-addiction-and-the-escape-it-offers.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.