I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, but heaven knows I’m miserable now!

Dear Wags,

The other day, a stranger tossed off something that clung to the hem of our coat. “Being a victim,” said she, “has a certain attraction that’s difficult to resist.” What a pithy way to sum up the last decade or so of history! We have traded healthy individualism for narcissism, a most unsavory exaltation of the Self. There’s a primal vein of selfishness in all of us, but affluence, technology, and boredom have conspired to make it an irresistible force. We seem willing to trade almost anything — institutions, values, family, community, even sanity— for atomized egoism.

We are beguiled by the Self, to the point of addiction. We have been told to lavish it with care and attention, which will not just fix what’s broken in us, but heal the world. All without ever having to engage with it! Within such a warped frame, it becomes hard to see beyond our navels and discern humanity in anybody else. Self-awareness may be a gangbusters revenue driver, but we’ve collided with its limitations.

We know this because so many of us are miserable. What do we mean when we say someone is too online? That they’ve fallen into a chasm of ego-gratification, confusing a looking glass with reality. The more we retreat into reflective prisms, the more furious we become when tangible life fails to match expectations. Why aren’t our adoring crowds bigger? Why does what we crave elude our clutches? Our Truth, the only truth that matters, becomes a self-pitying moan of not fair, not fair!

Adolescents can get away with this, but America made the moody teenager a global celebrity, stretching egotistical youth out beyond reason. We now try to hide from adulthood forever, reinventing the world as a succession of diverting Neverlands. But we’ve ignored another part of our nature, which hungers for wisdom and connection. It turns out we crave responsibility and belonging as much as diversion. We do not want to become masters of vacuum-sealed imaginariums, but to exist in relationship to others, in a shared universe. We hunger for foundational truth, not simply to incessantly bleat our own. In other words, we want to grow up.

The bitter arguments and petty persecutions of recent years are a sort of self-thrashing, a willful refusal to accept that all of us inevitably bend to the limitations of existence. Tantrums do pass. Adolescents don’t really enjoy endlessly wallowing in misery; they wish to be told to snap out of it by the adults in the room. Only when we do can we see that life is not callow self-delusion, but bursting with more humbling and genuine possibility.

Yours Ever,

Could this madness really be happening? Yes, its August.

Welcome to the Late Summer Dead Zone, a dumping ground for horror pictures (we don’t do drooling aliens, but we did like Josh Hartnett as a serial killer dad). At least the last weekend of the Olympic Games brings us the Breaking* competition. Don’t remind us the ancient Greeks were ignorant of popping and locking—we just watched adults bop one another with kayak paddles! Expect It’s a Small World-level kitsch at the closing ceremonies. Au-revoir, Paris! — Patricia Franchini

*That’s break dancing, Gampy!

Comeback Kid

Mr. Throwback (Peacock). Sorry, NBC Sports, not every athlete gets a redemption story: Winning a silver medal instead of a gold medal is a minor disappointment, not a fall from grace! Smarty David Caspe (Happy Endings) has crafted a genial mockumentary about a bumbling sports memorabilia dealer (Adam Pally) who was once a legendary middle school athlete. Or at least his former classmate Steph Curry thought so. The NBA star decides to make a doc about his pal, with help from his wise-ass manager, played SNL’s Ego Nwodim. It scores. —Shooter Flatch

Fathers & Daughters

Heartbreaker

Daughters (Netflix). Natalie Rae and Angela Patton brought festival audiences to tears with this doc about four little girls trying to establish relationships with their incarcerated fathers at a Daddy Daughter Dance. The event is part of a program within the Washington D.C. Department of Corrections, and the effect on the men involved is deeply moving. Still, it’s the sweet sadness of the kids that steals the show.

Into the Woods!

Good One (theaters). India Donaldson’s feature debut was a hit at Sundance — not least because it showcased Brilliant Lily Collias, whose star-making turn drew comparisons to Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone. She plays a Brooklyn teen who goes on a backpacking trip with her dad (James Le Gros) and his floundering pal (Danny McCarthy). The wilderness journey turns out to be far more than she bargained for. — Bobby Trippe