we must be a beacon of hope, because if you tell people there's nothing they can do, they will do worse than nothing. - Margaret Atwood

Still, I wanted to believe; indeed I longed to; and, in the end, how much of belief comes from longing?

"The male frog in mating season," said Crake, "makes as much noise as it can. The females are attracted to the male frog with the biggest, deepest voice because it suggests a more powerful frog, one with superior genes. Small male frogs — it's been documented — discover if they position themselves in empty drainpipes, the pipe acts as a voice amplifier and the small frog appears much larger than it really is."
So?"
So that's what art is for the artist, an empty drainpipe. An amplifier. A stab at getting laid."

Nothing changes instantaneously: in a gradually heating bathtub you'd be boiled to death before you knew it.