You finish reading the entire post through the same bleak fog that attends your actual work. Like a flagellant after a holy cleansing, you are filled with a sense of morbid accomplishment and false pride. Later, you will misquote this text, fudge a few of its statistics and then pass off several approximations of the author’s ideas as your own.

The End.

Miles Klee knows how it is.

You throw yourself back into a project with a willed vigor that seeps across the rest of the week, and beyond into the months and years. You surf the web now and then, but only during lunch, which you take at your desk. Your work ethic eventually yields a modest promotion. At the age of 51, while playing racquetball, you die of a heart attack.

The End.

Miles Klee is sorry he had to tell you this.

Okay. Well. The content is certainly not as insane as the link/title made it sound. In fact, it seems the author exaggerated and distorted and dressed up what he was actually talking about just to drive traffic. The topic is a little… boring, really. Kind of a hobbyhorse for this blogger. Definitely an important issue these days, something that doesn’t get enough attention, but… not something you want to read a whole-jeez this is long! And there are numbers in it. And it’s depressing to think about.

Do you: give up and massage your pleasure centers?

Or do you slog miserably on?

That’s that. There’s no refuting an argument this exhaustive and passionate. You were wrong and, in time, you will grow to accept your mistake. But what’s this? The author concludes the post by linking to a related piece by a peer. Apparently she writes about these issues more eloquently, fiercely and persuasively than this author feels he ever could.

Do you: click the link and start reading something that will undermine your convictions even further

Or do you: break the cycle of self-loathing and get back to work?

Or, feeling neither productive nor relaxed, maybe you spend the afternoon “updating” your résumé?

This should shut him up, you think to yourself as you copy-paste an umlaut from Wikipedia onto the word “naïve.” And you were right. The guy never wrote anything on the Internet again.

The End…. OR IS IT?

It’s like Miles Klee is inside your cubicle, right?

Who are you kidding? You can’t resist bait this tempting. You need to know at least enough to pretend you know what this is all about. You admit to yourself that the author, not unlike a poisonous spider, has ensnared a victim that struggles in vain.

Do you… give the blog post a grudging, disdainful skim?

Or…

Perhaps you begin reading the blog post in good faith.

You take in the first few sentences and realize the author is making a counterintuitive argument that clashes with one of your long-held but not-that-vivid beliefs. What’s more, it’s fairly convincing, or at least worth pondering. Through data and prose, you are being forced to take stock of your own mindset, and the opinions therein lack basis and form. Your guilt mingles with your confusion, becoming rage. Just as the post is about to launch into a damning series of graphs, however, a pop-up ad featuring a beautiful half-nude couple on a tropical beach blocks that very section of the web page.

Do you: click out of the pop-up ad so you can go on reading and possibly change your mind about something?

Or:

Do you let the pop-up ad linger so you can get a good look?

Well, it’s just as you suspected. The author, while perhaps informed or diligent, is advancing an argument so wrongheaded as to be a sign of general bad health. The examples have already been countered somewhere, surely, and no amount of levelheaded inquiry will make up for that one typo. In fact, once you encounter the typo-which, unfortunately, is one of those typos that makes the author look uneducated rather than a clumsy typist-the rest of the post is an extremely forgettable blur of percentages. Relieved that the author has failed to shake your core assumptions, you are free to go on living.

Do you: respond devastatingly on Twitter or your personal blog?

Or do you revel in the status quo, leave work early and go to a bar?