Most of us drink coffee not because we have a finely calibrated understanding of its role in blocking the adenosine that makes us feel tired and increasing the dopamine that makes us feel good. Instead, we drink coffee because we have adopted (in part from the coffee business itself) a way of understanding ourselves and the world that makes it look like a godsend when we have no choice but to keep working—or even the fulfillment, for a moment, of our bottomless desire for more ideas, more talk, more energy, more time, more life.