One reason we should stop teaching conflict as the only engine of plot is that it turns every writer into a worst-case scenario machine, with a brain trained to move any scenario toward further complications, reversals, & catastrophes until we become truly unbearable in a crisis.

It’s a chicken and egg variant: “Am I an anxious worrier because I’m a writer, or am I a writer because I’m an anxious worrier?”

Just remembered I wrote a whole writing exercise sort of about this in March, trying to imagine a story that progressed by "kindnesses of a greater quality" instead of "more conflict": https://mattbell.substack.com/p/exercise-2-kindnesses-of-a-greater