Imagine a popular (once-popular but still famous, perhaps) family board-game. Let’s say, Monopoly. Pleasant enough entertainment for a rainy afternoon indoors, one might imagine. After all, the opportunity to triumph over one’s fellow contestants must set one’s blood coarsing.

But imagine a game of monopoly where this important, indeed central, element is absent! The game is interminable; with the possibility of triumph removed is devoid of any purpose and pleasure. Now imagine, if you can, not even playing such an accursed game, but being compelled to witness somebody else play this game! And play it badly! Moreover, being compelled for over eight and a half hours a day, five days a week to witness this, imagine still that you are powerless to even comment on the futility and absurdity of it all!

This must be torture indeed!