Every lit window you pass at night is somebody’s entire world. Yours is just one window, and that’s weirdly freeing.

Everybody is the main character of their own evening, which means you are a passing detail in almost everyone else’s. That sounds bleak for about four seconds and then it turns loose. If nobody is running a full scale study of your outfit or your grades or the thing you said in class, you can stop performing for an audience that is not seated.

Take a walk at dusk when the lights are on and actually look at the windows. Then use it the next time you feel watched. The audience is real, and it is thinking about its own week.