Editor’s note: This is an excerpt of Angela Sun’s larger project, a book titled Limbo: vices and devices.

“Sometimes limbo is a tolerable place to be stuck.”

-William Boyd, Any Human Heart

Each of us reaches a certain point of our lives–a standstill–when the road ahead seems unclear and we are immersed in a fog, unsure of where our lives will take us. For some, it is a brief moment of indecision. Their lives move at a constant pace, tirelessly searching for the next chapter. For others, time in this living limbo spans over many years.

This is not to say that life in this period is motionless. Time goes on and inevitably, so must life. But rather than moving towards a clear destination, life in limbo is directionless and circular. Days go by with no particular change in routine. In this seemingly immotile state of mind and condition of life, it is easy to find transient meaning in mechanisms and routine that provide instant but fleeting gratification.

This book documents the lives of twenty-somethings from both New York and Berkshire County. Despite differences in locale and surrounding environments, each individual resides in a similar state of limbo. This condition appears universal, transcending individual traits, often settling these subjects in a literal haze.

These are their vices.

-Angela Sun, class of 2016