In Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Caroll wrote:

It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.

In a roundabout way I think that passage perfectly sums up the state of the web industry for me in 2009 and is a perfect lead-in to mention issue number 284 of A List Apart which features an article on the topic of Burnout by yours truly.

It was a challenging article to write simply because it was so deeply rooted in my own personal experiences and I hope readers take note and are interested in continuing the discussion further because, obvious or not, the web and design industries are intrinsically ripe for extreme cases of burnout.

My thanks to Carolyn Wood, Krista Stevens, Erin Kissane, Zeldman et al.