Orin's defection: an empty withered psychic husk, the carrot gone
an empty withered psychic husk, competitively, burned out. Orin had been playing, eating, sleeping, and excreting competitive tennis since his racquet was bigger than he was. He said he realized he had at eighteen become exactly as fine a tennis player as he was ever destined to be. The prospect of further improvement, a crucial carrot that Schtitt and the E.T.A. staff were expert at dangling, had disappeared
Context
The plateau-trap in its purest statement: Orin, who'd been "playing, eating, sleeping, and excreting competitive tennis since his racquet was bigger than he was," burns out the moment he sees the ceiling — "exactly as fine a tennis player as he was ever destined to be." What actually collapses is the mechanism: "the prospect of further improvement, a crucial carrot that Schtitt and the E.T.A. staff were expert at dangling," disappears. The whole regimen runs on the dangled carrot of the next plateau; a body that stops believing in improvement has nothing left to grind for. Burnout is what happens when the carrot vanishes.