A regime that never lets you win also spares you from ever losing: your unmade masterpiece can't fail, so the dream stays safe. When the barrier falls, the excuse falls with it, and what was hidden behind it, often plain mediocrity, is laid bare.
Once the forbidden work becomes possible, it gets crowded out not by censors but by well-paid side jobs that always seem more urgent. The struggle shifts from fighting an outside ban to choosing between an ideal and the temptations that freedom itself offers.
There is nothing easier than persuading yourself you could really do something if you tried. A long-deferred ambition can survive for decades as a comforting self-image precisely because it is never tested.
The certainty that the old order will end does not free a person to act; it can freeze them in waiting. The future calls into question everything before it, so present choices feel provisional and get postponed.
Those who lack the strength for open resistance or full loyalty take refuge in believing they can stay somewhere in between. Standing safely behind the barrier, filming others being beaten, brings unease but also protection, and the comfort of that position is what keeps it from being seen as a choice.