Betrayal, control and alienation are exactly what informs Kafka's request. Faith (in his friend, in art) and openness are what inspired his friend not to obey Kafka's wish born out of that alienation and shame.

Bureaucracy never enters into this at all. There is no humiliation, Kafka is considered to be one of the greatest writers ever.

First of all, the request was in a letter. His friend (they were friends for decades) found the letter, it's not like he agreed beforehand. Secondly this friend was a writer himself. No one knows more the embarrassment and shame that can come from looking at one's own art as much as another artist, but this is just inherently the nature of making art, and what are friends for if not to shake us out of that wrong view that we get from our perspective being too close?

Frankly I think you're making lofty claims for their own sake. This is not a matter of "humanity gaining honor", it was a matter of a man believing in his friend's art, and the rest of us benefiting from that "betrayal".

Good Black Mirror premise tho.

Iirc Paul Thomas Anderson has said he's a fan of Michael Bay.

What would human kind have gained from not having read The Metamorphosis or The Trial and so many others?

I saw the system as this external thing that if I could get it just right maybe my life would be solved (exaggerating obviously).

Eventually my focus shifted from the system itself, to my interaction with it. I realized that it wasn't about having a system, it was about removing as much friction as possible.

The first thing I try to remember (and this is really hard, during those times it feels like a blatant lie) is that things change and you get out of the rut.

Accepting the mental storms, knowing they will pass, and having faith that somehow, somewhere in that fog there's something gestating, something moving, that will take shape only after the fog clears, that's helpful.

And when I'm not in that storm, knowing that it will come eventually, and welcoming it instead of constantly wishing it away, I try to prepare the ground for my future depressed-self, to make his life easier.

Comparing end products and foregoing the process itself, people don't know what they're throwing out.

I had a similar click as you describe in starting to gain enjoyment out of handwriting, but for me was simply to get a pen that felt fluid and smooth.