Without a different kind of “I” there can only be this continuous, automatic, and unconscious succession of states, the sum total of which assumes itself as “I.”

‘He is a collection of tissues and cells delicately and intricately conjoined and brought to life for only an instant. It will take just one sharp collision or a fall to render them inanimate again,’ realises Rabih, the quiet hero of Alain de Botton’s The Course of Love. ‘He is only a visitor who has managed to confuse his self with the world. He h

At first this will seem like greater self-knowledge—that is, a better understanding of who you are. But then it will expand into conscious awareness that transcends your lifetime and what you think of as yourself. The story that

From that time on, the dead have become ever more distinct for me as the voices of the Unanswered, Unresolved, and Unredeemed; for since the questions and demands which my destiny required me to answer did not come to me from the outside, they must have come from the inner world. These conversations with the dead formed a kind of prelude to what I