Sublime

At the heart of our under-confidence is a skewed picture of how dignified a normal person can be. We imagine that it might be possible to place ourselves permanently beyond mockery. We trust that it is an option to lead a good life without regularly making a wholehearted idiot of ourselves.

You can see the same in TED Talks by Elizabeth Gilbert (‘Your Elusive Creative Genius’), Brené Brown (‘The Power of Vulnerability’) and Susan Cain (‘The Power of Introverts’). These speakers are not trying to blow you away,

what is distinctive is just how selective we are about the topics we deem it possible to educate ourselves in. Our energies are overwhelmingly directed towards material, scientific and technical subjects – and away from psychological and emotional ones. Much anxiety surrounds the question of how good the next generation will be at maths; very littl

At the best moments of childhood (if things went reasonably well) loving parents offered us extraordinary satisfaction. They knew when we were hungry or tired, even though we couldn’t explain. We did not need to strive. They made us feel completely safe. We were held peacefully. We were entertained and indulged. And even if we don’t recall the expl

Life, properly felt, is an infinitely alarming process even in its apparently calmer stretches.

the taste of an era or a society reveals what people want more of but don’t actually feel they securely possess.

When we spot apparent perfection, we tend to blame our spectacular bad luck for the mediocrity of our lives, without realizing that we are mistaking an asymmetry of knowledge for an asymmetry of quality: we are failing to see that our partner, home and job are not especially awful, but rather that we know them especially well.

If part of the reason we don’t look more regularly into ourselves is our shame and fear at the unusual nature of what we may find there, then a crucial collective resource in the path to self-knowledge is a redrawn sense of what is normal. Our picture of acceptability is – very often – way out of line with what is actually true and widespread. Many

The most profound thoughts we need to grapple with also have the most potential to disturb.