Trust

dabbled in hypochondria,

Icy spores of anxiety colonized her mind and reduced it to a wasteland of fear.

Finding bliss becomes one with the fear of losing it.

Knowing that powerlessness has a way of turning into rancor—just as someone who undervalues himself eventually will blame others for his depreciation—she

MOST OF US PREFER to believe we are the active subjects of our victories but only the passive objects of our defeats. We triumph, but it is not really we who fail—we are ruined by forces beyond our control.

was a gross form of self-indulgence, but she also understood that the anguish she felt when confronted by this bleak reality was yet another of her luxuries.

She could feel herself think differently and knew that, in the end, it did not matter whether this feeling was based on reality or fantasies. What mattered was that she was unable to stop thinking about her thoughts.

And for a moment, there was no struggle and all was at rest, because time seemed to have arrived at its destination. Then a nurse with a compress, an orderly with a rake, a doctor with a clipboard, a server with an infusion would set it all in motion again. The itching, the exhaustion, the words, the thoughts behind them, and the noise of her being, so much louder than the world.

And for a moment, there was no struggle and all was at rest, because time seemed to have arrived at its destination.

Some people, under certain circumstances, hide their true emotions under exaggeration and hyperbole, not realizing their amplified caricature reveals the exact measure of the feelings it was meant to conceal.

Denial is always a form of confirmation.

A certain amount of time is allotted to each of us. How much, only God knows. We cannot invest it. We cannot hope for a return of any kind.

A certain amount of time is allotted to each of us. How much, only God knows. We cannot invest it. We cannot hope for a return of any kind. All we can

do is spend it, second by second, decade by decade, until it runs out.

And his second and main discovery was that self-interest, if properly directed, need not be divorced from the common good,

Every life is organized around a small number of events that either propel us or bring us to a grinding halt. We spend the years between these episodes benefiting or suffering from their consequences until the arrival of the next forceful

moment. A man’s worth is established by the number of these defining circumstances he is able to create for himself.

“Fiction harmless? Look at religion. Fiction harmless?

History itself is just a fiction—a fiction with an army. And reality? Reality is a fiction with an unlimited budget.

That’s what it is. And how is reality funded? With yet another fiction: money. Money is at the core of it all. An illusion we’ve all agreed to support. Unanimously.

taking so long.” He turned back to me.

It was, sadly, a determination that was fixed only on itself—determined to be determined. Once he got into that state, I think he viewed any kind of compromise as self-betrayal, as if his whole being could be eroded and wiped away by the admission of a fault.

it was this strange paradox of being in private in public that felt so opulent—a feeling that was one with the illusion of suddenly having become untouchable and invulnerable,

Get enough selfish individuals to converge and act in the same direction, and the result looks very much like a collective will or a common cause. But once this illusory public interest is at work, people forget an all-important distinction: that my needs, desires and cravings may mirror yours does not mean we have a shared goal.