down-to-earth

Then there are friendships that are really strategic acquaintances, where people take pleasure in each other’s company only in so far as they have hopes of taking advantage of it.

The task of art, as Aristotle saw it, is to make profound truths about life stick in our minds.

We look at the world through the prism of our own narrow interests. Our professional needs colour what we pay attention to and bother with. We treat others and nature as means and not as ends.

provincialism – and then rise above it to a more universal

‘What need is there to weep over parts of life?’ asked Seneca. ‘The whole of it calls for tears.’

In so doing, we’ll make the classic Heideggerian journey away from Uneigentlichkeit to Eigentlichkeit (from Inauthenticity to Authenticity). We will, in essence, start to live for ourselves.

We’re all lustful, mad, erratic, deluded deviants with no earthly chance of happiness

It’s only when we realise that other people cannot save us from das Nichts that we’re likely to stop living for them; to stop worrying so much about what others think, and to cease giving up the lion’s share of our lives and energies to impress people who never really liked us in the first place.