The School of Life: An Emotional Education: An Emotional Education

An analogy may prove helpful. If a person’s life is in physical danger as a result of having contracted a major disease, the primary concern in such an emergency situation is not the pursuit of enjoyment but the removal of the danger, the regaining of health, the reestablishing of a context in which the pursuit of enjoyment will again be possible a

We pay a very high price for our self-ignorance. Feelings and desires that haven’t been examined linger and distribute their energy randomly across our lives. Ambition that doesn’t know itself re-emerges as panic; envy transforms itself into bitterness; anger turns into rage; sadness into depression.

The therapeutic benefit is the observation that we are generally very good at loving children. Our ability to continue to keep calm around children is founded on the fact that we take it for granted that they are not able to explain what is really bothering them. We deduce the real cause of their sorrow from amid the external symptoms of rage, beca