“The point here is that I think this is one part of what teaching me how to think is really supposed to mean. To be just a little less arrogant. To have just a little critical awareness about myself and my certainties. Because a huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded…The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.
That is real freedom. That is being educated, and understanding how to think…The capital-T Truth is about life before death.
”
“that no matter how smart you thought you were, you are actually way less smart than that…that you will be way less concerned with that other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do…that it takes great personal courage to appear weak…that everybody is identical in their secret unspoken belief that way deep down they are different from everyone else. That this isn’t necessarily perverse…”