I See Happiness As A

Our Lives Are Determined Less By Our Childhood Than By The Traumatic Way We Have Learned To Remember Our Childhoods.

I Just Read About John Le Carre, The Great Spy Novelist. He Had An Absolutely Miserable Childhood. His Mother Deserted Him When He Was Young. His Father Was A Playboy And A Drunk. He Was Shifted Around To Many Different Homes. He Knew He Was A Writer When He Was About Nine, But He Was Dyslexic. So Here Was A Person With An Absolutely Messed-up Childhood And A Symptom That Prevented Him From Doing What He Wanted To Do Most. Yet That Very Symptom Was Part Of The Calling. It Forced Him To Go Deeper.

I'm The Result Of Upbringing, Class, Race, Gender, Social Prejudices, And Economics. So I'm A Victim Again. A Result.

In The Past, Friendship Was A Huge Thing. But It's Hard For Us To Think Of Friendship As A Calling, Because It's Not A Vocation.

Yes, There's Genetics. Yes, There Are Chromosomes. Yes, There's Biology. Yes, There Are Environment, Sociology, Parenting, Economics, Class, And All Of That. But There Is Something Else, As Well.