Much of the really serious trouble in the world gets going with a sense of humiliation.

For paranoia about 'what other people think' : remember that only some hate, a very few love - and almost all just don't care.

That said, deciding to avoid other people does not necessarily equate with having no desire whatsoever for company; it may simply reflect a dissatisfaction with what—or who—is available. Cynics are, in the end, only idealists with awkwardly high standards. In Chamfort's words, 'It is sometimes said of a man who lives alone that he does not like society. This is like saying of a man that he does not like going for walks because he is not fond of walking at night in the forêt de Bondy.

To look at the paper is to raise a seashell to one's ear and to be overwhelmed by the roar of humanity.

Status anxiety definitely exists at a political level. Many Iraqis were annoyed with the US essentially for reasons of status: for not showing them respect, for humiliating them.

Our jobs make relentless calls on a narrow band of our faculties, reducing our chances of achieving rounded personalities and leaving us to suspect (often in the gathering darkness of a Sunday evening) that much of who we are, or could be, has gone unexplored.

So many complaints boil down to the belly ache of the fragile, mortal, ignored ego in a vast and indifferent universe.