Life gives us no such handy markers - a storm comes, and far from this being a harbinger of death and collapse, during its course a person discovers love and truth, beauty and happiness, the rain lashing at the windows all the while.

To be shown love is to feel ourselves the object of concern: our presence is noted, our name is registered, our views are listened to, our failings are treated with indulgence and our needs are ministered to. And under such care, we flourish.

One wants never to give up this crystalline perspective. One wants to keep counterpositioning home with what one knows of alternative realities, as they exist in Tunis or Hyderabad. One wants never to forget that nothing here is normal, that the streets are different in Wisebaden, and Louyang, that this is just one of many possible worlds.

Never too late to learn some embarrassingly basic, stupidly obvious things about oneself.

Though it may feel otherwise, enjoying life is no more dangerous than apprehending it with continuous anxiety and gloom.

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

The best cure for one's bad tendencies is to see them in action in another person.