There are personality traits, or baggage from their backgrounds, goals that they have and the first thing I need to do is understand and then acknowledge and then accept those properties. That's kind of the baseline requirement to have a productive relationship.

My wife, there's certain kinds of housework that she just doesn't see as necessary to do in the way that I do. Things like the state of our closet or where things are in the kitchen. I have this almost unhealthily obsessive desire to have things in their place and she just totally doesn't. And this is a potential point of conflict, of course.

The whole idea of play is in finding, acknowledging, and then working with the natural constraints and limitations that you find in the world.

There are things about us that make us who we are, personality traits, or capacities that we have, or knowledge we possess or that we don't possess, habits we have that are good or bad.

We have to always spread sugar on top of it in order that we can tolerate swallowing the things we're supposed to do, which is an incredibly depressing way of thinking about living your life. Not just that your work or your home life would be so miserable that you have to slather sugar on it, but then the sugar is all you're tasting. If that's the only way that I'm finding meaning, then we have this sort of mental diabetes that we're descending into.

We think we want enjoyment, and that enjoyment is incompatible with work, and somehow we have to import the pleasure into these miserable experiences. That takes for granted that there's not fun or play to be found in the work itself.

This willingness to be frank and plain about the way that the world is, is a good first step. But that doesn't mean that you get what you want.