Wellbeing is a notion that entails our values about the good life, and questions of values are not ultimately scientific questions.

Too often, complaint is not about principled objection on moral grounds, but opportunistic objection on grounds of self-interest. To rectify this, we need to work on mastering the art of complaint.

Wellbeing is a notion that entails our values about the good life, and questions of values are not ultimately scientific questions.

Daily life is better when it involves interactions with real people who have a personal investment in their labour, like shopkeepers, than it is with someone 'just doing my job' or the infernal self-checkout machine.

I think the appropriate kind of skepticism is this: you've got to be asking questions all the time, you've also got to make sure that you're doing so in the spirit of genuinely wanting to find the answers - and that also means being open. I battle with this: I know I tend to be very skeptical and as a result, I veer towards the dismissive. But being aware of the tendency, I like to challenge my own skepticism and make sure it's not just knee-jerk. You need to be skeptical towards yourself as well. When you're only skeptical outwards you've got an unbalanced skepticism.

Being able and willing to complain is what makes us rational and moral animals, capable of seeing and articulating the difference between how things are and how they should be.

The border between the natural and the supernatural, religion and philosophy, may not always be clear. But there are lines and we should know and accept which side of it we are on.