The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to. - Alain de Botton

The price we have paid for expecting to be so much more than our ancestors is a perpetual anxiety that we are far from being all we might be.

We don’t exist unless there is someone who can see us existing, what we say has no meaning until someone can understand, while to be surrounded by friends is constantly to have our identity confirmed; their knowledge and care for us have the power to pull us from our numbness.

Blind impatience is equally evident in the fruit section. Our ancestors might have delighted in the occasional handful of berries found on the underside of a bush in late summer, viewing it as a sign of the unexpected munificence of a divine creator, but we became modern when we gave up on awaiting sporadic gifts from above and sought to render any pleasing sensation immediately and repeatedly available.