Humility is the awareness that there’s a lot you don’t know and that a lot of what you think you know is distorted or wrong. - David Brooks

Freedom without structure is its own slavery.

All cultures share certain commonalities, stored in our genetic inheritance. Anthropologists tell us that all cultures distinguish colors. When they do, all cultures begin with words for white and black. If the culture adds a word for a third color, it is always red. All humans, for example, register the same basic facial expressions for fear, disgust, happiness, contempt, anger, sadness, pride, and shame. Children born without sight display emotion on their faces the same way as children born with sight. All humans divide time into past, present, and future. Almost all fear, at least at first, spiders and snakes, creatures that threatened their Stone Age ancestors. All human societies produce art. They all disapprove, at least in theory, of rape and murder. They all dream of harmony and worship God.

Joy tends to involve some transcendence of self. It’s when the skin barrier between you and some other person or entity fades away and you feel fused together. Joy is present when mother and baby are gazing adoringly into each other’s eyes, when a hiker is overwhelmed by beauty in the woods and feels at one with nature, when a gaggle of friends are dancing deliriously in unison. Joy often involves self-forgetting.