Since we all breathe, all the time, it is amazing what happens when someone else directs you how and when to breathe. And how vividly someone with no… - David Foster Wallace

That sometimes human beings have to just sit in one place and, like, hurt. That you will become way less concerned with what other people think of you when you realize how seldom they do. That there is such a thing as raw, unalloyed, agendaless kindness. That it is possible to fall asleep during an anxiety attack. That concentrating on anything is very hard work.

"Can you "choose" something when you are forcefully and enthusiastically immersed in it at an age when the resources and information necessary for choosing are not yet yours?"

The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.