"It doesn't matter if people are playing jazz or writing poetry — if they want to be successful, they need to learn how to persist and persevere, how… - Jonah Lehrer

We are the poem, his poem says, that emerges from the unity of the body and the mind. That fragile unity — this brief parenthesis of being — is all we have. Celebrate it.

But the physical health of these young monkeys hid a devastating
sickness: they had been wrecked by loneliness. Their short
lives had been defined by total isolation, and they proved incapable
of even the most basic social interactions. They would maniacally
rock back and forth in their metal cages, sucking on
their thumbs until they bled. When they encountered other monkeys,
they would shriek in fear, run to the corners of their cages,
and stare at the floor. If they felt threatened, they would lash out
in vicious acts of violence. Sometimes these violent tendencies
were turned inward. One monkey ripped out its fur in bloody
clumps. Another gnawed off its own hand. Because of their early
deprivation, these babies had to be isolated for the rest of their
lives.

Insights, after all, come from the overlap between seemingly unrelated thoughts. They emerge when concepts are transposed, when the rules of one place are shifted to a new domain.