Sartre famously wrote that “l’enfer, c’est les autres”: hell is other people. But I’d rather suggest that “other people” are both hell and heaven. Strung between community and individ­u­ality, the umbilical cord of identity is a tenuous one.

Boredom is the mind searching for something to do. We experience it as unpleasant, but tedium can help us grow into better, more well-rounded people.

What used to be “enter­tainment” has become background noise. It’s every­where, it’s plentiful, and it’s effortless. Instead of being something to do that adds value to our scarce free time, enter­tainment is becoming a generic mind-filler when we’ve got nothing better to do.

On the whole, doubt often gets a bad rap. We don’t like it; we prefer certainty. But the ways in which we deal with doubt may reveal some insights into what makes us human and how to find your way in a life in which uncer­tainty will always play a part.

Humans are deeply social creatures—we can scarcely imagine a life for ourselves that doesn’t involve being part of a community. But a sense of community membership is much more than an objective assessment of which qualities “we” do or don’t possess.