Every person is a golden link in the chain of my good.
Childhood trauma is not necessarily a prophecy of doom, because some children are resilient or because later experiences help to restore mental health.
There are many kinds of adult adversities that can provoke severe psychological distress, including debt and unemployment, dysfunctional marital relationships and occupational stress. The reality is that the social causes of mental ill-health are all around us.
Since the Second World War, rates of common mental illness (depression and anxiety) have been increasing in the industrialized nations, whereas rates of recovery from severe mental illness have not improved despite the availability of apparently effective therapies such as antipsychotic drugs.
There is almost no evidence that diagnoses such as 'schizophrenia' and 'bipolar disorder' correspond to discrete entities ('natural kinds' in the language of philosophy).
Countries with the best-resourced medical services have the best outcomes for physical illness (it is better to have a heart attack in Washington or London than in rural Africa) whereas precisely the opposite is the case for mental illness (developing nations with limited psychiatric resources have better outcomes and lower suicide rates).
At the population level, making the world more just and less unequal, while trying to figure out the toxic aspects of the urban environmental will probably help prevent a lot of psychosis.
If the javelin had hit me 10cm to the left, it would have punctured my lung, 20cm higher the throat, which would have been the worst-case scenario. Just 1cm higher and it would have hit bone, muscle and tendon and that would have been the end of my sporting career.
Take time to gather up the past so that you will be able to draw from your experience and invest them in the future.
Man is nature's sole mistake.
I hated roses. I hated them for being so trite, so clichéd, a default, all-purpose flower that said I love you, I'm sorry, and get well soon. Give me peonies and tulips, orchids or gardenia. Those were flowers with character.