Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the plowshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring.
— Henri Frédéric Amiel, Journal Intime
The Lady of the House knows a married couple. Each of them has a personal therapist, and then they have a marriage therapist for them both to see together. (I wonder if, when they have kids, each child will have his or her own therapist, as well as a whole-family therapist…) These are what we would call, in the idiotic parlance of our times, “privileged” people. The lack of any obvious problems is apparently itself a problem requiring professional consultation. It reminds me of pets who start chewing holes in the furniture or their own fur just to have something to do with their bored energy. If I may offer a rejoinder to Socrates, perhaps the examined life can be powerless to halt its own momentum. As for John Stuart Mill, how would he know what it’s like to be a satisfied pig?