Finished, May & June

To build up confidence, the young need from an early age to be taught that love is largely a chimera, that workplace success will be elusive, that anxiety is more or less permanent, that the species is wicked and the political process decadent; only against such a pitch-black backdrop will the inevitable frustrations they will encounter seem, not as violations of a contract, but ordinary and, for the most part, masterable hurdles that were waiting for them from the start. 

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Despite so much talk of love, it can be easy to forget what the point of relationships really is.  It isn't, in the end, a matter of sex (however nice that is) or shared intellectual tastes or mutual enthusiasms for sport or travel.  It is, strangely but crucially, about the gifting of confidence.  Love is a privileged arena in which two people can lend one another the confidence to endure the ongoing stresses, regrets, and sorrows of existence.   

School of Life, Confidence