The psychic costs of living in a place with gloomy weather or having trite friends is scarring.
Our surroundings have a significant impact on how we think.
That’s not to say if you want to be an entrepreneur you have to move to Silicon Valley or Hollywood if you want to be a star.
Culture is vindictive — being surrounded by lookalikes can make us see the worst in ourselves.
Rather, what we seek is a comfortable tension. The last thing we want to do is swaddle in a world of sameness and regrets like an obliging zombie.
Like the radical pessimist, we face the anxiety of brain betrayal to make change happen. Expecting struggle keeps the world wild and unpredictable after all.
We create an environment to create ourselves. When the milieu grows boring or unchallenging, that’s when we should expect the universe to ping pong us in another direction.