Quotes from Ethan Watters

Because we cannot see the roads we have not taken, we become, by defaults, advocates for the path our life is on.

Because our culture so highly values an illusion of self-control and control of circumstance, we become abject when contemplating mentation that seems more changeable, less restrained and less controllable, more open to outside influence, than we imagine our own to be. — Judi McGruder

Shorter believes that psychosomatic illnesses (such as leg paralysis at the turn of the twentieth century or multiple personality disorder at the turn of the twenty-first) are examples of the unconscious mind attempting to speak in a language of emotional distress that will be understood in its time.

Looking at ourselves through the eyes of those living in places where human tragedy is still embedded in complex religious and cultural narratives, we get a glimpse of our modern selves as a deeply insecure and fearful people. We are investing our great wealth in researching and treating this disorder because we have rather suddenly lost other belief systems that once gave meaning and context to our suffering.

Behind the promotion of Western ideas of mental health and healing lies a variety of cultural assumptions about human nature itself. Westerners share, for instance, beliefs about what type of life event is likely to make one psychologically traumatized, and we agree that venting emotions by talking is more healthy than stoic silence. We are certain that humans are innately fragile and should consider many emotional experiences as illnesses that require professional intervention.

In the cosmology of Western Christians, life's challenges provide opportunities to become stronger and to have a closer relationship with God. The burdens God sends to Christians in the Western world are incitements to self-improvement. The comforts that Amina found in her religious belief, by contrast, were not in an encouragement to overcome or learn from hardships. Rather, simply accepting her burdens was a continuous act of penance.

The human animal is remarkably adept at seeing itself as the hero, no matter what the story.