Transcript

It's one of the great paradoxes of mental life, that we are often unable to access our true feelings about important matters. What we really think about, for example, the character of a friend or the next best move we should make in our career, or our stance towards an incident in childhood. All of our conclusions on such critical topics can remain locked inside us, part of us, but inaccessible to ordinary consciousness.

What we operate with instead are surface and misleading pictures of our dispositions and goals. We may settle in haste or fear, on the most obvious answers, our new friend is very kind, we should aim for the most highly paid job. Our childhood was fun. We ignore our deep truths first and foremost, because we aren't trained to solicit them.