Michael Foley

The philosopher Hannah Arendt has argued that the human condition is a cycle of exhaustion and renewal, so that going up is possible only after going down and attempts to remain permanently up will fail: ‘There is no lasting happiness outside the prescribed cycle of painful exhaustion and pleasurable regeneration, and whatever throws this cycle out of balance – poverty and misery where exhaustion is followed by wretchedness instead of regeneration, or great riches and an entirely effortless life where boredom takes the place of exhaustion . . . ruins the elemental happiness that comes from being alive

Immanuel Kant put it like this: ‘We find that the more a cultivated reason devotes itself to the aim of enjoying life and happiness, the further does man get away from true contentment.’

Rejecting issues, which often feels liberating, is actually enslavement. Those who do not produce their own solution must be using someone else’s.

One of capitalism’s most successful confidence tricks is its promotion of the illusion that anyone can make millions. But there is room at the top for only a few and few have the aptitude to claim a place.

As we live in the age so the age lives in us. And ages are as narcissistic as the people who belong to them: each believes itself to be unassailably superior and demands to be loved more than the others. These demands are usually met. We tend to prize our own age as we prize our native country – it has to be good if it produced us.

And the age’s ideal is the ‘bubbly personality’, its symbol the smiley face and its mantra ‘Have a nice day’. But there is a fundamental axiom: you do not have to pretend to be what you are. So it should come as no surprise that the bubbly, smiley age of nice days is increasingly dosing itself with antidepressants

Everyone is cool now. Even God has been obliged to attend anger management classes for wrath.

Anonymous authority’s most effective trick is making its recommendations self-evident. It is impossible to argue against the self-evident. Only a crank would attempt to do so. This too is self-evident. The way we live now is the natural law.

So, even as I deride television, I am fantasizing about propagating this view on talk shows. And even as I give the impression of being coolly indifferent to the opinion of others, I am coolly calculating the best way to impress. What I want is to be loved for never wanting to be loved.

In fact, the demand for prescriptions is another sign of the times. It is only our own impatient, greedy age that demands to be told how to live in a set of short bullet points.