You and I are open: We inhale air, ingest food and drink, expel waste, and radiate heat. Matter and energy flow through us; we remain far from equilibrium. A bumper sticker in my high-school chemistry classroom encapsulated our status: “Old chemists don’t die. They come to equilibrium.”

And when things crash: yes

Self-awareness is hard. Rationality has many techniques for self-understanding and self-improvement. Most of them can be practiced completely alone, but I’m always struck at how much more effective each one is with another person who’s just there to hold space, listen, and watch that you don’t fool yourself. One of the greatest gifts you can get is another mind, equal to yours, who pays attention to you and thinks about your conflicts and desires with you

Understanding of the self only arises in relationship, in watching yourself in relationship to people, ideas, and things; to trees, the earth, and the world around you and within you. Relationship is the mirror in which the self is revealed. Without self-knowledge there is no basis for right thought and action.