Evan

“If you want to know why you are unhappy, look to the world around you, and if you want to change how you feel, look to see if the world can be changed. As an individual, this is just about all you can do.”
― David Smail, How to Survive without Psychotherapy

“Science is thus not the creation of some kind of mysterious contact with or insight into ultimate reality, but the upshot of our own very human, and even culturally local, interests, concerns, and values. I suspect, also, that we are ready to give particular weight and credence to the 'evidence of our senses' because it is not in our interests to deceive ourselves about its nature (although it is certainly possible to do so).”
― David Smail, Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety

“Even for physical science, the ultimate test of whether or not something is true lies in the individual's experience, not in some objectified, dogmatic set of rules. The sensory experiences which are predictable from natural scientific 'laws' permit agreement between individuals because those individuals share very similar physical structures, are persuaded by the same kinds of logical reasoning, and operate with a similar set of values.”
― David Smail, Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety

“Nowhere is the necessity for courage and good faith more evident than in the search to establish the truth about relations between people, for in this process lies the threat of annihilation. As A struggles with B to lay bare the meaning of their conduct towards each other, bravely trying to stay clear of the slide into self-deception, to confess and accept his fear and vulnerability, to acknowledge his defensive strategies, his meannesses and malignancies and desperate cravings, so B can with a single act of bad faith betray the reciprocity of this process, perhaps by 'closing down' A with some sort of objectifying label which sends him spinning like a deflating balloon into the distant, icy, sterile reaches of isolation.”
― David Smail, Illusion and Reality: The Meaning of Anxiety