I'd been horrifyingly reminded ... of how difficult it is to learn, if you're in a comfortable position, what went into the construction of that position. If you're reasonably privileged, reasonably comfortable, you can never fully understand or accept it, that your particular experience is neither inevitable nor dominant in the world.

Poor fools,
To wager a hundred sequins on a woman!
"He who builds his hopes
On a woman's heart
Ploughs the sea
And sows on sand
And hopes to snare
The wild wind in a net."