4. COFFEE, BLACK
“In shaping our personalities, which plays the more decisive role: our innate qualities, the ones we were born with (“nature”), or environmental factors, including our experiences (“nurture”)? Nature or Nurture? But supposing there were a third choice? What if the third choice were: Neither!”
— from Coffee, Black, by Brock Jones, PhD
If I say, “Dear Reader, f**k You,” it’s neither an imperative nor an insult. It’s a plea. I’m asking you for what every human being secretly wants: to be loved unconditionally. Behind this desire to be loved unconditionally lies something deeper still: the wish for me to accept my own imperfect self, to embrace my limitations, however severe and disconcerting those limitations may be.
Having applied all the wisdom of my years of teaching —
