Sometimes understanding the ultimate source of your suffering doesn’t, by itself, help very much.
-- Robert Wright (chapter 1)

Importance: Wright expresses frustration at an apparent paradox— one can know exactly what is wrong in a situation without fixing the situation. The suffering persists, while one is learning fundamental lessons about why and how one is suffering. Despite this apparent enlightenment, the suffering does not diminish. This also encapsulates a central message of Buddhist philosophy as well— the point is never just to know. Knowing is not enough, one must experience and feel something in order to truly understand it. Thus, the path to liberation is not through gathering knowledge, but through the practice of meditation.

There’s no point in the course of eating a six-pack of small powdered-sugar doughnuts when you’re believing that you’re the messiah or that foreign agents are conspiring to assassinate you”
-- Robert Wright (chapter 1)

Importance: Though Wright initially refers to the...