Alain De Botton
speaker
1,037 appearances
5 recordings
5 series
first heard Jan 2024
last heard 1 Jul
Alain De Botton’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 4 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Really?
Yeah.
Listen, children come into the world, and all of us are honed by nature to figure out, what do I need to do here to survive?
I mean, literally, that's how one should imagine every child.
What do I need to do here to survive?
Not necessarily survive physically, though, of course, yes, physically as well, but psychologically, mentally, what do I need to do?
In some families, you need to excel academically.
In some families, you need to fail academically.
In some families, you need to be very witty.
In some families, you need to be invisible.
Why would you need to fail in some families?
Well, the classic one is parental envy.
I mean, it's an awkward fact, but some parents are hugely envious of their own children, and they cannot bear that their child, who they've put on the earth, should be happier than they've managed to be.
And so therefore, the child has to take early retirement from various things.
And the child ends up thinking, oh, I'm bad at maths or whatever.
Maybe.
Or is there someone who would be rather frightened if you were better at maths?
So families are difficult places and dynamics occur that really go way beyond what we're ordinarily prepared to tolerate.
What does love mean?
If you mean kind of adult romantic relationships, adult romantic relationships are a kind of litmus test of our emotional development.
Showing 861–880 of 1,037 · page 44 of 52
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