Francis Foster

I don't want to test myself because then I might feel anxious.

I might feel stressed.

So what I'm going to do, again, using the analogy of a pet, I want to be looked after.

But the reality is that has very real trade-offs, particularly when it comes to kids and families.

If you don't have kids, then what happens is you don't have a legacy.

social connections deep social connections meaning familial connections and uh and there's a price to pay for that and that's something that i don't think we acknowledge in our society by seeking comfort by avoiding what's important by things like career becoming an adult testing yourself

What you are not doing is you are not investing in your future.

But it's trouble that's worthwhile.

And if we don't have kids, as shown in the book, you invite a different sort of trouble.

Yes.

You're never going to escape from trouble.

Life is trouble.

So wouldn't it be better to have trouble that has meaning instead of doing what the characters do in this book and look for meaning in places where there really is no meaning?

And it's one of the fascinating things when you talk about immigration, we talk about different cultures.

And as people, my mother's from a different culture, Constance from Russia, what people in the West don't seem to realize, and we talk about this a lot and we talk about it between ourselves, is they think everyone thinks like them.

The reality is they don't.

People in Afghanistan do not think the same way as people living in a flat in Mayfair.

Completely.

And that's what the characters in the book, they think everybody thinks this, to put it bluntly, they've got every, the whole world thinks in these demented progressive values.

Yeah.