Being content is perhaps no less easy than playing the violin well: and requires no less practice.

Pegging your contentment to the overall state of the world rather than of your own life: the basis of morality, or a sort of madness?

I was foreign and Jewish, with a funny name, and was very small and hated sport, a real problem at an English prep school. So the way to get round it was to become the school joker, which I did quite effectively - I was always fooling around to make the people who would otherwise dump me in the loo laugh.

At 'The School of Life', we take seriously anything that has to do with human fulfilment - and take note wherever insight on this subject can be found.

A city like London is sociable in a sense that there are people gathering in bars and restaurants, concerts and lectures. Yet you can partake of all these experiences and never say hello to anyone new. And one of the things that all religions do is take groups of strangers into a space and say it is OK to talk to each other.

As for despair, it comes about when I have been a fool and hate myself and despair of my personality. I am prone to gloom, but not depression as such.