In the modern world, the anxious temperament does offer certain benefits: caution, introspection, the capacity to work alone. These can be adaptive qualities.

I'm a freelance writer, and I work alone at a big desk in the living room of my apartment. There are many days when I don't utter a single word to anyone but my husband.

We lack rituals in this modern world.

The human brain has evolved the capacity to impose a narrative, complete with chronology and cause-and-effect logic, on whatever it encounters, no matter how apparently random.

The communist model does not work economically, we all realised that, but the capitalist model in the modern world also looks to be unsustainable.

As the brain matures, one thing that happens is the pruning of the synapses. Synaptic pruning does not occur willy-nilly; it depends largely on how any one brain pathway is used.