THE MOMENT AFTER THE ALL IS LOST MOMENT What makes us change? I mean really change. In real life. Almost always it’s an intense shock, a blow so emotionally devastating that it wakes us up and makes us see, truly and for the first time, something about ourselves — something cataclysmically self-destructive or self-deluded, something we absolutely cannot live with — that we’ve never seen before. In my case it was the realization that I had utterly failed at the one thing that was most important to me and that the fault was no one’s but my own. In Rosanne Cash’s case it was the idea that despite all her commercial and artistic success, she was still in essence a dilettante in that sphere of her vocation — the writing and the creation — that she respected and valued most and to which she most passionately aspired. Unpublished Black Irish JAB, “The All Is Lost Moment” That moment of excruciating self-confrontation is the All Is Lost Moment. But what happens after the All Is Lost moment? How does the hero “come back”? How exactly does she change?

The voice of conscience makes no mistakes.

It wants, not the fulfillment of the animal self, but its denial or sacrifice.

A Christian who does not know where he goes (John 3:8), or what is given to him by God (John 3:34), does not know his life’s real purpose.

—FYODOR STRAKHOV

As our self-interest diminishes, our anxieties disappear, and then comes quiet and firm joy, which always diffuses us with a good spiritual disposition and a clear conscience.

Every good deed helps to kindle this feeling of joy within us.

The egoist feels lonely, surrounded by threatening and alien events; all his desires are sunk in his own concerns.

A kind person lives in a world of beneficent events, whose goodness matches his own.

—ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

A person who lives only for the concerns of his body may become lost in the labyrinth of an animal and sensual life, while the soul will always find truth; it will find the way.

—LUCY MALORY

The voice of your conscience can always be singled out above the noise of your other wishes, because it always wants something seemingly useless, seemingly senseless, seemingly incomprehensible, but at the same time something actually beautiful and good, which can be achieved only through effort.