Masters also learn never to sulk. Sulking consists of feeling angry about something but determined not to communicate about it. “The sulker,” Alain de Botton writes, “both desperately needs the other person to understand and yet remains utterly committed to doing nothing to help them do so. The very need to explain forms the kernel of the insult: if the partner requires an explanation, he or she is clearly not worthy of one.” The sulker is returning to childhood, and dreams of finding a mother who understands what he wants without words or explanation. Nobody becomes more reasonable when they
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