In a concerted bid never to look foolish, we don’t venture very far from our lair; and thereby—from time to time, at least—miss out on the best opportunities of our lives. At the heart of our underconfidence is a skewed picture of how dignified a normal person can be. We imagine that it might be possible to place ourselves permanently beyond mockery. We trust that it is an option to lead a good life without regularly making a wholehearted idiot of ourselves.
