"Those of us who have mapped out the geography of ourselves know what a dispiriting exercise this can be. We start off okay, marching boldly towards the edge of our talent or our goodwill or our patience or our generosity, and then, suddenly, we are brought up short by a precipice, usually at the point where we were just beginning to believe that the firm ground would go on forever. Setting off in a different direction, we find that exactly the same thing happens. In fact, it happens again and again and again, until we start to learn that there is a shape and a limit to what we are. For some this is a welcome piece of learning. "Settle down, get on with it," they would say; but for others, those with the blood of explorers in their veins, it is a kind of prison, a kind of island."

-Escaping the Island by Adrian Plass