There is something strange about happiness: when life is kind to you repeatedly, some of us start to believe it will remain that way. A good morning, a secure home, a healthy family or a piece of good news can shrink the rest of the world to the boundaries of our own life.
You do not necessarily become cruel or indifferent. You simply stop looking beyond the small circle of things that concern you. The suffering of strangers becomes distant, almost abstract, until life eventually finds a way to make suffering personal; it's not a prediction about our future but an observation by one of Russia’s greatest writers.
