We pick up skills in order to use them — and using them is where a sense of purpose comes from. So being unable to is its own kind of suffering. “Having skill and talent you cannot use to the fullest is painful; it’s like a slow death.”

Innocent doesn’t soften it. Potential you can’t spend weakens and depresses you; it drains away the very sense of purpose that keeps a person hopeful enough to face another day.

Which is why he treats it as something to escape, not endure. When circumstances clip your wings, the task is to find your way out to a place where you can use your gifts fully — and spread them and fly.