2

"So far in this book, I've been telling stories from my adolescence to show how music and science led me to the naturalist perspective that I use to make sense of the world. But in this chapter and the next one, I need to break with that chronology to examine two important subjects. The first is the contribution that powerful childhood experiences make to who we become as adults. The second is the way tragedy shapes and distorts our worldviews. No one can escape these influences on their lives. 

Yet people can interpret them differently, depending on the intellectual framework they use to make sense of the world."