Why achieving your goals can leave you feeling so empty
THE CONVERSATION: When Anne Carson learned she had won the Nobel Prize in literature, she was in Iceland, where, according to the Swedish Academy, she was "listening to the wind". Carson didn't answer her phone right away, silencing it until her husband persuaded her to call back. Her verdict on the academy's choice: "I think you're all insane." Whatever she felt in the moment, there is an irony in Carson's Nobel win. The highest award in literature has gone to a writer who has spent her career exploring the emptiness of a desire fulfilled.