Why do we feel like we are always performing? Where does this impulse come from? As John Starke shows in The Secret Place of Thunder, our modern world has internalized the idea that the markers of having an admirable and successful life are primarily visible. It leads us to believe that a sense of self-worth and identity are metrics to be displayed. The performance of the self has become more important than the reality. We live as if the most important things about us are to be performed before others; that our deepest happiness will come from being who others think we ought to be.