Watching the news in our celebrity-choked culture, it's easy to feel that the grand experiment envisioned by our Founding Alchemists -- turning a fizzy mix of freedom and responsibility into societal gold -- has spun wildly out of control. The promise of unlimited opportunity has given way to rampant narcissism and misplaced perfectionism (and the disappointed self-loathing that inevitably follows the search for a flawless self).