The sun beats down upon the ground and every step in the thick air feels forced. These days there are many musings. Sometimes a stray cloud looks out of place against a steeled blue.

Was thinking of that warmth she had, displayed in otherwise routine moments. How she brightened when others talked, encouraging them to say more and be received. How she talked to me like I wasn’t a stranger. Suffice to say I wasn’t mature enough to see what was in front of me.

There are a few others like her I’ve known. One was gone before I could even blink, another is in a delicate situation, yet another has obligations which take precedence over any time I could spend with her. I’ve been beating myself up recently over not appreciating her enough when I was younger. Wondering if I’m doing enough for them, for others.

I somehow suspect I’m not doing enough to keep up with everyone, that I’m taking a certain kind of loveliness for granted. What made her stand out, I believe now, was how the world seemed familial to her. Not a possession, not a place she had to prove herself, but an opportunity to show appreciation to others for simply being there.

Again, that’s just an impression. I’m purposely waxing romantic to understand why I’ve been feeling guilty the last week or so. Independent of any exaggeration on my part – I will say that if you meet the people I’m describing, you’ll be as impressed if not more so – I think the reason for the guilt is the following. Not that I’m not paying attention to those who have her gift, as I certainly have been. More that the world seems so selfish, that there is pressure to be ever more selfish, and it is just incredible to see some who look like they’re focused on another good entirely.

Dear Madeline:

It is easy to say there are those who only want to be loved and have an imprudent and insatiable appetite. I remember one time in classical literature one of the worst tyrants working to establish his glory to be that much more attractive to a beloved.

There’s a pain from not being wanted we may be sorely tempted to dismiss as failure to feed our ego. We want to get rid of this pain by saying it drives those who cannot live without being showered with love and attention. We’re not them; our culture’s emphasis on popularity has only made us think we should be like them; stop wanting to belong and we’ll find our happiness.

Yeah, right.

I don’t think the solution is as simple as love versus pride, or even love versus pride with both being problematic. There is no ideal way to feel rejected. Recently I was treated like dirt by 4 women. I wasn’t remotely interested in any of them, but they seemed to think I was growing a second head or something. Each of them was going through a tough time; that they treated me badly was understandable, if not excusable. And yet I couldn’t shake the sting.

It took me a little while to remember that 1) I know how to deal with people and 2) I know what I want out of life. It took me a little while to remember that only part of being better at being social is having a thicker skin (i.e. dealing with the million and one trolls I’ve dealt with online). The other part is developing a sensitivity to others. That sensitivity won’t engage if the other people reject me right off the bat. But the 4 women with whom I had dealt knew quite a bit about me. The very skill of working with others better contains the trap that one has to get hurt in certain situations. One has to establish something at stake, be vulnerable in some way, in order to get something more out of social interactions.

It is true that some in love will obsess incessantly about persuading someone to love them. They’ll think that because they’re hanging on every detail, creating a vision of a couple, their beloved will see a detail, then their vision or construct, their something at stake, their vulnerability, and love accordingly. That peculiar kind of insanity, where one in thinking the beloved will see as one sees is actually making the beloved another version of himself, is not particular to romantic love. There’s a part of it that’s necessary for friendship. You have to hope someone wants to see as you see, at least for a moment.

From my experience, people nowadays are terrible at making friends. I have story after story where the ability to tell the difference between “people I hang out with” and “people I trust and admire” is nonexistent. What you’re hoping for, in love and friendship, is a little bit of imitation. Not just of you, but what you stand for, what you think is lovely or best. Our emphasis on survival, getting by or getting stuff annihilates the possibility of taking that risk.

So kudos to you, Madeline. You do take that sort of risk. You definitely do stand for something. A ton of people want to befriend you, but even better is how many compliments you give out, how many people you’re excited to meet. As long as you’re excited about others, you’ll be a bit vulnerable, but it is a weakness from a strength. I daresay it is a blessed thing, divine not only in the goods you receive that complement your character. The greatest curses seem to arise when we won’t see what’s right in front of us, when what we’ve taken for granted is gone.

AK

Still thinking about the flight back. For all the complaining I do about my school, the fact remains it has people patient with things like “books” and “hypotheses” and willing to identify problems worth thinking through. Re: that last part – you don’t identify problems by going “hey, I encountered this recently.” Usually, in my case, I’m gossiping about someone and then wondering why I was interested in saying what I said in the first place.

On the plane back, a young male professional who worked for a charity hit on a young female professional who worked in auctions (designer luxury goods). They talked and really did hit it off; for a time it was fun and really interesting to listen to them. This wasn’t eavesdropping. They were plenty loud and right next to me. Turned out the gentleman had done work in former Yugoslavia and his talk raised questions about Serbian and Croatian identity and how conflict arose. I found myself wondering whether certain groups identify themselves as being the backbone of a greater order and whether resentment is bred when other groups challenge that claim for more everyday reasons. I thought about the concept of “empire” hiding in the “tribe.”

Of course his talk didn’t focus on that. It was about places he’d been, why he was involved in charity. He admitted he was going to concerts nearly every night and hanging out in bars routinely. (At one point, he basically said the people at his regular place were his family.) He had no savings. I was shocked by how someone who seemed very dedicated to his work was pretty much throwing away every other moment of his life.

She was enthralled with hearing this for some reason. She was a terrific conversationalist – she was patient letting him talk and asked him questions about what he related to, what growing up was like, etc. At the same time, you couldn’t help but feel there was something coarsely materialistic and shallow about it all. They ended up talking about bars (this happened a lot), listing the places they’d been (this was the worst part of overhearing them. They listed places they’d basically stopped in almost as if to say “I’m a world traveler”), and ranting about work. They never mentioned a book, a film, a world event, a piece of music that moved them in such a way it was worth sharing with others; rather, they sounded like an admissions brochure for a college (“I felt my future was at stake, so I enrolled in PS 110″). He talked about how he was into the drums and she questioned him quite a bit about it. Not once did they share what their tastes in music are to each other.

I get the distinct feeling, given their virtues and ambition, I’ve run into two who are going to shape the future in decisive ways. He may talk too much and waste his life outside work, but he can sure dedicate himself to a cause. She has some excellent talents that higher classes depend on. I want to vomit in my mouth. It’s professionalism to the point where they were clearly their careers, nothing more. I don’t think philosophy is for everyone. But I rarely encounter people who assign self-reflection entirely to the domain of “7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” It’s really scary when you’re romancing someone and your career is the sum total of your life.