Virtue Quest

Wish you were here...

Right now I live alone. It’s a pleasant one-bedroom apartment in a neighborhood that reminds a reservist friend of Baghdad. I invite people over, one at a time or in a party, and sometimes they come and sometimes they don’t. Occasionally, I go out to meet with other people at their homes, or at a restaurant or cafe. It’s pretty normal, I guess, for a guy who works from home.

So, needless to say, I get lonely from time to time. That’s no surprise. But it’s sometimes surprising when loneliness strikes. It happens when I’m with friends almost as often as when I’m alone. It could strike when I’m eating, when I’m working, when I’m reading … almost any time. There may very well be causes, but I’m not aware of them. It often strikes me out of the blue.

Dealing with loneliness

I’m not sure I’d deal with it any better if I had warning. (more…)

Not actually all that logical

My good friend Amy said:

The problem here is that you can’t teach people how to think. Not, at least, without heading straight long into [indoctrination] schools (Communist, Nazi, etc). Not a soul on the planet will tell you they don’t know how to think, even if their life is a long string of screw ups. And who gets to judge whose thinking is “right”? (After all everyone must think to act, even if poorly.) Other than practical matters of social order and universal natural law, I think humans might be best to leave that judgment to God.

There’s a lot going on it that. (more…)

No, not that kind of pie!

Last night, I attended a talk (not a lecture) by Prof. David Whalen at the Seattle Chesterton Society discussing John Henry Newman’s The Idea of a University.

Newman’s Idea doesn’t apply merely to academic life, though. He’s describing way a fully human life requires the mind, and the whole mind. Prof. Whalen put it something like this: we encounter the world as one, as a universe of reality; but in order to think about it, in order to understand it, we have to break it down into little pieces, like slicing up a pie. We can call those slices “economics” and “engineering” and “ethics” and, if we’re adventurous, can even use words that don’t begin with “e” such as “theology.” But it’s important to realize that each piece is just that – a piece, not the whole pie, not the whole of reality.

So it’s critical that we make sure that all the pieces are there, and that each piece is in the right place. Otherwise, our ability to understand and relate to the real world becomes distorted. If ethics is lost, other disciplines over-extend themselves to fill the gap: politics, economics, psychology, psychiatry – all of which touch on ethics, but none of which are really competent to describe human life in a particularly ethical way. And meanwhile, people grow more and more confused about how to act ethically.

A fully human life needs to make sure that all the different ways we understand the world really fit together, so that our understanding keeps in sync with the world itself.

The rubber meets the road

Newman describes an ideal education for a full human life. But he was aware that in his day, as in ours, that ideal is nowhere close to becoming a reality. Then, as now, people were increasingly focused on practical matters: making a living, increasing efficiency, solving problems. Schools were shifting their focus from educating for character to training for productivity. The human person was viewed a “resource” for economic growth.

Now, the fact is, economics is a real and important part of life. I need to put food on my table, and pay my rent, and keep clothes on my back. And our social structures provide a way to do that. But that way is founded on a narrow and limited idea of what human life is all about.

Newman, and other people I’m reading, promote a better way of living, one in which the economic and practical needs can be met without degrading the human person, turning us into mere cogs in the machine of “progress.” Progress toward inhumanity is no progress at all.

But how do we get from here to there? Or, as a reader on another blog I write for asks:

How do you take usury out of a market grounded on usury? How do you take materialism out a market grounded in materialism?

Looking for a solution

One proposed solution is called Distributism. The idea is to use the freedom we have as individuals and small communities to make small but significant changes in our own lives and in our immediate surroundings.

This looks to me like a real possibility: a kind of “Think globally, act locally” approach that goes beyond environmentalism. Our economy and government is massively corrupt; so, to the extent that is possible, I will minimize my interactions with corrupt businesses, use my vote and my voice to encourage more honorable government, and establish as fully human a life as I can in my own neighborhood.

The major obstacle, it seems to me, is my own sloth. This course of action would require me to work harder, to take risks, and to live without a number of luxuries I take for granted (things like cheap clothes or out-of-season food or super-fast internet). In other words, it’s easier to take the benefits of this skewed society and pretend that the detriments are not as harmful as they really are.

It’s easier, but it’s not really better. In the end I find myself less and less able to deal with reality, and my efforts increasingly backfire. So, today, my goal is to find some small way to refocus my perspective, so that I can take those small actions to make my life and the life of my community more human.

Cutting through to the heart of the question

The profound James Chastek points out that James T. Kirk must have hated Greek drama:

The Greeks loved sticking characters in the midst of problem for which there is no right answer: Antigone must bury her brother and obey the king; Agamemnon must sail and love his daughter; and the fight between Achilles and Agamemnon is like the fight between the head coach and the star quarterback. The circumstances demand action but make every action wrong, or at least very problematic. This applies even to inaction : Achilles is doing something when he sits in his tent and lets his compatriots get slaughtered and pushed back to the ships.

In other words, the Greek playwrights loved exploring the dynamics of a no-win situation. The near-Greek Alexander the Great took matters to a new level by challenging the limits of the test: using a sword to loose the Gordian Knot.

But most of us don’t have the resources of an Alexander or a Kirk. Most of us, like Antigone or Agamemnon, are stuck facing powers greater than ourselves. Those powers don’t have to be gods; they could be banks, or governments, or even bosses.

And these are the kinds of situations that push all our moral buttons. What do I do when faced with an impossible choice? Do I pay my utilities or my mortgage? Do I alienate my best friend or my brother? Do I break the law or break my promise?

What is impossible?

The reason these situations can’t be easily resolved is because we are all limited, finite human beings. We are not all-powerful. We do not have bottomless bank accounts. We can’t be in two places at once. Eventually, we will die.

But I do have a certain power that is unlimited: that is my freedom. I am able to make choices without any restraint or encumbrance. I will always have to face the consequences of my actions, but my decisions are truly and completely my own.

How does this help anything? Freedom allows me to step away from the choice presented to me and ask another question entirely: what is the good that I can do here?

These situations are only impossible because they present every choice as something evil. But evil does not exist in itself: it is nothing but the loss or distortion of some good. And if the question turns to a choice, not between evils, but about the kind of good I can do – then I see what is truly possible, rather than fearing what is impossible.

Outwitting evil

Only two things are necessary to face any “no-win” decision: a clear understanding of what is good, and a clear knowledge of one’s own abilities.

Granted, gaining true clarity about those things could take a lifetime, or longer. But it shows what is important to look for, what the questions need asking and what questions are mere distractions.

Paying the bills with limited resources won’t get done by worrying about which axe will drop first. But it can be solved by overcoming fear and pride, talking to creditors, seeking different ways to gain income.

Maintaining close relationships with people who hate each other can’t happen by tip-toeing around the situation. But whatever is worth keeping in those relationships will remain if I seek love and honesty rather than avoiding hurt feelings.

It’s true, something will be lost or damaged, whatever choice I make. But this is true of all of life, not just the so-called “no-win” situations. But no good can be done by avoiding loss or hurt. The world is full of powers greater than any one of us, or even all of us together. Our goal is not to avoid suffering, but to do whatever good is possible. And because we can see the real good in the world, good made through our own efforts and those of others, we can trust that our work will not be in vain.

We're history!

Before I got sidetracked by technical wonkiness, I was reading over a bundle of articles spawned by an opinion piece that Princeton professor of philosophy Kwame Anthony Appiah published in the Washington Post. He asked the big ol’ question: What will future generations condemn us for?

He lists four contenders, and challenges others to add to it. His list:

1. Prisons: way too many prisoners in America, and conditions are inhumane
2. Industrial meat production: eew
3. Institutional and isolating treatment of the elderly: we’re lacking in filial responsibility
4. Environmental destruction: especially desertification

Ross Douthat and Andrew Sullivan take up his challenge, adding:

5. Abortion (Douthat)
6. Any meat consumption at all (Douthat)
7. Therapy for homosexuals (Sullivan)
8. Torture under Bush and Cheney (Sullivan)

Will Wilkinson notes that all these “predictions” line up pretty well with the author’s current political or moral standards; therefore, they have no predictive value in themselves. He adds:

If we don’t assume that history is a story of progressive evolution, we could ask a different but parallel question. Which of today’s practices would our ancestors condemn? This is a much easier question, because we know what they did condemn. The harder related question is why it is that we are so sure that we know better than they did, and that our grandchildren will know better than we do.

And Tyler Cowen offers:

I would suggest an alternate query, namely which practices currently considered to be outrageous will make a moral comeback in the court of public opinion.

Prof. Appiah (who seems enamored of lists) does lay out his criteria for predicting barbaric practices:

1. First, people have already heard the arguments against the practice. The case against slavery didn’t emerge in a blinding moment of moral clarity, for instance; it had been around for centuries.
2. Second, defenders of the custom tend not to offer moral counterarguments but instead invoke tradition, human nature or necessity. (As in, “We’ve always had slaves, and how could we grow cotton without them?”)
3. And third, supporters engage in what one might call strategic ignorance, avoiding truths that might force them to face the evils in which they’re complicit. Those who ate the sugar or wore the cotton that the slaves grew simply didn’t think about what made those goods possible. That’s why abolitionists sought to direct attention toward the conditions of the Middle Passage, through detailed illustrations of slave ships and horrifying stories of the suffering below decks.

Now, as much fun as it is to list off the worst moral outrages of our time, I think it’s much more important to look at the criteria we use to make moral judgments. After all, it’s possible to be right about one or two issues without having solid principles; but then what do you do when you’re faced with a new moral conundrum? Take a poll?

So, taking Prof. Appiah’s list as a starting point, I’d note that his first criterion is a non-starter: the moral conversation has been underway for millennia, and there’s nothing new under the sun.

His third criterion is a great analysis of shame as both a personal and social phenomenon. Shame avoids the reality of its own guilt. Well noted.

But his second criterion really shocked me. Let me repeat it:

defenders of the custom tend not to offer moral counterarguments but instead invoke tradition, human nature or necessity.

Can you guess the portion I object to?

Human nature is the foundation of morality

It is literally nonsense to say that an argument based on “human nature” is not a “moral” argument. There is no moral argument that is not based on human nature, because morality is exactly about human actions. The entire notion of “good” or “right”, morally speaking, is about what is “good for a person” or “right for a person”.

Now, I am guessing that he was objecting to arguments against homosexual behavior which claim that it is unnatural; he states his horror at past punishments of homosexuals. Or perhaps he was objecting to arguments against abortion which claim that the baby is a human person from the moment of conception; though he doesn’t mention abortion in the article.

But the single issue he mentions that doesn’t fit the stereotype of “liberal” or “academic” agendas is the isolation of the elderly. And his argument suddenly becomes personal – that is, it becomes about persons, about human beings, and what is fitting to their nature.

It is undignified for people to abandon the members of their own family. It is inhuman to go off on vacation and let your grandmother die of heat exhaustion. It is unconscionable for a society to neglect those who have given their lives to build up that society.

Why?

Because it is part of human nature to be interdependent, to be social, to live in families and communities where we support one another.

Otherwise, without an idea of human nature, why should we be outraged at all by the mistreatment of our elderly?

Future shock

Now, the whole reason to ask what the future may think of us is to open up a new perspective on what we are doing now. It’s a way of asking, what’s the moral thing to do right now?

I would suggest that the reason we treat our elderly (and our prisoners and our animals and our environment … and, for that matter, our employees or employers and our neighbors and immigrants and so on) with neglect or even disdain is that we have uprooted ourselves from human nature in our approach to morality.

We have replaced human nature with “utility” or “efficiency” or “profit” or some other mechanical notion that treats people like things, that objectifies them. I don’t think we have to wait for tomorrow to condemn such an attitude. I think we condemn ourselves if we maintain it.

The covers won't protect me from reality

Some days I just have trouble rolling out of bed in the morning. It’s not just laziness – though that’s one chunk of the problem; it’s wondering what in the world is worth getting out of bed for. It’s a deep-seated pessimism about life, the universe, and even God that has earned me the nickname “Mr. Cranky.”

In more classical terms, it’s the deadly sin of sloth, or tristitia.

What it really is, the foundation, the root of it all, is a lie: the lie that bad things are real and good things are not.

Shutting my eyes to reality

The fact is, the only real things in the world are good. Food is good; friends are good; work is good. It’s only when something is missing, or damaged, or twisted that we call anything bad. Bad, or evil, is just the fact that something good isn’t where it ought to be.

It takes a certain blindness, or at least a distorting squint, to see only the bad – the thing that isn’t really there at all – and to overlook the good thing that is there.

For example, I’m currently writing a book about my grandmother. Every time I sit down to work on it, I keep thinking about how stupid my words are, how clumsy the phrasing, how inadequate they are to capture her personality and story.

What I’m missing are (at least) three fundamental goods:

1. I have a fascinating grandmother to write a book about
2. I put words on the page, that really convey some meaning
3. I have an idea of what this book could be, of the good story that it could convey

And maybe there are more goods than these that I’m overlooking.

The point is, I’m in the rotten habit of ignoring what’s good and focusing on what’s missing; then I take what’s missing and call that reality. That’s a lie, and a sin, and a vice.

Prying my eyes open

I find, for myself, the best antidote is a good slap in the face, or a kick in the butt. (As a friend pointed out, God gave us butts so he’d have somewhere to kick us.) I need a sharp encounter with reality.

Even a real evil will do: hunger is a great motivator to get out of bed. It’s a great motivator to put inadequate words on a page, or to hand in that imperfect resume, or to produce that good-enough widget. And it’s the least of all the possible motivators in the world.

A real good is an even better reason to live and to act. My book may not be a Pulitzer winner, but it will tell something of Grandma’s story, it will convey something of her goodness to people who wouldn’t otherwise know anything about her. And that’s better than nothing. Something is always better than nothing.

The mistake of sloth

Sloth, on the other hand, thinks that nothing is better than something. It’s the illusion that nothing is something easy and comfortable, like sleep. But sleep is a positive good; it’s a real act that restores and refreshes.

Nothing is like hunger: it’s a great void, a need without fulfillment. Nothing is a hellish wretchedness; but sloth denies this truth until it’s too late – until I’ve missed that appointment or bungled that opportunity; until the good that was there is damaged or lost.

The English journalist G.K. Chesterton quipped, “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” In other words, something is always – always! – better than nothing. That’s partly why I write this blog; because even if it’s bad, it’s at least words written. And I’m no kind of writer if I’m not writing words, even bad words. Even bad words are better than no words at all.

Words do not suffice

My aunt recently passed away after a long battle with breast cancer. Needless to say, her death has affected the entire family, but my uncle and cousins most of all. Now, our whole family tends to meet difficulty with humor, so there’s been lots of laughter; but I’m sure when I’m not around to see it, there are tears as well.

Still, they put what’s called “a good face” on the matter. At the funeral, we sang songs like “Rejoice and be glad,” and at the reception the line was, “She wanted it to be a joyful occasion.” And she did. I think she wanted a celebration of life.

Being a Christian, I see a certain reason in that: there’s hope for a greater joy in heaven than there ever was on earth. Even from a purely natural perspective, there’s a certain gratitude for all the good that she brought to our lives: her sharp wit and quick smile and constant love as a wife and mother.

But the loss is real. I remember a few years ago when one of my best friends was diagnosed with cancer; she’s currently in remission and is doing well, pursuing a career and so on. But there was a stark moment for me when I realized that I couldn’t take her for granted, that at some point she might be gone from this world. And if I felt like a piece of myself was being torn away just at the possibility of losing my friend, I can’t imagine what my uncle and cousins must be enduring at the real loss of my aunt.

The problem of evil

It’s times like this that, philosophically, the so-called “problem of evil” comes to the fore. How can we understand, or explain, or just deal with the painful and grievous events that happen every day in the world around us? Whether it’s disease and death, or inhumane crime, or natural disaster … where does it come from, and what does it mean for how we live our lives?

Voltaire (to grossly oversimplify) suggested that we simply “cultivate our own gardens,” that is, do the best we can with what we’ve got, and not pretend the world is any better than it is. It’s a kind of detachment from those things that are beyond our ability to control.

Buddhism goes even further, if I understand it rightly. It advocates a radical detachment from all things, good and evil. For even good always leads to evil, when it is lost. So if we avoid attachment to all things, we will never have cause for grief. Both these approaches share the great insight that good things, good people, are ultimately limited and vulnerable. They fail to meet that unlimited longing for good that lives within our hearts.

But their solutions strike me as, well, cowardly. Grief, at least, has the courage to stand in the face of loss and acknowledge just how good this person, this relationship, is that has been lost. Grief is the act of love in the face of loss.

The “problem” of goodness

I think it goes deeper still, though. Grief demonstrates that our very awareness of evil is dependent on the existence of good. It is very possible to experience good without evil, such as on a wedding day when even clumsiness and tears are causes of joy; but it is impossible to experience evil without good. No one would attend a funeral unless the one who has died was a great good in their life.

It’s easy to answer, where does evil come from? It comes from the loss of something good. The greater question is, where does good come from?

How is it possible that wonder and beauty and joy and a profound connection between persons enters into the world? Why do I experience a painting (a mere arrangement of colored globs) or a gesture (a simple mechanical motion) or a person (just another animal, after all) as something that gives meaning to life, that organizes my priorities, that I can only describe as “good”?

This is the great mystery of life, it seems to me. And it is a mystery that is celebrated rather than solved, celebrated even in times of loss and grief.

House and Cuddy, clearly in love

Among my many addictions is the TV show “House, M.D.” (available here on Hulu). For those not similarly addicted, the show revolves around a genius doctor, Gregory House, who refuses to play by the rules – either medically or socially. He’s also addicted to Vicodin. He would have been fired, friendless, and finished long ago if not for the codependent friends who surround him his incredible genius.

It would take too long to bring non-watchers up to speed, so suffice it to say that the show is really soapy, and that a major theme has been that House has a crush on his boss, Lisa Cuddy. But, like a bully in the schoolyard, he shows his affection with meanness.

For reasons beyond my kenning, Cuddy ended the last season by confessing her love for House. The new season began with them taking a day off of work to, um, cuddle in House’s apartment. Great soap opera stuff. But toward the end of the episode, House told her, “This isn’t going to work.” Why? Because, he said, I’m never going to change. I’ll always be the vindictive, manipulative, irresponsible, misanthrope that audiences love to hate.

Cuddy had a great come-back: “I don’t want you to change.” Then she kissed him. *aww…*

Okay, have you wiped away your tears yet?

Good. Because they’re both wrong – at least as far as human beings go.

The more things change…

The fact is, we’re always changing. Some changes we can control: for example, I can choose to ride my bike rather than drive my car today. Other changes are beyond our control: I can’t choose whether to have my appendix burst or whether I get hired at that job I applied for.

Some changes are harder than others: changing my habits of eating are very difficult to change, and require an active effort of mind over a long period of time. Changing the way I respond to people who annoy me requires both a strong desire and the quickness of mind to catch myself before I utter than snarky remark.

However difficult, such changes are possible. But some changes catch me entirely off guard. When I was a kid, I was a huge fan of processed cheese. Now I can’t stand the stuff. On the other hand, I used to hate the taste of tomatoes, but now I’m a big fan – except for ketchup which still makes my tongue curl.

The point is: change is inevitable. The change I can control is how I deal with the changes that are beyond my control.

… the more things stay the same

That said, it’s always the same “thing” that undergoes the change: me. I am the same person who used to hate tomatoes and love processed cheese. I am the same person who used to weigh 150 pounds – or, for that matter, 8 pounds 11 ounces. And my ability to change is restricted by the fact of who and what I am.

I am, first off, a human being. Any attempt to live in some other way, as a plant or as a space alien, will only cause the kind of change called “damage.” I’m also a bookish nerd with a weak back and knees. I’ve tried both playing football and digging ditches; both resulted in unexpected injuries, because my body just isn’t built for those kinds of activity.

My mind, on the other hand, can’t stop asking the sort of questions that drive other people crazy. (A friend visited my apartment for the first time and commented on my bookshelf: “Did you really read The Illiad and The Odyssey for fun?” Well, yes – but only in English translation.) So it’s natural for me to focus my energy on learning and passing on what I’ve learned.

Indeed, it would be unnatural for me to repress that drive in myself, just as it would be unnatural for my athletic friends not to go out for six-mile runs or for my gregarious friends not to check Facebook and call their friends twice a day.

Virtue – mainly the virtue of prudence – lies in recognizing what will change, what can’t change, and then choosing how to live in the midst of it all.

Is this what virtue looks like? I don't think so!

In a comment on a previous post, Paul writes:

I looked up a contemporary definition to establish a framework as to what is virtue. Then I had to wonder “is virtue, in the ‘doing good easily and often’ practicable and important?”. Morality yes but virtue, I’m undecided. Can one use virtue to navigate the world as it exists? There are a lot of instances in business, social interactions, maintaining or improving ones place within a civilization in which a virtuous person would be vulnerable to all kinds of abuse, deception and repression. Is virtue a weakness?

This is a great question. But in order to answer it well, I’ll have to ask Paul a question right back.

What, in your mind, is the difference between morality and virtue?

I ask this because you seem to place them in very different categories. In the tradition I’m writing from, Thomist Catholicism, that difference doesn’t make much sense. Morality is the theory, and virtue is the practice. “Morality” is the word for how we recognize good (and evil) and “virtue” is the word for how we do what is good (and avoid what is evil). So, when you say, Morality yes but virtue, I’m undecided, I’m not sure I follow your meaning.

Virtue and vulnerability

That said, I think I can speak to the question of whether virtue (or moral behavior) makes a person weak or vulnerable. The short answer is: Yes.

But yes only in a sort of tunnel-visioned way. Virtue opens someone to attack or harm from one small and specific direction: injustice.

In chess or poker, in love or war, if you play fair and others cheat you will suffer harm. You will probably lose the game. But you will save your dignity.

One of the oldest sayings of philosophers is that it is better to suffer evil than to commit evil. And that’s what’s really going on here: if you refuse to commit evil, if you cling to what is good, then odds are that someone will try to commit some evil against you. It might be as small as a white lie or as big as theft, adultery, or murder. And it’s possible they’ll succeed.

Strength to endure whatever may come

However, from the broader perspective of a whole human life, virtue is exactly what gives a person the strength to endure injustice rather than to be broken by it. After all, one of the first lessons of virtue is that life ain’t fair. We’re confronted by all the same “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” that tempted Hamlet to suicide and that tempt me to sloth, but that motivate the truly virtuous to rise to the challenge and stand fast in their humanity.

Whether those challenges come from a natural disaster or from the unjust acts of another person, virtue enables a person to prudently sort out the real dangers and the genuine options; to respond in a just and even loving manner; to take those actions courageously despite the hardship or danger; and to temperately refrain from the easy escapes that tempt us (well, me, at least) to avoid facing the sea of troubles in our lives.

Those easy escapes are the sorts of thing that work well for a moment, but have lasting consequences: the quarter-by-quarter greed of Wall Street, the comfort of vegging with a bowl of ice cream or a TV show, the awkward dodge of a white lie. As far as I can see, it’s only virtue, which endures suffering and injustice in the short term, that enables a person to remain true to him-/herself and to avoid the even worse consequences of vice.

No man is an island ... not even one as cool as this one

In a Church as big as the Catholic one, there are thousands of little corners of spirituality. A friend invited me to check one of them out, a group called Communion and Liberation, and basically they spent about an hour discussing the reflections of one of the group’s leaders.

The passage they read that evening concludes with the reflection that, we sometimes flee from reality because it is too overwhelming. It describes this as “loneliness, which is nothing but inability to face reality.”

Are we really supposed to face reality?

Now, there’s lots to argue with here, especially for a contrarian like myself. I mean, is this really the best definition of loneliness? But I have to admit that loneliness strikes me most when I’m feeling overwhelmed, like I just can’t face life anymore – at least, I can’t face it alone.

And it occurred to me that maybe, if human nature is inherently social, if I am really not fully human unless I’m engaged in relationship with other people, I’m not supposed to face reality alone. Maybe it’s just the way things are, maybe even the way things are supposed to be, that life is too big and too difficult and too confusing for me to deal with.

In other words, maybe my frustration, anger, fear, sadness, and loneliness come from a false assumption: that I’m supposed to be somehow entirely self-sufficient, that I’m somehow big enough to face reality on my own.

Facing reality with a friend

Now, I’ve been blessed with some of the finest friends in all of history. Not only do they put up with my endless noodling through abstract ideas and my needless nitpickiness about the exact etymological meaning of words, not only do they agree to see the tedious movies I want to watch and play the tedious games I want to play, not only do they eat my cooking with no greater objection than adding a bit of salt, but they constantly teach me new things about the world and how to live in it.

In fact, every time I’ve found myself really able to face some piece of reality that’s getting in my face, whether it’s a burnt piece of toast or the loss of a job or the prosecution of an unjust war, it’s only been because of a friend. Left to myself, I curl up into a ball in the darkest corner I can find. But with a friend by my side – or even on the long end of a phone line – I find a strength and a resilience that is greater than I possess in myself.

And maybe, just maybe, that’s the way it’s supposed to be.