[79] A tender spring melancholy

Life counts nothing until you give it meaning, and then its value lies in how much you insist it have. On days Paul’s happy with his work, that is what he would tell me if he knew what he was thinking. But he can’t express it while he’s living inside his frame, where he isn’t thinking. It’s enough to know what he would say if he could.

I never felt more human than after I met Paul. That is, I never realized how much of an animal I was. That’s the definition most people don’t face in themselves – that we’re all animals, whatever else society has made of us. We’re guardians of our own uniqueness, but we’re also part of a world we’ve no choice but to stand. How can you learn to stand in it with integrity? What will history bring, and how can you shape it for the ones just born?