In the presence of one disposed to kindness, you will notice an absence of guile, an ability to listen, and a disinclination to compete. If you can reciprocate, you will experience a growing feeling of safety and trust. The need for self-protection drops away, as does the requirement to appear to be something other than you are. You are, at last, good enough. In fact, the image of yourself that you see reflected in your loved one's eyes may be nearly perfect. You would like this moment to last forever. Imagine that.
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Who among us can calculate the sum of human suffering? We are required by our nature and the imperatives of human survival to attach ourselves to others who become our hostages to fate. This opens us to loss and to grief. We live with an instinctive doubt about the larger meaning of our lives. We survive in the hearts of others who love us, but we know that when they are gone, so are we. Though we strive to be singular, none of us leaves behind much of a footprint to mark our passage upon the earth. We inhabit a small planet in a minor solar system. We appear to be equidistant from the unfathomable distances of the universe and the sub-microscopic particles of which we are made. And yet the questions of why we are here, how best to live, and the meaning of human suffering remain answerable only by the bargains with life that each of us choose to strike.