It’s customary here in New York to let subway passengers get off the train before jamming your way through the doorway. Not that people always do that, but that’s the universally known rule. People who impatiently stand right outside the door and walk right onto the train when it opens, even though people need to get out, are generally thought to have the moral reasoning of oj Simpson.
So today I am exiting the train when a guy waiting outside the train door walks right into me. What complicated matters were two things: first, he said “excuse me” as he plowed into me and second he was holding the hand of a very kind looking 8 year old girl.
I thought to myself: this is the kind of figure I like. A complex man. A heathen and a gentleman. At once Filippo Argenti and Virgil. Both asshole and custodian in one man.
The weakest of all possible critiques of a person is that of hypocrisy. The question is never whether someone is internally consistent, it’s whether their inconsistency is moving enough to want to be a part of their life.
Everyone I have ever loved has been a contradiction. Everyone who has meant something to me has been at war with themselves in a way that defined them, and the art of relationship is partially the act of being a historian of that war for them. The true greek icon of friendship is not Patrocles; it’s Thucydides.
Then, over time, the contradictions resolve and new ones arise. In our last days, when we look back on our lives, our friendships are the chronicles of the wars we once were.
Reader Comments