How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

by David Brooks

None of us can have an identity unless it is affirmed and acknowledged by others.

Toni Morrison put it this way: “All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Writers are like that:

“Memory, history, were their weapons of resistance,”

Wise people create a safe space where you can navigate the ambiguities and contradictions we all wrestle with. They prod and lure you along until your own obvious solution emerges into view.

“You may not see the ocean but right now we are in the middle of the ocean and we have to keep swimming.”

A friend said it was like Deo had no protective shell; everything he touched penetrated him so deeply and was felt so powerfully.

Successful friendship, like successful therapy, is a balance of deference and defiance. It involves showing positive regard, but also calling people on their self-deceptions.

Wisdom is a social skill practiced within a relationship or a system of relationships. Wisdom is practiced when people come together to form what Parker Palmer called a “community of truth.”

W. H. Auden poem: “If equal affection cannot be / Let the more loving one be me.”