For a teacher who has invested his life in guiding students to appreciate the richness embedded in the slow and steady work of story on our lives, it is a travesty to see these impulses for control take hold. What becomes of us when we are so driven to control who gets to interact with us and how much we can accomplish that the internal act of allowing ourselves to be engulfed by the presence of another—whether it be a person or a piece of literature—is felt to be waste?
