The worst kind of listener isn’t the one that is patently distracted (by thumb-flashing smartphone interaction or some endless performative scrolling), cannot make eye contact, shows through their follow-up questions that they weren’t paying attention anyway, rolls their eyes, or indulges in several other variants of not-so-passive aggressiveness. No, the worst kind of listener isContinue reading “The Worst Kind of Listener”
Tag Archives: friendship
Killing a Friendship Over Email
Modern relationships end in strange ways. Last year, a friend terminated a friendship with me over email. We had not met in over a year, and had been exchanging emails on trying to find a time and place to meet and ‘catch up.’ Arranging a meeting time with another ambitious New Yorker that works isContinue reading “Killing a Friendship Over Email”
Commodified Relationships And Friendship
When relationships are commodified, can friendship survive? This old, plaintive question has not lost any of its urgency. Once we meet and greet our fellow humans our interactions are quickly transformed into the transactional because that is the context within which they function. To be with our friends, to spend time with them, to engageContinue reading “Commodified Relationships And Friendship”
Reunions And Changing Persons
A couple of weeks ago, in a reunion of sorts, I had lunch with some folks I to went high school with; six of us attended. Out of the attendees, I was meeting three after a gap of thirty-four years. This is the longest interval of time in my life between two meetings with theContinue reading “Reunions And Changing Persons”
Acknowledging Prayers Offered On Our Behalf
On 30th July, I hiked up to Corbet High Camp–operated by Jackson Hole Mountain Guides–in Wyoming’s Teton range in the Grand Teton National Park–to begin an attempt to scale the Grand Teton on August 1st. There, at high camp, my climbing partner and I met another pair of climbers, young lads from Louisiana, headed upContinue reading “Acknowledging Prayers Offered On Our Behalf”
A Memento Of Fellow Travelers, Long Since Moved On
I have in my possession, one photograph of the only graduation (‘commencement’) ceremony I have ever attended–that for my first graduate degree, in ‘computer and information science.’ (I did not want to attend the ceremony, expecting it to be tedious in the extreme–it was–but I did want to send a keepsake back to my motherContinue reading “A Memento Of Fellow Travelers, Long Since Moved On”
Doris McIlwain On The Rationality Of ‘Irrational’ Love And Hate
In Living Palely: On the rationality of a certain fullness of feeling (Artlink, Vol 29 No. 3, 2009), Doris McIlwain writes: Friendship and love are not fully rational enterprises. They become strangely symptomatic when we approach them as if they are….To me the sign that you really like someone is when you cannot quite offer a fullContinue reading “Doris McIlwain On The Rationality Of ‘Irrational’ Love And Hate”
An Epistolary Relationship For The Ages
Shortly after I finished high-school I bade goodbye to a good friend. He was headed to the United Kingdom, to join his father–he had taken up a job with a civil engineering firm. My friend would, so to speak, ‘repeat’ high school; he would take his A-levels and then seek university admission. I was sadContinue reading “An Epistolary Relationship For The Ages”
The Wedding As Public Shared Celebration
This past weekend, I attended an ‘inter-faith’ wedding, staged in a beautiful, rural, upstate New York location–on a farm. It was an emotional and moving experience. I didn’t just attend the wedding; I also ‘officiated’; that is, I ‘performed’ the wedding ceremony. I read out a brief opening address, and with a co-officiant, shepherded theContinue reading “The Wedding As Public Shared Celebration”
Samir Chopra 