I’ve always felt other people’s lives acutely. That is, what I felt or understood to be their lives. Not the whole, obviously, but I enter into the spirit of that moment of their existence. It’s both a stimulating and exhausting habit. It makes me genuinely interested as an interviewer and as a friend and I hope wife and sibling. But I soak too much sometimes. I cannot detach. I often ponder on why I have acquired this habit. Was it my watchful child trying to read other’s emotions, particularly our mother’s, so as to protect myself, to be prepared for a change in them that might indicate danger? He says I am always asking questions of others when we are out together. He implies that its a kind of deflection and, to a certain extent, he is right. But I am genuinely interested in the people I encounter. I want to know them, and the lives they lead. I am curious but it is a kind curiousity not prurient. But there’s also an element of escape involved. I step out of my life and into theirs. It’s nice, relaxing for a time. I like to shrug mine off now and then. It’s a heavy thing, this carrying of self. Do they mind? I hope not. I don’t want intimacy, just to be able to stand in their shoes a while. That’s all.
