the rub

Perhaps the root of all these interpersonal confusions, struggles and conflicts is that all I really care about is intellectual matters. I don't ask how people are or what they're doing because I just want, and want the other person, to get on with the discussion of ideas and to engage in rational argumentation. Then when everybody else is caught up in the phenomenon they like to call "Life" -- the most uninteresting of concepts -- they're actually surprised (or are they?) when I blow a gasket. I mock them for their contentment -- although, yes, I do sometimes envy it -- to shake them out of it, but it often backfires, resulting in the prevailing view that I'm just some sort of emotional sadist.

If I chose you -- and, trust me, if we're friends at all, it's because I decided we should be -- it's because I thought you were somebody I could actually talk to. But in about 90% of cases I have been wrong. And so, on the surface -- the hard, boring surface -- we remain...