The day you say you don’t have it in you to write, or to do whatever is demanded of you, is a day you’ll be very, very different. Sammy, you dance to our beat. You have extraordinary sensitivity to phenomena, and it has served you well whether in jobs or likability or sex. It’s a very strong part of you, but it’s not you. Even your interiority — like Jimmy from Better Call Saul — is well served by this sensitivity.
When I first met you, you had no beard. And you were manipulating a metal cube faster than I’d seen anyone do. I think I tried to hire you then, and you said you were already engaged by someone important — which gave me a flash of ego at having seen something in you. Like I just told you: you’re not every man, but you are any man. The etymology of better is just awake — and you’re definitely more awake than the rest of us. I think even without your economy, you would still have kindness. But your kindness is like caramel sauce around you, persuading and per-sweetening the deal for everyone involved.
Is there a web review podcast yet? Like John Wick, you have a tiny gap between intention and action, which leads to your formidability. But also like him, you have a good heart. Like Alyosha from the Brothers Karamazov. I don’t think you’re ignorant to what people are like at their base levels, but you have a strong sense for the transcendent — to see people well as per their own will, even in its delusions.
Maybe all this reads as naive. I know sometimes I get that whiff, even though I know — or I’m supposed to know — better. But the very newness to things is part of this really fine thread you have to walk and sublate: to be new to things and yet all to them, but to keep the hope of newness.
I just told you that if you ever fell before demands, you’d be a very different person, because it’s just your nature. When I hang out with you, you’re affable and, as always, you’re kind — which I’m not going to tire of repeating in this post or others, because it’s true. But you’re not soft. It’s like you’re made out of steel that’s been beaten into a ribbon, and it shows these real beautiful gradients. But at the end, you’re still steel, and while you can bend, you won’t — maybe can’t — break. Or if you broke, it would be far away from all of us, and very ugly.
I’m fortunate to have met someone better than me, since it sure cured some of my pride seeing you — and the sheer ease with which you can move through the world. I don’t know if there are only 4 skills, but your motor skill especially is damn high from your great sensitivity. I bet people tell you messed up things, maybe even without an interval of pause, just that they think you might listen.
You’re young. That’s good, and that’s frustrating, since such great things are happening now and we may all be swept into the wave. But if I were on a raft with only one other, I’m very, very hard pressed to think of someone I would rather have than you. With you, death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? — as long as you abide with me.
You’re innocent, but not naive — and you’re so strong, so strong. (That last bit is roughly what Bigelow said about casting Keanu.) Like if the world turned upside down and meters became feet, I’d look to you to set the interval.
For years now I’ve seen you, and my praise is so effusive because you have not disappointed. Sometimes you meet these people, these icons — and you’re disappointed. But you are anything but. You are anything but. And more than a perfect boy, you’re a good man.
Like, yeah, you have serious issues. But I’d take a breath and not worry so much — though I don’t think you could do that fully and still be yourself, from that same sensitivity.
So much is happening in this place at this time. I’ve met truly mighty people, ones who are almost equal to the task. And you were always one of the best of us. (Should have learned more math, though.)
You don’t drink, but I’m taking this glass of whiskey for you. And so here’s a health to you — since I think we’ll meet again, but you never know. I think you can take the spirit in your body and put it more into the spirit of your mind, or shift that balance from 60/40 to 40/60. And I have no idea what will come of it, but the thought gets me high.
Sammy is at hath.blog. He’s writing an essay a day in April, solves weird problems for hire, and takes meetings.