The Geometry of Holding Hands

The thought came to her mind of how hard it must be to leave the small things one loves: the painting one’s become attached to and looks at every day; the favourite teacup that you’ve drunk out of at the breakfast table for years and years; our small links with the world. And how pressing, then, must become the urge to do something to perpetuate that relationship with that which is loved; to have an heir; to know what is going to happen to your possessions. Or did you accept that all these things were part of a world that you were leaving; that they were not yours in any permanent sense, because there was no such thing as permanence?

Eddie came from a disadvantaged background, and in such a place it was not uncommon to find unforgiving views on right and wrong. Perhaps it was only a prolonged education, coupled with the security it brought, that encouraged nuanced thinking. Isabel sometimes wondered whether liberalism was most enthusiastically practised by those who could afford it: you could be generous to others if the likelihood of your ever wanting for anything was remote; you could be kind to asylum seekers if they would never take up resources you would need yourself; you could be tolerant of crime if there was not much of it in your neighbourhood. And so on; and yet that was to dismiss the real arguments that the liberal position might muster—arguments that were nothing to do with self-interest, but were based on principle.

Oh, send thine angels to his blessed side / And bid them there abide. It sounds like a request for reinforcements." Isabel liked the metaphor. We all needed reinforcements, she thought. We wanted others to think the way we did, to protest the values we held dear, to keep at bay the things we thought needed to be kept at bay. If imaginary beings could help to keep our courage up, then there was no harm in that.

She did not believe in burying her head in the sand, but there were times when she longed for a paper that portrayed the world in something other than a state of crisis. She wanted the world to be peaceful, and it was not.

There was a lot of chance in love -- a lot of luck -- but there was not too much point in thinking about that, other than to thank whatever gods one believed in, or blind fate if one believed in none, for the way things had worked out.

but its investments were now much more diverse, and

Jamie remembered. “My own dentist says nothing about philosophy,” he reflected. “She only talks about teeth. She uses the word we for me. How are our teeth today? Have we been flossing regularly?” “The inclusive first-person plural,” said Isabel. “It’s well meant, but condescending because…” She paused, to think of just why the use of we should be wrong. At last, she said, “It’s because it removes autonomy of judgement. The person you address in that way is not being given the opportunity to dissent. He—or she—is being roped in to a consensus.” “Roped in?” “Yes. Have we been flossing regularly? The sub-text there is: You have no option—you have to floss regularly—and you know it because you and I are part of a greater we.

Yes, imagine looking like another person. Perhaps that was what we should do more often. Put yourself in their shoes was a familiar piece of advice, but it might be particularised into Imagine looking like her. That brought it home, because that was often the issue with how the world treated people. If you stood out, you were vulnerable. If you were excessively overweight, or very small, or if you walked in an odd way, then people treated you differently from the way they treated those who were none of those things. They might not do that so readily if they could imagine what it was to be you. And although there was no reason why the way you looked should be you, that was the way in which the world tended to see things. The way you looked could be taken as you, whatever was going on inside.