A Question Without an Answer

In Silence of the Lambs, (Incidentally one of my favorite movies of all time) Hannibal Lecter admonishes Clarice Starling to read Marcus Aurelius quoting "Of each particular thing ask; what is it in itself?" I think this is somewhat incomplete. Everything has two sides: what it is in and of itself and also what it is seen as.

Some time ago, in the middle of a long-term relationship with a girl, I was wrestling with breaking it off. I couldn't quite nail down my feelings about her one way or the other. A wise friend asked me a simple question after confiding in him about it: "Do you actually love her or do you just love the fact that she loves you?"

It is an important question. Though it is implying that it shouldn't matter as much how someone feels about you. It took me a while to realize, but I think that the question is actually of the utmost importance. Its weakness though lies in its unspoken emphasis. It implies that it is more important how you feel about someone than how they feel about you and your perception of that. I don't think either is more important. Both are equally necessary. Too often we are absorbed into how much we like or don't like someone without giving equal weight to how we feel about the way in which they like us.

Its a two-way street. Sometimes its tough to see. Sometimes its tough to judge. Sometimes its so much easier to look at the trees and forget the forest. But it all comes back to how people make us feel and how we feel about them. Two sides of the same coin.

I haven't thought of a way to ask the question without that unspoken emphasis. But I do find myself coming back to the question over and over again, mostly in matters of love, but not always. It is probably one of the wisest and most useful things anyone has ever said to me.