"You gave us ourselves to think about, to cherish."

I'm at my parents' house. Everyone else is watching Cash Cab. Love it, but it was fun the first 50,000 times. I'd like to get some reading and writing done instead.

My parents do subscribe to Time and there were gems in the print magazine. I can't recommend this testimony by William Stanford Davis enough. He talks about being ridiculed after an audition and how he redoubled his efforts to make it as an actor. His success after four decades of trying is irreducible to any platitudes I might use. It's just awesome, commanding the greatest respect.

I also recommend reading Jonathan Katz on the impact of the "Uncommitted" vote in the Democratic primaries. Katz is rightly in the news now for showing that the Republican SOTU response was not exactly truthful. However, his analysis of how Biden's stance is changing (even though there is much more work to do) is detailed and incisive.

Below, I've written about a quote I'm thinking about a lot. How to create the conditions in which people will take themselves more seriously?

That is the astonishing gift of your art and your friendship: You gave us ourselves to think about, to cherish.

- Toni Morrison to James Baldwin in "Life in His Language"

So many magnificent moments in Toni Morrison's eulogy for James Baldwin. She says Baldwin remade American English, making it "handsome again" by presenting the "undecorated truth." He showed his courage, she claims, when declaring "this world [meaning history] is white no longer and it will never be white again." And he created a lasting tenderness, one "with the ways and means to deliver."

I'd like to reflect on just one line in her tribute: "You gave us ourselves to think about, to cherish." I'm wondering how that works for an individual. I can easily pinpoint the opposite. Plenty give empty compliments, only praising when required. Too many of these and you can't focus on what you've done; you might ask "is this all there is?" about anything. Obviously, there are those who only talk about themselves incessantly. And some can't tell the difference between noise and communication. The TV drones on endlessly in their homes and lives, never an invitation to anything more.

How do you give someone their own self "to think about, to cherish?" Baldwin does this naturally, it seems. I don't think anyone can forget "A Letter to My Nephew." You tell your nephew, your namesake, how much your family and similar families have endured. You make it clear that the world wants hate and anger, that those with more power want an excuse to bully. And in all that tough talk about brutal realities, the way forward shines. There's no doubt about what must happen. Baldwin: "Great men have done great things here and will again and we can make America what America must become."

It's so strange how you prepare the grounds for self-realization. It isn't done through abuse and neglect; people need to feel like they can make choices that matter. Nor is it done by spoiling someone. When you give the BMW or the trip to Greece to those contemptuous of work and school, the higher values become invisible. Integrity, selflessness, determination, curiosity, and creativity disappear. The matter out of which one can construct a self are simply not there, and moral rhetoric alone won't bring it back.

You prepare the grounds for self-realization through honesty about who people are. If it feels like that honesty is gravely absent nowadays, it is. We are scared to death of blame. We want to be blameless or innocent or victimized. Often, our heroes don't grow or make mistakes. They solve puzzles, as if cleverness can substitute for wisdom. Or they do one thing right, and that righteousness is unchallenged regardless of the harm it causes.

I did not learn to think about myself before I encountered Baldwin, but his work was part of increased self-awareness. The real turn for me was understanding that some people want to be caricatures. They don't want truth or history, and they may lack space for tenderness. Not everyone wants to develop the capacity to cherish themselves. The invitation Baldwin extends is the rarest of rare gifts.