Dear Jochen

I don't think that I communicate my thoughts well. I'll have another try.

I don't think you really respect me. But on the other hand I don't think you respect most people - or perhaps any people. I think you find me friendly, sociable in some ways and not challenging. But I don't think you really respect me at least the way I understand the meaning of that word. I've got used to it so that it really doesn't bother me much anymore. But there it is.

Probably I don't deserve your respect. But I do enjoy the respect of some people and I find I rather like it.

I don't think there's any way we can change our relationship at this time in our lives. At least it wouldn't occur to me to try. I'm pretty much content with things as they are.

You imply that disliking people is a personal failure. I'm reminded of the American humorist Will Rogers who is famous for having said "I never met a man I didn't like." I think I understand what he was driving at but it still seems to me there are some people that I can't get to "like". Other narcissists that I've met, other than Trump that is, are hard to like.

It's hot here today. I did go for my walk and I managed not to suffer too much but I'm glad it's over. Mostly I can do things inside my nice cool house. I've got to reorder some medicines from my mail order pharmacy and I'll be finished with that pretty soon.

Love, Alex.


Dear Alex,

Thank you very much for your letter and especially for its candor. I am trying
to understand; I'm not sure I do. Unless I deceive myself, I have a great deal
of respect for what impresses me as your comprehensive and conscientious
knowledge and competence in neurology and internal medicine which is so far 
beyond my own that I have reason to be envious. I also have high respect 
for your social and political integrity and idealism. I profoundly respect 
the dignity with which you have, for so many decades, absolved the vicissitudes
of existence and the inevitable frustrations and disappointments that accrue
in the course of a long life. If I haven't given my thoughts and feelings
explicit expression until now, it's because I consider the circumstances they 
address as so self-evident, that reiteration would have no effect but to impugn
their persuasiveness.

Perhaps you interpret as lack of respect my failure to argue with you about
matters where we disagree. I, on the contrary, deem my silence on such
occasions as a mark of respect. Let me explain. You may or may not remember
that 68 years ago, your mother diagnosed me as someone compulsively intent
on "tearing up the floorboards." She was right. I've been at it so persistently
for seventy years, that I have rationalized and habilitated myself in a virtual
madhouse where time, history, and society are so distorted that meaningful 
communication has become impossible. I refrain from arguing because I feel,
in part as a matter of respect for you, not only that dragging you 
into the conceptual asylum in which I live is impossible, but that the
attempt to do so would be a disrespectful insult to your dignity. 
Above all, I refrain from demonstrating how I really think because I 
worry that the guys in the white coats might come after me, if it became
apparent how delusional I am.

Should we turn to semantics to try to resolve our dilemma? We close our 
letters to each other with the signature "Love". This word which in
the three years of correspondence with Margaret, she and I both studiously 
avoided, now serves as a bandage to soothe the wounds of misunderstanding.
When I admit that I am at a loss to define what "love" means, I am not
alone. The passion with which God cherishes his world, John 3:16, is agape,
(ἀγάπη) a word that has not been adequately translated into any language 
I know. Agape is also that virtue which St Paul in 1. Corinthians 13, applauds
as greater than faith and hope. Jerome in the Vulgate calls it Caritas,
and the Jacobeans, presumably afraid that love might be confused with eros 
or amor, rendered agape as charity, an eminently unsatisfactory translation 
to my ears.

My question to you, then, is a very simple one. Unless you think I am lying, 
when I sign my e-mails to you with "Love Jochen", how can you conclude that
I don't respect you? Doesn't "love" for a person, or for an object, say a
work of art, imply the highest and deepest level of respect? Or have the
words we use lost all their meaning?

I won't take it back, I insist:

Love Jochen


 
αγαπη ἠγάπησεν dilexit caritatem ἀγάπην
[13] nunc autem manet fides spes caritas tria haec maior autem his est caritas
[13] νυνὶ δὲ μένει πίστις, ἐλπίς, ἀγάπη:τὰ τρία ταῦτα, μείζων δὲ τούτων ἡ ἀγάπη.