I think we look for the differences in people because it makes us less lonely.
Interpretation
We often focus on the differences between people to feel a sense of connection and reduce our loneliness.
This quote by Carson McCullers suggests that our tendency to highlight what makes us different from others is rooted in a desire to combat loneliness. By recognizing and examining the distinctions that set us apart, we create a context in which we can relate to others on a deeper level, paradoxically helping to alleviate our feelings of isolation by fostering connections based on our unique identities.
In practice
This quote could be shared during a discussion on community and belonging at a social event.
Wherever you look there’s meanness and corruption. This room, this bottle of grape wine, these fruits in the basket, are all products of profit and loss. A fellow can’t live without giving his passive acceptance to meanness. Somebody wears his tail to a frazzle for every mouthful we eat and every stitch we wear—and nobody seems to know. Everybody is blind, dumb, and blunt-headed—stupid and mean.
There's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. Or an old address book.
She was afraid of these things that made her suddenly wonder who she was, and what she was going to be in the world, and why she was standing at that minute, seeing a light, or listening, or staring up into the sky: alone.
The trouble with me is that for a long time I have just been an I person. All people belong to a We except me. Not to belong to a We makes you too lonesome.
Because in some men it is in them to give up everything personal at some time, before it ferments and poisons--throw it to some human being or some human idea. They have to.
Once you have lived with another, it is a great torture to have to live alone.
With each reunion (we) had to learn each other all over again. There was always that nervous moment at the airport when I would stand there waiting for him to arrive, wondering, Will I still know him? Will he still know me?
The Master said of Gong Yechang, “He is marriageable. Although he was once imprisoned and branded as a criminal, he was in fact innocent of any crime.” The Master gave him his daughter in marriage. (Analects 5.1)
There are many things my father taught me here in this room. He taught me: keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.
But on the way home tonight, you wish you'd picked him up, held him a bit. Just held him, very close to your heart, his cheek by the hollow of your shoulder, full of sleep. As it it were you who could, somehow, save him. For the moment not caring who you're supposed to be registered as. For the moment, anyway, no longer who the Caesars say you are.
Forgiveness is manifested mercy; it is live in action - not love based on a feeling, but love based on a decision, an intentional choice to obey God.
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