...or the golden thread.
I had my meeting with Ben today. Before the meeting, I reread the feedback and realised that while he had seen all the many flaws in my argument he had not said 'You're a useless waste of space.'
So when we had our session, I started by saying yes, you're right... but now what? And we talked for about half an hour with him, as it were, hacking away some of the brambles around what I was saying or trying to say. No, that's not relevant. Does that stand up. And me trying to explain what my thought was.
After forty five minutes when I was thinking that I had no real idea what I was trying to say, he said, 'What you are raising is a pragmatic point. You are asking what value the word human has in this context. Because, like it or not, it has this normative weight and that may not be relevant to the argument.' And I said, 'Yes!' and almost burst out crying. It was like in the tonnes of rock he'd found my molecule of gold.
So we talked a bit more and agreed that I had the tendency to get distracted and lost in culs-de-sac and dead-end roads rather than sticking to the point. He said, 'Imagine there's a golden thread running through your essay. Every sentence has to be linked to that golden thread.' Easier said than done, but very helpful.
And the best bit was that at the end he told me that some of what I'd said meant he'd have to think as it was leading him to reconsider some of his assumptions about enhancement.
That man's patience and attention. He paid me the huge and invaluable compliment of treating me with respect and taking me seriously. It's an example of I-thou. An example of what I think is most important, most precious, in life.
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