Opening page…
What do you still do for someone who will never do it back?
A repeated act of devotion can carry meaning even when it no longer expects a response.
Your answer
A little context
Every Sunday you visit your grandmother, who no longer knows your name. You bring the same biscuits and tell her the same news, and she smiles at you as she would at a kind stranger. Nobody is keeping score, least of all her. You go anyway.
Nearby questions
- Can you choose who you love?Falling in love sounds like something that happens to you. Staying in love sounds like a decision. Arranged marriages bet on the second.
- Is anything unforgivable?Some people forgive a murderer in court. Others never forgive a friend who insists they did nothing wrong.
- Can you love someone you don't respect?Care, admiration and respect usually travel together. Sometimes you are left with only the first.
- Should you put your own people first?You can save someone you love or five strangers, but not both. Almost everyone would save their own; impartial arithmetic says five is more than one.
- If someone you love committed a serious crime, would you turn them in?The Duke of She boasted that in his country a son would testify against a father who stole a sheep. Confucius answered that where he came from, fathers cover for sons and sons for fathers, and that this is what uprightness looks like.
