The honest answer is: sporadically, just some of the time ...at best.
If asked to sum up everything I believe and hope to honor when it comes to human relationships, it would be: this:
"Everyone Counts".
Perhaps the most basic way we show another person counts is to simply recognize and appreciate they are there.
I was moved to think about this thanks to a talk by Peter Salovey, President of Yale, in which he cites this poem written by Claudia Rankine, the Frederick Iseman Professor of Poetry at Yale. In her powerful work Citizen: An American Lyric, she explores the meaning of belonging in contemporary America, by describing mundane situations like this:
In line at the drugstore it’s finally your turn, and
then it’s not as he walks in front of you and puts his
things on the counter. The cashier says, Sir, she was
next. When he turns to you he is truly surprised.
Oh my God, I didn’t see you.
You must be in a hurry, you offer.
No, no, no, I really didn’t see you.
Who do I see—or not see? Who do I see, and who do I look past?
Questions I will try to keep more consistently in mind.
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