..., the outcomes must be stated in sufficient clarity that both parties will be able to recognize them as occurring or not and also be able to discern what progress has been made toward them.

Perhaps that’s what friendship can do: the presence of another indirectly giving us better access to the hidden parts of ourselves.

I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.

—Leo Tolstoy, What Is Art?

It’s when the thing interacts that its properties are revealed, even resolved.

Sometimes, when properly regarded, the problem in front of us is understood to be no problem at all, or at least not of the kind we believe it to be.