Again: do we really “notice” these things the first time we read the story? I sure didn’t, back when I read it for the first time. But we notice them now, as we analyze the story. These structures are undeniably present. And I’d say we noticed them, on rst read, “in our bodies” or “in that deep-reading portion of our minds.” The patterning of the story works like a form of Pavlovian conditioning. We react without knowing why. And it’s these reactions that make us feel melded to the author, as if we are playing a very important, intimate game of some kind with him.

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

Knowing how things are doesn’t make you see them correctly, doesn’t stop you from seeing things incorrectly. Stare at the image as much as you like, it’s all in vain. It will never surrender the truth, not to your naked eyes; you have to go in armed with a straightedge.

My point is that you could think of the people you meet in your life as questions, there to help you figure out who you are, what you’re made of, and what you want.

I couldn’t latch on to a thought and then be carried by it as it moved into new territory. To do that, I think you need a narrative self inside you connecting you with experience, telling you how you fit into the subjective encounter with what you’re seeing and attaching whatever significance it might hold for you.