anyway: i love my job. there are difficulties and frustrations as with any job, but what i love most about my job is that it gives me the opportunity to interview people, which in my line of work constitutes long, ongoing conversations with people about their inner lives
you never know what question is going to yield an interesting vein so i ask all sorts of things when i'm working with subjects: which one of these books is your favorite? what place do you like best in the world? why is your favorite color your favorite, do you think? and so on
social convention prevents you, generally, from just pestering people with questions constantly, but this profession gives you a ready excuse. and over time, especially working on long projects, you get to know people in a way few others in their lives likely know them.
(it's worth noting here that even in a feature where you're extensively quoting a subject, many thousands more words wind up on the cutting room floor: yours and theirs. hours and hours and hours of conversation may turn up a relatively lean harvest; that's normal and fine.)
and so i have the pleasure of knowing many very interesting people very well, and occasionally i'll be doing dishes or folding laundry and thinking of someone i interviewed and came to know well and for a brief moment i'll see like a shape before me their complete uniqueness
and how in their own way they are perfect, in that they're precisely who they are: they are excellent at filling out this hole in the world where they, and only they, could fit; the space that's made for each one of us in the order of things. and that's remarkable! it is
and i will think to myself that this must be how God sees people, each one almost like his or her own species, full of color and texture and thoughts and memories and notions and dreams that only they in particular have ever had, could ever have. i'm so fortunate to witness it.
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