I want to tell you something that took me longer than it should have to figure out: the people you spend time with don't all have to be alive.
I have a small group I carry everywhere. Writers, thinkers, people dead for centuries who somehow knew exactly what I needed to hear. I read them the way you'd have coffee with a friend — not to extract information, but to be in their company. It changes the texture of a day.
The best people you'll ever know may not be alive right now. That's not a reason to go without them.
This is also, I'll admit, something I think about in relation to you. When we can't be in the same room — which is often — I find you in the things you've said that stuck, in the questions you asked that I'm still answering. You travel with me. I don't think you know how often.
Seneca's friend Demetrius owned almost nothing and apparently lacked nothing. I'm not making an argument for poverty. I'm making an argument for knowing the difference between the company that fills you and the company that just fills the room. Most of what crowds a life — the obligations, the performances, the people you see out of habit or guilt — none of that is the real thing.
Give yourself to fewer things more completely. Be master of yourself first, then loan that self to what actually deserves it.
I am, as always, glad to be someone you carry.
Yours, in good company —