There are two things I truly value in another person. One is internal to them, and the other more external, but they are really mold and cast of each other. I truly engage with those who are genuinely and procedurely introspective. I enjoy hearing their observations - subservations - of the processes of their own mind, how they got where they are, who they are now, and how they are moving forward. In the midst of this I want to know and empathize their struggles, and take joy and celebrate in their successes. (Mind-numbing platitudes about how they are going to find out who they are free of encumbrance need not apply. You are not seventeen any more.) A mind such as this, one that observes itself and reflects on those observations, is almost certainly bound to follow a similar path regarding what it experiences in the world around it. I want to hear what this person thinks of things, their actual original precepts and analyses, their syntheses and concepts, what they think is happening and why. I want to hear their original thoughts on almost anything, and what they base them on, what they grow them out of, and where they think they might lead. (And if they aren't really original, but merely the output of a program larger than they, I've heard it by now. Spare me.) If you can't spend at least a fifth of your reflective time examining if those who think you are utterly wrong might be right, you are not operating in either of these dimensions. That can be expressed positively, as well, of course: Such a person will spend a substantial amount of their reflective energies "checking their work", as it were. Trying to prove themselves wrong, especially in ways that require them to understand and be able to apply the arguments of their detractors and those they assail. The ability to cast one's most certain conclusions as tentative and open to criticism, subject to dismantling and rebuilding is of huge and gentle value. This does not address the issue or question of sex. Those dimensions are perpendicular to these, and to each other. Sharing some of the space along them with another mind truly present is, I think, one of the most fundamental and at the same time highest human joys. 6/21/21 3 AM 
© Huw Powell
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