I thought about how my father once told me that he found coolness as an old man. The story I’d always heard was that he’d lost it. No, he said, cool came to him when he decided to no longer go after things. He set it up so that everyone would have to find him. And they did. He went full detachment. I think my mother caused this desire of his to withhold. He gave her more effort than he’d ever given anything, but that didn’t make her stay.

He changed himself when it was already too late to become what he thought the person who abandoned him wanted. So much character development happens this way. Self-cancellation. Don’t love me. You’ll get no results.