I just had the most joyful evening, with a group of likeminded crazy intellectuals, trading stories about this and that and whatnot.
This feeling of joy is not, in particular, about the fact that we are all “intellectuals”, but rather more broadly about the fact that we are likeminded. To recognize your own tribe — to see yourself and your passions in people whom you may have never before met — creates a unique kind of delight.
I suspect that this joy is not restricted to human beings. The leopard in the veldt, or the hawk flying majestically above the mountaintops, will recognize their brethren, and will feel a kinship that goes very deep.
Perhaps it is the pull of life itself, or rather of life’s never ending quest for meaning. If you and I recognize each other, if we can but peer into each others’ soul and see, reflected back, our own beating heart, then we both can know, without any doubt, that we are truly alive on this planet.