...

But sometimes things can’t scale without changing. Care doesn’t really scale without becoming something else. Thinking about this has helped me reframe how I feel about things like parents looking after their children, things like my friends taking time to chat with me. It’s not that I cynically didn’t think those things were important; it’s just difficult to shake the sense that people, that I, should be doing bigger, better things.

For care, though, it doesn’t get bigger and better. If your goal is to educate the world, you can look for ways to educate thousands or millions. If you want to inspire the world, the billions await. But if your goal is to care for the world, and in a given moment you’re deeply caring for one person, you’re doing the best it’s possible to do.

There’s something oddly comforting about that.