I know how you feel, Willem,” Andy had said in one of their secret conversations, “but he doesn’t want you to admire him; he wants you to see him as he is. He wants you to tell him that his life, as inconceivable as it is, is still a life.
It had always seemed to him a very plush kind of problem, a privilege, really, to consider whether life was meaningful or not.
He experienced the singular pleasure of watching people he loved fall in love with other people he loved.
I know my life’s meaningful because” – and here he stopped, and looked shy, and was silent for a moment before he continued – ” because I’m a good friend. I love my friends, and I care about them, and I think I make them happy.