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I spent much of my weekend showing houses to buyers. Every time I do this, it’s always the same experience for me. I wonder why anybody with the slightest understanding of aesthetics would have built such houses — and why anybody would buy them.

I’m in the minority on this, of course, because almost everybody buys whatever is popular among his friends and family. They don’t know any better. They buy what they know. They buy what seems “normal” to them. So they buy houses which are painfully garish or pretentious or dull to me. And builders keep building those sorts of houses — simply because that’s what people expect to buy.

When I’m showing such a house — and people are talking about borrowing half a million dollars to buy it — I want to ask them if this is what they really want. I want to ask them if they’ve ever considered the warmly beautiful piece of living art they could build for that money instead. I want to show them houses such as this one on the market right now in Redlands, Calif.

But I don’t — because I remember how ignorant I was about design philosophy before I finally learned to appreciate good architecture, too. They wouldn’t appreciate my suggestion any more than I would have appreciated it back when I wanted something which I would loathe today.

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I’m not certain whether I love this world or hate it. I’m never sure whether I love my fellow humans or hate all of us. How can I be so confused about this?

There are times when I experience beauty and love and joy as I walk through this world. In those moments, I feel as though all is right and I’m at peace. I feel as though I love the people around me and want to connect with them. In those moments, it’s a joy to be alive.

But there are times when mundane and callous actions by others pierce my heart and make me hurt and cynical. In those times, I sometimes hear an inner voice crying, “I hate everybody!” In those moments, I want to give up on humans and become a hermit. I wonder why God made us.

Am I confused? Schizo? Bi-polar?

Not really. I’m just experiencing very different parts of what it means to be alive. And as much as I want to rage against the things which hurt me and make me want to run away, I have to accept that my own choices have brought me to where I am. Even when others have taken actions which have hurt me and angered me, I am the one with the power to change my own life.

Nobody can do it for me. I have to change myself in order to change my experience of this world.

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I didn’t give the hug any thought ahead of time. It was instinctive. The woman was experiencing a difficult moment and I said something supportive. Tears welled up in her eyes and she said she was about to cry. So I reached out and gave her a hug.

I felt the warmth of her skin against one of my hands. My other hand felt her shoulder beneath her shirt. She pressed her body into mine and she squeezed me tightly as she hugged me back in appreciation. And then it was over. It took no more than a few seconds.

But I’ve been thinking about that hug for the last couple of hours.

The woman isn’t a close friend. I’ve been seeing her occasionally in business for the last few years and we’ve chatted casually about our personal lives. But nothing more than that. We’re the most casual of acquaintances, but we shared a nice hug in a way that was appropriate to the situation.

I’ve been thinking about that hug for the last couple of hours, though. It’s not because of any desire for her in particular. It simply made me incredibly conscious of how starved I’ve been for human touch.

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