Hello, everyone, and welcome to Speaking with Joy, a podcast to fill your soul, challenge your mind, and make you brave.

I'm your host, Joy Clarkson, and an evangelist for all things good, true, and beautiful.

So make yourself a cup of tea, find somewhere comfortable, and let's dive in to this week's

episode.

So here is my profound thought for the day.

This is the first time I have met someone who seeks out people

and who sees beyond. That may seem trivial, but I think it is profound all the same. We never

look beyond our assumptions, and what's worse, we have given up trying to meet others. We just

meet ourselves. We don't recognize each other because other people have become

our permanent mirrors. If we actually realize this, if we were to become aware of the fact that we

are only ever looking at ourselves in the other person, that we are alone in the wilderness,

we would go crazy. When my mother offers macaroons from La Dure to Madame

Dere Brogley, she is telling herself her own story and just nibbling at her own flavor.

When Papa drinks his coffee and reads his paper, he is contemplating his own reflection in

the mirror, as if practicing the coup method or something.

When Cologne talks about Marianne's lectures, she's ranting about her own reflection.

And when people walk by the concierge, all they see is void because she is not from their world.

As for me, I implore fate to give me the chance to see beyond myself and truly meet someone.

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to, we'll call it Reading with Joy, as we are doing our summer

book club together on The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbary, which is what I was just reading from.

Today, it is a very rainy day. It's actually just stopped raining, but earlier today it was doing what the Brits would call chucking it down.

I walked to a cafe and I was, it wasn't just like I was wet. I was literally could have squeezed my hair

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