Marcus pictured people as parts of a single body, hands, feet, eyes, made to work together. To turn against another person, he said, is as strange as a hand refusing the arm. You can hold onto this on the days others feel like obstacles. The driver who cut you off, the coworker who frustrated you, they're tangled up in the same shared life you are, mostly tired and trying, just like you. This doesn't mean tolerating real harm. It means starting from connection rather than contempt. When you remember you belong to one another, small frictions soften, and patience comes a little more easily.

Inspired by the old idea of sympatheia, we are limbs of one body. Written by Ugo Charles.