A conversation across a desk is not between equals; it resembles a sergeant in a tank turret addressing a frightened recruit staring down the barrel. People who understand this get up and sit with you in armchairs or at a round table, removing the barrier so a real exchange can happen.
Historians fix on loud, world-shaking events and overlook quiet stretches, but a sudden silence often means something bad is being concealed. A mother knows this instinctively when her child goes quiet in the next room. A war begins long before the first shot is fired.
Those who have lived through war and those who have not become two separate kinds of people who never fully meet. War cannot really be described or shared; you cannot give someone a piece of your own war.
In crushing heat, a person sunk in depression waits for the strength to shake it off, but a surplus of energy builds up and bursts out as a sudden blow against an innocent friend. The outburst has no cause beyond itself, and once it is spent the person is calm and normal again.