I have a friend who has done well enough in his career, in finance, that he no longer worries about money, though he does worry about other things, like the happiness and well-being of his spouse, who also works, and their two young daughters, who do seem happy most of the time, he says, but who, like anyone, are troubled or affected by encounters and interactions that he couldn’t have predicted, and that he cannot influence as much as he would like to, so that a new appreciation for what he calls the psychological or existential realities of life has been brought home to him, although, when I ask him, jokingly, if he’d like to trade his circumstances for mine, so that I could become him, and he become me, though we’d still maintain our separate identities, or souls, he laughs and says, no, your circumstances are more difficult than mine, which I don’t think is true, although, after we part, and I’m walking back alone to my apartment, where no one is waiting for me but my dog, who I love dearly but who, I must admit, is not as complex as a human would be, and who thus requires less of me than I have the capacity to give, I realize that I don’t believe the reverse is true, either.