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THE TODDLING DUDE'S BUBERIAN WORLD

Martin Buber in his brilliant and beautiful 1923 book "I and Thou" proposed that people view the 10,000 things of the world through varying shades of "It" or "You." If you have an "It" relationship with a person or a thing, that person or thing is something you want to exploit, use, take advantage of. If you have a "You" relationship with a person or a thing, you see the person or the thing as someone or something worthy of respect and care. When I read the book in the early '90s, it swept me up in its passion and lyricism (lyric philosophy), as I had already been swept up by John Keats's lyric odes where he addresses animals and objects and phenomena (the gorgeous To Autumn) as "You" (or, in Keats's case, Thee and Thou).

Walking around with the toddling dude, I never know when he'll stop to notice something -- a rock, a piece of chalk, a tree, a passing airplane overhead -- and set down whatever he's holding, smile and wave and say "Hi."