I am contemplating this question, as I think of a girl who is very depressed. She will not give anything of herself. It is some kind of weird paradox. One must have a self in order to give away oneself. One must retain oneself, in order to give oneself away. One must be selfish, to be selfless. I think the basic human condition is loneliness, as one is consigned to one’s discrete body, although one wants to blend. This is the nature of falling in love.One has the hope of blending/melding, for that moment, that instant, as long as that instant lasts. I think I am talking about the Erikson stage about a discrete identity versus a kind of diffuse, merging with the outside. One wants intimacy, as part of one’s human longing. However, one needs to let another person SEE a genuine “something” for intimacy to occur, by definition. Finding that genuine “something” within oneself seems to be the hardest step.One wants to walk into the Emerald City without taking the journey down the Yellow Brick Road.