This is what a context response might look like. I wrote this quickly, in about forty minutes, so it is a far-from-perfect response, but it should give you some idea of what a context response is and how it is different to a text response, such as the one you did about Maestro.
‘Without connection to others there is no me.’
Almost two and a half thousand years ago Aristotle, a Greek philosopher and much-celebrated thinker said, “Man is by nature a social animal…society is something that precedes the individual.” Although that was a long time ago, this is not an ancient idea. We largely define ourselves and others by how we connect to other people, by how we treat them. Also, of course, we are defined by many factors and facets, including the qualities of our physical selves, our experiences, and where we sit in the world. But interactions and connections with others is integral to our identity. Although all animals interact, we humans interact using language and complex customs and societies. We have all kinds of rules, spoken and implicit. We connect for minutes, for years and for lifetimes. We are truly social animals, and it is tempting to think that without connections with other people, without interactions great and small, we are indistinct and undefined. But this belief is too simplistic. People often seek solitude – that is, to be removed from interacting with others – to be their true selves. Of course, we are defined by what others wants and how we treat them. But it is the decisions that we make when away from other people that truly define our characters and ourselves. The most important part of our selves, our most moral self, does not depend on others.
Although we are deeply and commonly social creatures, people crave time alone, away from human connections This is especially true for introverts, who get exhausted by the hustle and bustle of human company, but it is true for the boisterous and socially confident as well. David Hayden, the narrator of Larry Watson’s novel Montana 1948, is a good example of this. He has never felt comfortable in town and manages to get himself out into the countryside that surrounds Bentock, Montana whenever he can. Certainly, like many boys, he craves adventure, but is also just wants to be alone, to be his true self in solitude. Superman – the iconic hero of comic books, television and motion pictures – does not need to leave town to find adventure, and he gets relief from his big, super-hero identity when he is the mild-mannered Clark Kent. But he still needs to retreat at times from all human connection, to the aptly named Fortress of Solitude, at the polar extreme of the earth. There, alone, he can truly have some time to himself, time to be himself. Normal, everyday people crave time alone, too, in their sheds, out fishing, or perhaps riding a bike as you lone cyclists doing on any given weekend. Yes, we are a social creature, we like to connect, but we need space to be ourselves.
However, most of us are not full-time hermits and we do come together to our mutual advantage – certainly – and to live our social lives and connect to others. Reuben “Rooster” Coburn, the iconic Western lawman in the 2010 feature film True Grit, is happy with his own company and does not make a great effort to cultivate relationships with people. In fact, he is brusque or unpleasant most of the time. But still, he does come into town and, when we wants to, can charm people, as he did on the witness stand, quipping about which direction he goes when he backs up. He might sleep alone in the back of a store, but he accepts La Boeuf’s company and cooperation on his journey into the wildness, and accepts the company of Mattie Ross, although reluctantly at first. As his trails of failed marriages and dead companions showed, he was not a man who was good at connecting with people, but we did connect and interact, for better and worse. He was a bad husband, a thief, and a brutal slayer of bad men. All of this is true. All these traits are thrown into sharp relief by the way that he deads with others. Cogburn is defined by his failures to connect as much as those rare instances where he does connect. Wes Hayden, too, is a man who keeps his own counsel, quietly pursuing justice and the law. But he, too, shows his real identity, his true colours, when he stands up to his domineering father, Julian. We see Wes for who he is – in ways admirable and cowardly – when he interacts with his wife Gail, who is keen to him to deliver justice. Even solitary people show us who they really are when they deal with those people they have connections with.
Some actions are, however, more defining than others, and we sometimes are most truly ourselves when we make decisions in those times when we are removed, and not clearly connected to other people. When we act well in company, we are influenced in part by what people expect of us, and we feel obliged to decency. But when you take that social expectation away, that expectation created by camaraderie and connection, the decision that we make truly define us. They make us who we are. Frank Hayden, locked in the root cellar decides to spare his brother, his wife, and his parents immeasurably pain. He is in a home, his human connections are either severely strained or already broken. When he connected with people, he often made terrible decisions and showed himself to be some kind of monster, but alone, disconnected, he showed us something else about who he really was. Rooster Cogburn, too, showed us who he really was when he was freed of all connections. Towards the end of the story, he is chased off by Lucky Ned Pepper, and La Boeuf has deserted him again. He is physically isolated and free to abandon the girl, Mattie Ross, to her fate. Rooster could have left her and no-one would have known or blamed him at all. But instead, free from all connections, he decides to return as face Pepper and his gang, one against four, and rescue Mattie and ride deliver her to safety at substantial person cost. Cogburn didn’t make this decision in the midst of company and connection; he made it alone when he was free to be his true self.
People are connecting and social creatures to be sure. Sometimes we need a little time to ourselves to just be ourselves. But most of the time we exist in a word on a panoply of connections, obligations and social cues. But it is only when we stand alone, and free of connections, that our decisions and actions are truly our own, free of social influence. This lone man of conscience is not just a construction of Westerns, he is a symbol of the eternal truth that a man alone, a man free of connections, can be truly himself.
