Counterpoint: the most powerful tool at my disposal to make clear my empathy and sympathy and to potentially influence your thinking is to share my own emotional discomfort. By entering this discussion with you, I am implicitly opening myself up to be vulnerable. Now explicitly, I suppose.

[ kaveh winces. it's the first sign of chagrin. the rice goes into the microwave. sacrilegious, yes, but he only needs to heat it up a little, and the texture ought to be fine. he wets a paper towel just in case. ]

And I wasn't exaggerating when I said 'a lot'? There are maybe three more containers of these. I'm really running out of people to foist it all on, so if you have names, I have extra food.