To Walk with Kings and Commoners
What do our relationships do to and for us?
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch
Oh, what a joy it was to race across that beautifully tiled floor! This was no ordinary hallway - no land fit for tourists. This was the sacred ground of the second story on the northern side of the U.S. Capitol Building: in short, the entrance way into the U.S. Senate Chamber. And I, Amy Watkins, was walking it! (Yes, Mr. Mantravadi was not yet so fortunate as to have made my acquaintance.)
It was the summer of 2007, and I was spending my last free period before my senior year of undergraduate study as an intern for U.S. Senator Carl Levin, one of two representatives from my home state of Michigan elected to a body which was still in those days considered slightly august. In the interest of providing as many students with this nice resume padder as possible, Senator Levin’s office employed far more interns than necessary. Thus, it was with immense joy that I learned I had been chosen—yes, I had been selected to bring a document to the Senate Cloakroom!
The cloakroom is a small antechamber that separates the Senate floor (that thing you see on C-SPAN) from the outer hall. In addition to its titular function, it is used to receive items that must be given to Senators and their aids when there is an appropriate break in proceedings. So, after a few weeks of mostly sitting around and reading the newest Harry Potter book, I finally had a chance for some real action. I hurried through the underground corridors that link the Russell Senate Office Building to the Capitol, then used my special ID to access the second floor, rushing along the uncomfortable tiles in my equally uncomfortable shoes.
As I rounded the corner into the cloakroom, I was confronted with something I had not expected, though it was entirely within the realm of possibility given my location. Directly in front of me was Senator Barack Obama, talking on his cell phone while walking in the opposite direction. By that time, he had announced he was running for president, so he was a very famous man: one of the most well-known faces in the world. In the space of two seconds, he materialized before my eyes and then passed me by.
No, Barack Obama does not know that I exist. I got a chance to shake his hand later that summer, but only as one person in a vast crowd. He did not even look me in the eye as he did so. Nevertheless, my time walking those corridors did bring me within close range of some of the most seismic personalities in twenty-first century U.S. politics. All around me, I saw people wielding power in luxurious offices and historic halls. Everyone had an agenda, ambitions, and a seemingly limitless drive toward the top.
Yet, within a few years, I said farewell to Washington, D.C. and the career in the political sphere for which my education had prepared me. I would no longer walk with kings…or so I thought.
What is a king anyway? Kipling wrote “If” at a time when far more people bore the title, but one gets the sense that he intends a broader sense of the word. He lauds the one who can “walk with Kings” without losing the “common touch.” The dangers he hopes to avoid are therefore arrogance and elitism. Whose company could cause us to become arrogant and elitist? Not only those with formal royal titles, but also those who wield power of various kinds. They are people whose company we would seek not for the mere benefit of conversation and companionship, but to make use of their influence and resources—to bask in their glow, and thus shine brighter ourselves.
When I entered the world of Christian writing, I came into contact with all sorts of people, some with no fame at all, but some very well-known. Although I have personally only gained around 20-30,000 readers for my books, I have conversed with and even befriended authors who have sold hundreds of thousands and even millions of books. I have built connections with people who have far larger platforms than myself, sometimes specifically in the hope of networking, but sometimes because I simply enjoyed our conversations.
I say this not to boast. Indeed, boasting is one of the potential vices that can befall those who walk with kings. I hope rather to demonstrate that while I do not always deal with powerful people, I have had some experiences of that sort. The evangelical Christian bubble has kings of its own: people whose names I could drop, but I will not.
Kipling also warns his son to “keep your virtue” while conversing with crowds. I take this to be the opposite of walking with kings. Conversing with the average person and conversing with the powerful person: it’s the difference between chatting someone up at a conference and conversing with strangers on social media. Both provide opportunities for virtue but also temptations to vice. The key to behaving correctly in these diverse situations is to remember that 1) all people are ultimately of equal value and deserve equal respect, but 2) different situations call for different methods.
The answer is not to treat the king as flippantly as you would an internet troll, nor is the answer to give every single person you encounter the totality of your attention. It will be necessary sometimes to seek an audience with a king, for many opportunities depend upon the goodwill of kings. But if one seeks out kings exclusively, one loses touch with the common folk and becomes a power monger, a star whore, a sycophant. It is sometimes necessary to seek the assistance of kings for the benefit of commoners, but it is possible to become so enthralled with the king that the commoners are forgotten. And far too many of us are desperate to become kings ourselves.
My profession of writing is more competitive than many others. It often depends on personal networking. Thus, as much as I may not like to bother people with power, and as much as I may like to give my time to other people instead, I have little choice but to seek help from kings when it is help only they can give. But what I must avoid is developing relationships where I treat people as mere means to an end, with the end being my own advancement.
In the few friendships I have had with kings, I have striven to only ask for their help when absolutely necessary, to not monopolize their time and energy, and to do all I can to take an interest in them personally. This is not to say that I start poking around in their personal business, but I want them to know that I value them as people. I will often ask how their family members are doing, what they are working on, or other benign subjects that let them know I genuinely care about them.
The danger of being famous is that you gain a lot of shallow relationships but struggle to maintain deep ones. Personally, I hope I never reach a point where this happens to me. I have had to cut back on a few in-person activities here in Dayton as my writing for various publications has increased, but that is as much because of my life circumstances as any fame I have gained. When I encounter kings, they are often exhausted, overworked, fraying at the edges. They do not seem any happier than myself. So, if in some small way I can offer them genuine friendship, I think that is a positive thing. They too need encouragement.
But there are also kings who are awful people—men and women with whom I would not want to walk very far. I therefore also have to remind myself to only invest heavily in relationships where I genuinely enjoy the other person’s company and conversation. There are some utterly anonymous people who make far better friends than the most famous people on earth. Sure, their topics of conversation may be different, but I must not turn into one of these pseudo-intellectuals who becomes incapable of discussing anything without using advanced terminology. If I can no longer chat with people who have no interest in theology or history, then I have lost the common touch. I can no longer show love to my neighbor properly.
All people are created equal, but not all have equal amounts of power and influence. It may therefore be necessary sometimes to chase after kings, but I must not let it alter my character. I must always remember the fundamental equality of human beings. For I must not only take in this life. I must also give.
PUBLISHED ELSEWHERE:
A Review of Unloved by Elyse Fitzpatrick at 1517
“The Therapy of Watching Old Films” at Mockingbird