📘 The Distended Tear is about the grant of laughter as well as tears. This book speaks to our desire to know and to our desire to be known. Hopefully, it challenges us to arrive at understanding and at wisdom by committing to the obligations of thought, of critical judgment and of seeing things in their complexity. Our lives confront us with complexity. "The Distended Tear" asks us to examine our assumptions, to see things in their relationships and contexts, and to deeply engage with and benefit from the thinking others. It is there, in the engagement, in the space in between, where subjective selves meet that the dance of the trusting social relation can commence and a mutual reality be established. Our defensive layers can begin to be peeled back and our true selves can begin to emerge and meet a kindred soul. The Distended Tear calls for the deep social relation as an antidote, for the trauma of phobic relationships. Ultimately this book is about healing. It hopes to promote a posture of mutual achievement striving amongst people. It hopes to promote being fully alive, full of self exertion and connective mergence, experiencing the joy of loving and the joy of being loved. The shallow social relation impedes these joys.