When you feel nothing is beyond your ability to solve, you yearn for personal space; but when you face many problems you can’t handle alone, you long for the warmth of community.
At this point, being the biggest player is the least important thing. To be blunt, being the biggest isn’t necessarily a blessing.
If you’re the most visible and handle everything, what’s left for others to do? If you’re attracting all the attention, what are other people supposed to do?
It’s a very practical concern. It’s not about you as a person or what you’re doing — it’s just that when you leave everyone else with nothing to do, that in itself becomes a problem. Don’t you think?
A circle with a sense of face—if you criticize him, he'll be scared, because even if the law can't touch him, public opinion can still make him lose his job or get his credentials revoked. A circle without a sense of face, well—once the law has no grip on him, there's truly nothing you can do.
What others have, what they want, what they might be willing to give up.
Understanding others is, in essence, understanding yourself.