“If you can think of times in your life that you’ve treated people with extraordinary decency and love, and pure uninterested concern, just because they were valuable as human beings. The ability to do that with ourselves. To treat ourselves the way we would treat a really good, precious friend. Or a tiny child of ours that we absolutely loved more than life itself. And I think it’s probably possible to achieve that. I think part of the job we’re here for is to learn how to do it.”
(from “Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace” by David Lipsky)
West Coast Grrlie Blather 
When someone has treated me as a “really good, precious friend” have been precious moments indeed.
I think he was speaking to himself, and in the end, didn’t listen or couldn’t believe. He’s right, though. However harshly we judge our friends, it’s nothing compared to the judgment we gavel on our own selves.
I will probably never make it through “Infinite Jest’ but I will watch/listen to anything that DFW shows up in. He’s a member of my spiritual trio. “This is Water” if the link doesn’t work look it up on You-tube.