A young man bought me a cup of coffee last week. He wanted some career advice, and I never turn down an opportunity to deliver wisdom over a free coffee. So I let him pay for the coffee, we found a place to sit, and I did my part: I delivered wisdom for about 45 minutes. About show business, about Princeton Theological Seminary, about the many lessons I’ve learned and the many mistakes I’ve made, and the many opinions I hold on a wide variety of subjects. I was, in short, magnificent.

It was only when I was pulling on my coat and glancing at my phone that I realized he hadn’t really asked me for any specific career advice. He had let me hold forth, and every now and then, in hesitations and half-started sentences, he circled around other things. What I suddenly realized, as I was dashing off to my next appointment, was the real questions he had. But those questions never quite got asked. They were harder, I guess, to come right out and say. Too heavy, perhaps, to interrupt me while I was on a roll. So by the time I had stopped being witty and wise, he was just warming up to the true reason he wanted my advice.