Fixating: not fixing one's attention, but rather fixing the object of our attention, making it a center for our perception and conception, unmoving. Dead. We can no longer relate to it dynamically. To fixate on a person is to turn him or her into an abstract category or cluster of qualities: make another into an Other.
'Take a step back' is one of the most important pieces of advice one human can give to another; it's nearly impossible to follow when it matters most. If you're not fixating on a person as a feature of your private narrative, you're responding to a being-in-full. You're living for real, in other words. Wouldn't that be nice?
