An adventure with Niko & Mote
Two crowns and one unexpected guest
A birthday picnic, a group message and a friendship learning to grow.
Strictly two royal persons
Niko had made two crowns, two paper boats and a birthday plan with exactly two places in it.
One was for Jun. The other was not negotiable.
They would decorate boats, sail them in the shallow play trough at the community garden and eat the biscuits Niko had helped bake. Rae, who was home with a cold, would join by video for the birthday song.
Then Jun arrived with Lina.
“I asked her to come,” Jun said. “She hasn't been to the garden before.”
Niko looked at his two crowns. An entire royal system was in difficulty.
Mote landed on one of them. Now there were four guests and a dispute about the throne.
The passenger problem
Niko offered Lina the job of watching.
Jun frowned. “She could make a boat.”
“We have a plan,” Niko said, as though the plan had paid for the party.
Lina folded a spare piece of paper. Her first boat immediately filled with water. She lifted it out, dripping.
“Submarine,” she announced. “Very successful.”
Jun laughed. Niko wanted to laugh too, which somehow made the feeling in his chest worse.
He placed his paper crown in his boat for a grand royal voyage. The crown was larger than the boat. The royal voyage ended nose-first beside the drain guard.
Mote stepped off before departure. His judgment about transport was improving.
Niko tried moving the biscuit plate so there were still only two places. It was a tiny movement. Jun noticed.
The question under the crown
“Do you want to help me celebrate,” Jun asked, “or tell me who I can celebrate with?”
Niko stared at the wet crown. He had wanted to make Jun feel special. Somewhere along the way, he had started trying to prove that he was special to Jun.
Iona arrived with a dry towel. She did not tell him that jealousy was silly.
“What are you afraid of losing?” she asked quietly.
“My place.”
“You can tell him that. It is different from deciding there cannot be room for anyone else.”
Niko walked back to the trough. “I wanted this to be our thing,” he told Jun. “I was worried you wouldn't need me.”
“You're my friend,” Jun said. “That doesn't stop when I have another friend.”
Niko turned to Lina. “I gave you a pretty bad welcome.”
“The submarine was worse,” she said. Then she smiled. “But we can try again.”
A larger kingdom
Niko brought another chair. Lina belonged at the party whether or not she could build a boat, win a game or make anyone laugh.
Together they folded new hulls. Jun wanted a boat shaped like a shoe. Niko started to object, then asked how it might float.
It floated badly. Everyone enjoyed it enormously.
Rae appeared on the phone wearing a blanket as a royal cape. They sang to Jun, who got to choose the next activity.
Later, Iona showed Niko how Plato's writing about love invites readers to look beyond possessing one beautiful thing toward a wider appreciation of what is good and beautiful. A birthday was their own modern way into that question, not a scene from Plato's book.
Niko saved his two crowns. Then he made a third, and a tiny fourth that Mote sensibly declined.
His place had not disappeared. The table had grown.
Understand the lesson
What this means for us.
Love grows when you care about another person’s happiness as well as your own place in their life.
Love can teach us to see more
In the Symposium, Diotima describes an ascent: attraction to particular beauty can lead toward appreciation of beauty in character, practices, knowledge and finally Beauty itself. Love becomes a movement of learning and growth.
Our story brings that widening attention into ordinary friendship. Niko starts by wanting a beautiful day to belong to him. As he pays attention, he discovers beauty in Jun’s kindness and Lina’s generosity. His world becomes richer because he allows himself to value what he had first resisted.
Jealousy can tell you what you fear
Niko’s jealousy points toward a fear: perhaps there will no longer be a place for him. Naming that fear helps him ask for reassurance instead of making Jun choose between friends.
A feeling deserves attention. You can listen to it, put it into words and decide what action would be caring. “I miss time with you” gives someone a chance to respond. Trying to control every person they care about makes a relationship harder to breathe inside.
Being special does not require making someone smaller
A friendship has its own memories, jokes and ways of understanding. Those can remain precious while each person learns, meets people and develops new interests.
Niko and Jun keep their boat race. Making room changes the day without erasing its history. This is a useful picture for families too: loving someone includes being interested in who they are becoming. A child, partner or friend needs room to grow beyond the role we first knew.
For children, grown-ups and everyday life
Bring the lesson into your day.
In friendship and family life
If you feel left out, try a clear invitation: “Could we have some time together this weekend?” Say what you need without turning a relationship into a competition.
For adults, the same lesson can appear when a child becomes more independent or a friend has a new interest. Ask what excites them. Share their delight. Keep making time for your connection while allowing their life to become larger.
In the communities we create
Belonging becomes more generous when newcomers can join without someone else having to lose their worth. A classroom, team or neighborhood can protect meaningful traditions and still make a new person welcome.
Choose one practical way to widen the circle: explain an unfamiliar activity, pronounce a name carefully, invite an overlooked contribution or ask what would help someone take part. Love becomes easier to recognize when it changes who has a place.
From understanding to living
A small practice. A real beginning.
Make room for someone’s growth while caring honestly for your own need for connection.
- Name the feeling underneath jealousy or disappointment.
- Ask for time or reassurance in plain, kind words.
- Notice something good in the person or opportunity you were resisting.
- Take one action that helps another person feel welcome.
Room for a bigger question
How wide can love become?
Could learning to love be part of why we are here? Might closeness to our Creator grow as our concern reaches beyond the people most like us?
Try sitting with that possibility. A widening love can begin very near: with one person you have misunderstood, one living thing you can care for, or one joy you can share without needing to own it.
Questions worth taking with you
Stay with the question.
- When has someone made room for you?
- What is the difference between wanting closeness and wanting control?
- Where might love be inviting your world to grow wider?
You do not need a polished answer. A conversation, a quiet walk, or a few lines on paper can be a beginning.
What beautiful thing could you notice if you stopped treating it as a rival?
Where this idea began: sources & story notes
The picnic is original fiction. Diotima’s ascent provides the theme of love widening our appreciation of beauty. The discussion of friendship, jealousy and family independence is our contemporary interpretation.
Niko, Mote and their friends appear in original fiction. Their dialogue is newly written for these stories.
Primary text: Plato · Symposium · 201d–212b, especially 210a–212a.
Research edition: Benjamin Jowett translation, public domain in the United States.