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In an extraordinary 1994 commencement address at Harvard, he spoke of the "barriers in my soul" that had prevented him from making connections with others. "I suppose it was a form of cynicism on my part," he said. "The brokenness that separates the cynic from others is the outward sign of an inner division between the head and the heart. There is something icily and unnaturally intellectual about the cynic. This isolation of intellect from feelings and emotions is the essence of his condition."
The outpouring of support he received after his son's accident, Gore said, helped him begin to seal that division. But even as he talks about his emotional voyage today, it is in the language of an observer, watching himself being watched in the role of the Soul-Searching Man. "That's part of the art of life. You bring the essence of who you are to whatever task you are performing," he told Time last week in his cabin aboard Air Force Two. Paper snowflakes dangled above his head, and a string of Christmas lights blinked on and off. "Everybody has aspects of their personality that are stronger than others. And part of becoming a well-integrated person involves the task of strengthening those aspects not necessarily emphasized in your previous growth."
In the past five years, Gore says, he has grown by helping Clinton confront one crisis after another. "It's a revelation the way excruciating world-class problems tend to come in clusters," he says. This was something of which he had no conception when the 39-year-old freshman Senator impulsively offered himself as a presidential candidate in 1988. There were few takers then. Now that he knows firsthand what the job costs and what it demands, is he still so eager to win it? Gore says he wants the job more than ever, but even that confession is hard to make. "It's probably an impolitic remark," he says. "But it's true."