Port Washington: Hal and Schacht hobbled on opposite sides of the creed

The paradox embodied as a matched pair of failures: Hal "asymmetrically hobbled on the care-too-much side as Schacht is on the not-enough." Each has collapsed the creed toward one of its poles — Schacht into a "doom-gray surrender," Hal into a caring "so dreadfully secretly much" that it's already generating a psychic credit-card bill Schacht sees coming due. The scene frames the two friends as the two ways to get the balance wrong, which is why they can't discuss it: each is the other's cautionary example, and the healthy middle the doctrine demands is a place neither of them actually lives.