Friends

Asymmetrical or not, friendship is a truly amazing part of human life.

It has always been extremely important to me to have a friend. It has changed a lot, of course, exactly what that means, over time.

There are people ‘out there’ whom I think of as friends, though we have never met and probably will never meet. People I interact with here and on social media platforms. We meet in the world of words, images, the virtual, and there is a sense of connection that sparks. A recognition.

Some friendships I enjoy today started as virtual but migrated over months or years into interactions on the phone, Messenger, or WhatsApp, as well as perhaps meeting once or twice in person. In other cases they began in person and have veered to virtual and back again. I only met two of my cousins for the first time when we were teenagers and for a very long time the connection was tenuous. However over the past decade or so we have gradually been getting to know each other much better.

Felt Time

One of the aspects of subjective time that can be most mind-bending is how easy it can be in a short span of time to feel close to someone. Unfortunately it can go the other way as well, and someone who was the closest friend can be lost in the blink of an eye if the casus belli was extreme enough.

I have met people with whom I had instant affinity. I ‘warmed’ to them right away. We got each other. And after chatting for an hour or so, they were gone, never to be encountered again.

There are others I have known for decades. They still feel like a closed book. Very little affinity there.

The other time bendy thing that happens is in the moment, the feeling of closeness and delight can seem endless and also time can speed up so. They go away, and time resumes its ‘normal’ plodding pace.

Asymmetry

I spoke in an earlier post about one side of asymmetry, longing to know a friend better and to have them consider me as close to them as I consider them, but there is the other side that has come to the fore, as I think on it now. Friends I reach out to because I am concerned about them. I enjoy their company. It’s good to be with them. There is not though much self-disclosure on my part.

In pondering the necessity of asymmetry in friendships and other important kinds of relationships, my mind turned to Beethoven. This blog talks about his string quartet which seems to have a kind of musical joke within it.

Muß es sein?

Es muß sein!

Whether it is in fact light and funny, or actually heavy and painful, it must be.

The Consolations of Friendship

I am quite an extraverted person. I tend to spend hours in a given day in various conversations with my friends and family, thinking out loud together about various things that come up. It’s lovely.

Partly because I wish to think out loud about it, and partly wanting the company, when I’m upset or puzzled about something, I usually reach for a friend. It is amazing to have people in my life during intense feeling moments, when I need to rant about something, or cry, and laugh so hard.

Those who have known me for years know that I can ‘go dark’ for lengthy times too, during a depression, a low. Sometimes when I am feeling well and happy, there is something troubling me underneath enough that I need to work it through alone, in writing partly, but mostly just spending an unusual amount of time pondering it.

My friends are incredibly patient and kind either way, bearing under cloudbursts of intensity, or waiting months or years for me to return to them.

Cold Skin

I am not even remotely a fan of horror as a genre. But the book written originally in Catalan by Albert Sanchez Pinol, Cold Skin, has an intriguing first paragraph:

We are never very far from those we hate. For this very reason, we shall never be truly close to those we love. An appalling fact, I knew it well enough when I embarked. But some truths deserve our attention; others are best left alone.

I may or may not read the book. What interests me though is this proximity/distance problem it sets up at the onset. Close to those hated, never truly close to those loved. That in and of itself encapsulates a tremendous amount of suffering. Is it true? I would have to read the book to understand more about what the author intends.

One thing I do know is that it is impossible to be fully oned with those we love. No amount of physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological intimacy completely bridges the gap. For the most skilled empath, the most ardent practictioner of nondual mysticism, the gap may be slimmer. It may feel close to imperceptible.

Ultimately though humans remain existentially alone in the closest relationships, and I suppose, do not achieve much separation either from what they seek to ‘other’, as it is part of them, part of us.

Thus the appeal of romantic fiction, finding a closer union through joining thoughts as Vulcans do in the mind-meld, or through the vampiric ability to learn the most profound secrets about one’s beloved as described in Deborah Harkness’ All Souls Trilogy and subsequent books. Humans wish more than anything not to be alone, to remain in the bliss of Awareness and oneness with everything without interruption.

Instead, though, we have this human existence.

These dear friends.

At best for most of us, intermittent experiences of Awareness and oneness.

Muß es sein?

Es muß sein!