It all boils down to attachment and fear. We want to think people like us. If they don't, then we become unimportant. We become afraid that we don't matter to anyone. Some of us like to be alone, but nobody likes loneliness.Yet so many of us are so damn lonely. And it grows worse.
We attach our validity to how people view us. It's Friday night--hey, whatcha doing? Let's chill. We go to a party that is filled with people looking for something they haven't got. It's easy to go out with people. But a genuine friend is the person that will stay home with you. Maybe you will watch a movie or share a meal. When you invite that friend into your home, you are showing them your identity. That friend knows what you treasure through your CDs and your books. That friend understands how you choose to live by the furniture you own. Your home is your inner sanctuary, your sacred space. Why invite someone who cannot appreciate who you are?
I like how Chaim Potok described friendship in his novel, The Chosen. A friend comes into your life like an accident. Before you know it, you are talking about everything in the world. Then one of you decides to share something--a secret, a habit, a belief--something no one knows. When the friends nods and accepts this revelation, you both have that gift of friendship. Your friend comes into your life when you are desperate to share something real. A friend understands. A friend gives back that same gift. You are no longer alone because there is one person out there who knows you aren't crazy. You are simply you. And that person wants your friendship.
We need to take friendship more seriously. A friend tells you the truth. A friend will listen to you. A friend may make mistakes, but if the friendship is honest, you learn to forgive. A friend is a teacher. A friend helps you learn who you are. For a while, all darkness is lifted, because your friend becomes your agent of light. No one is perfect, but with a friend, you are never alone.
A beautiful post...and nothing else need be said.
ReplyDeleteYep I take 'em seriously which is why I don't use the term lightly.
ReplyDeleteso well written...am sure it captures the thoughts of many...
ReplyDeleteThanks so much, guys.
ReplyDeleteWow. Now how do I respond to that? Thank you?
ReplyDeletei have a friend or maybe five
ReplyDeletewho love as i love them
who live so far away
yet are close within this heart
in currents that are lively
and in harmonic oversight
who share the secrets held
in dark corners of a mind
and gives them back unwrapped,
no longer tattered,
no longer rinds.
heck i'd be happy to just share a cup of coffee with you one day.
: )
(1) Hmmm. I have half a mind to probe Mush's comment, but won't.
ReplyDelete(2) Potok's characterization of friendship strikes me as romantic. Does it you?
(3) The first part of this post reminds me of a story Dustin Hoffman used to tell about Sir Lawrence Olivier. Between shooting breaks of The Marathon Man, Hoffman casually asked Olivier why he became an actor. Sir Lawrence pressed his face against Dustin's and replied, "Lookit me! Lookit me! Lookit me!"
The quest for FB friends seems more a quest for attention, the type that we typically lavish upon celebrities.
If you have two or three friends in your life, you are indeed lucky. The others are merely "people whose names you happen to know, and who maybe know yours."
ReplyDeleteA friend in need is a myth indeed.
ReplyDeletei only have two friends then. haha.
ReplyDeletebut it's true, real friends are like buildings - we need to build them.
SJ: I love your poetry!
ReplyDeleteGW: I try to avoid anything to do with Michael Vick or the Eagles. Still love the Phillies!
Jaya: That is a good way to put it. All relationships require building. Maybe that is why so many people feel isolated because it takes time and some people just don't have that time.
A Ball of Light: I would love the experience as well.
Lucy: I agree. This is why I cringe sometimes when my students talk about all their friends.
X--I think you have a point about Potok, as that is probably his lightest or least dark novel. His literature gets progressively darker as he goes on--after a while I stopped reading him, because I just couldn't get into the characters. But I guess I'm a believer in synchronicity. This year has been so stressful, and I've been amazed at who has showed me friendship and who has not. In some cases, they just didn't know how.
Good point. Sometimes people are at a loss to help. Or, they try to help, but only make things worse.
ReplyDeleteBTW, are you defecting from your hometown ChiSox?
Not at all. I love the Phillies in the National League, but if they ever played the Sox in the World Series, my loyalties lie with my hometown. My boy is a huge Phillies fan, and he told me that he would always root for the Phillies--well, he left Chicago when he was 4.
ReplyDeleteI first began noticing the ineptitude of the "sympathetic" individual when my mom died. They mean well, but they can screw up. My mom had been been dead a month when some lady came up to me to say:"Oh, hello Susan. I was a really good friend of your mother's. We-------together and she was just so lovely. What a great person. I'm sorry for your loss." That may not sound bad, but I didn't know this lady and it was just way too soon for me to deal with strangers. I knew she wasn't a close friend because all my mother's close friends were contacted when she got sick so suddenly. I couldn't even speak--I've never forgotten that--my face must have shown my shock and grief, because she suddenly had to go.
Susan, a friend can hear your heart beat, or catch a tear drop.... he or she knows when you need a deep breath of fresh air..... you are right ....
ReplyDeletefriendship is the highest characteristic of human expression.....
Well said, certainly.
ReplyDeleteMy evil reverse quip goes this way: "We want to think people like us. If they don't, then THEY become unimportant." Because, certainly, it shows what bad taste they have. This response is called either 1) self-esteem or 2) an ego-stenghtening activity