There is an emerging pattern: you fall into sort-of-friendships. And as such, you wonder if it’s possible for you to have genuine friendships. What would that mean?
At first the other arrives on the scene, and there is a genuine eagerness to explore the possibilities of the other, to see what the relationship may bring up, to see how far it can go, and so on. You encounter; you test the water; you manifest what you imagine to be your highest tastes. In short, you enter into the scene very conscious of how you are being understood by the other. The other has a narrative about themselves and the world and you try to feel it, feel what its like to be that person. If you see some possibility, if you sense that there is a meeting of interests you get the other to like you. You do a lot of stuff that you really don’t want to do, but it is done with the view of opening yourself up to the others way of being, to bring out into the scene your deepest way of being. You desire something that will only come when it’s possible to say anything and to be utterly honest with the other. So, you are flawless for a time in your relations. You pay debts, you yield favors for favors; and then, as if you’ve come to the end of a chapter, something invariably happens: you cease to care. You sense there is nothing they may teach you. And it’s a chore to be with them; the same tendencies come up, the same awkwardness. Trapped. There is both a wanting to hang out with the other and a notation that it will be a waste of time. The aloneness makes you look around and think about what to do with yourself: what books to read, what to do this afternoon, this evening.
This, of course, occurs with individuals as well as with groups. But the upshot is usually the same, you tend to look about you and see how off your situation is. You always walk onto a path or stop at a street corner and wham – an attractive couple talking softly. The yearning comes. You berate your awkwardness, your lack of confidence. You blame poor parental upbringing, yourself, society, and god. The mixed-up quality regarding the faltering sort-of-friendship becomes more apparent and pronounced in your thoughts. Blah, blah, blah, right? It goes around and around. Stupid thought, the body dull, irritation, on edged-ness, and yet you are apathetic.
And through this process, you just want yourself to shut up. You’ve heard all this before, the circular sensational thinking. You want to operate differently, on a higher level. Quiet down.
Down the path you forget the intention – It falls out of the pouch strapped to your middle. And since it’s the intention that points the way both the heat and the wind start to get to you. You start hiding behind big, mangled trees along the side of the road to block out the piercing of the sun. When the wind picks up you take to throwing yourself onto the ground and covering your body with your sleeping bag. And behind the tree and under the sleeping bag, you complain about the state of the path: it’s lined with sharp bushes that hurt your legs, and the road itself is washed out and rugged, which doesn’t help much, either. And you go on complaining until its dark and your cold. You fall asleep. The next day you can’t remember which way you were suppose to be heading – it looks the same in every direction. So you keep up the game: you duck under the wind, you hide from the sun. On and on it goes until you stumble upon the intention. You look at your pouch and notice it was empty. You pick it up and feel it. And so it goes.
Friendship dies so long as there is hiding. Risk. Risk is good.
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