Peer/Friend and thoughts about The Memory of Earth

A warm day. Nice and blue with little, if any, wind. It was pretty awful. You felt dull and drained from a night of drinking with friends. Acquaintances, really. You’d call them friends in normal conversation but not to yourself. They were acquaintances because 1. at bottom you didn’t feel as if you could relate to them and 2. you didn’t sense as though it would be helpful to speak seriously with then to move things toward self-disclosure. They were peers, of course, but again only in normal conversation. To yourself a peer and a friend were nearly the same thing. The terms both implied similarities in lifestyle. For instance, a peer is someone who you can relate to because they share with you a role, a niche, in a society. A peer is someone who is at the same level of development as you and who is likewise endeavoring to move in the same subtle direction. In short to be a peer is to encounter similar problems and confusions. To contrast this, a friend is someone whose disclosure of the path is possible and who finds sharing enjoyable. So a friend is a little more than a peer and a peer is a little more than someone of similar date of birth.

You forget about flourishing sometimes.

Maybe it is lost in a sense of injustice: the conditions seem all wrong, they don’t let you grow, no one around here is of any value, has ever said anything worthy of the effort of speech. This rebellious Margo Roth Spegelman thing.

The curative imaginings: go off and ‘get it’; move in with her and intimately share.

The movement of the tao.

You occasionally grasp this insight that you have had in the past. The insight is: there is only the circumstance, and everything flows from it. From this perspective its perhaps impossible to get angry with oneself and other people because there is no other possibility of movement. Yet it is confusing.

Getting up early may be helpful. The social guilt or shame will not be a variable.

“I felt like is was something being done to me instead of something we were doing together.” (The Memory of Earth by Orson Scott Card, pg 20-21)

Thoughts on The Memory of Earth:

• The conflicts of movements of transitional-adults, the unease of relationships of those beyond who feel themselves being usurped in someway.
• The curative imaginings: go off and ‘get it’; move in with her and intimately share, quiet down, be well, figure out.
• It is necessary to move beyond instinct in order to develop. In fact nature is urging one not to.

Sort-of-Friendship and the Path without Risk

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.

A Night Out And A Walk Back To High School

You walk to your old high school with Shane today. You plan to time each other running a mile around the track. You tell him about yesterdays outing with Garrett N briefly. You say that you probably won’t hang out with him anymore unless it’s with a group of people. You’d hoped he had a part of him that was genuinely grounded and growth-centered but you didn’t really encounter it.

Yesterday afternoon you go to the café, drink coffee, write about the ‘narrative’ that you have developed with Nick, and read from ‘The Transparent Self’. When you finish your latte you spend an hour or so in the library reading some more.

You get the idea to call up Garrett N., perhaps talk to him about writing – the purpose, the impulse, and the function.

You pick him up around five. You decide to eat Mexican food. He mentions that Austin might be on his lunch break around the time we will be eating. Maybe he could eat with us?

You like Austin, but you wish to see Garrett N. alone so that you may see if he has anything to say about writing. However, you don’t know how to go about maneuvering this kind of thing. Before Austin arrives you sip your hot tea and ask Garrett N. what it is that he goes about doing when he writes, what is the movement that brings one to it? He thinks about it and then gives through away answers until Austin shows up. You eat one tamale, a chicken taco, and rice and beans. Austin mentions the plot of a horror movie that you think about throughout the night.

Walking out Garrett N. wonders if what else we might do. He mentions a billiards bar not to far away. You might be able to talk to him more intimately there.

You order a Heineken. They don’t take plastic. You’ll pay Garrett N. back. You play some pool. When people begin to show up it becomes clear that Garrett N. hasn’t much to say to you really. He takes a lot of smoke and bathroom breaks. He talks to a lot of nearby patrons. You end up sitting by yourself much of the time waiting for him to come back to take his turn. When he returns he apologizes profusely. He does this ad nauseam. You think about leaving; you text Vanessa and Shane as something to do. You don’t really drink because you’re driving. When Garrett N. does talk to you its about music, panic attacks, or our small circle of mutual acquaintances. You’re bored, unconnected, and tired from hiking the day before.

Austin shows up around 9, and a whole bunch of other familiar people drizzle in as well. You notice Kelly, and Everett and his girlfriend. Perhaps you’ll play music with Kelly in a day or two. You have to tell Everett about your situation with school because he wonders why you’re not in Washington. You ask him about VTC.

Near 10:30 or so you finally get up the nerve to tell Garrett N. that you’re going to take off. He asks if it’s cool that he can finish his beer. While waiting you notice Doug, an old high school friend. You stand and watch him play pool for a minute before initiating conversation. It is so weird to see him. You catch each other up briefly. There’s a lot of unresolved stuff between you and him but it’s not too hard to talk. He gives you his number and tells you to give him a call – he’s in town for a while. Perhaps it would be good to meet up with him, figure things out.

Garrett N. ends up staying at the bar. He gets a ride from a friend’s friend who plans to stay until they throw him out. You stand outside and talk to the guy while he has a cigarette. He offers you one and you take it – well, you take Garrett N.’s, because he pulls his out faster. He’s pretty cool actually, Ryan. You both laugh at this guy that Garrett N. starts talking to: a car salesman who starts free styling. This other guy walks out to smoke and stars talking to you too. He’s Hungarian and works for a drinking water company. He starts talking about not trusting people, not even himself. You say that that’s pretty natural, not trusting yourself. He say’s that he thinks he is talking to a shrink; you go: maybe it’s the collared shirt. When you say goodbye and leave he tells you to remember what he said, but he didn’t really say anything because he was mumbling and drunk.

You make some tea for yourself and Garrett (your brother) when you get home. You talk to him about Avatar The Last Airbender. You check your grades online before you go to sleep. You passed your life management course but not your statistics one.

You walk from Shane’s house to the track. He begins to talk about his relations with a young woman who you vaguely remember from high school. He spends a lot of time articulating himself about it: she has just finished university, is back in town, is potentially moving to Chicago soon. He has recently spent good time with her, growth-centered, intimate, caring, I-Thou time. But there arises some blocks. The relationship began with the notation that it was casual and potentially finite. Shane has come to appreciate and care, nevertheless. As she heads to Chicago for an interview of some kind Shane wishes to see her off correctly. Perhaps there is a need for her to maintain control of those factors that commit her – she is after all only 22, just out of the forming institution. Shane wants to see her the morning she leaves – not too sure why, but thinks its right. He reads you some text messages: he comes off as a bit irritating and clinging perhaps. She reacts a small bit, boxed in, suggests she is disappointed in him, didn’t we address the ground rules? From here Shane begins to be possessed by the potentiality that it’s not as important to her as to him, just another notch on the old belt. He goes over all this with you. You get him to further articulate and translate. You wonder what he wants - from you here and now, from her. You suggest the interpretation that comes to you most warmly: that even though she supposedly never gets angry, finds positive in his weaknesses, and is refreshingly mature – things he finds appealing about her - that she was feeling not so competent about her interview, has not yet defined their relationship to herself, that the two pulls resulted in an imprisoning feeling. You suggest that he write about all of this to himself, that ‘what to do’ will drain out of it. You say its good that you have experienced this kind of thing, it opens yourself up to yourself. Emotional intelligence is about filtering out those possessing movements and reinstating activity that you can will, can get behind. You say that when you meet her next that he should prepare for it, get silent to himself.

You run a mile around the track as Shane times you. You get tired on the third lap. You think about Vanessa – a sort of uplifting image or trajectory. It helps some. You stay with your breath and your body when the pain sets in. Shane says 5:03 when you finish the third lap. You pick up your pace, its not so far really. You finish at 6:38. You hadn’t done this, really tried to run a mile, since perhaps junior high. You’re reasonably satisfied.

You walk and jog with Shane a bit afterwards. You talk rather loudly about erections, now versus in high school, as this fellow passes by on the track. When you sense someone behind you, you turn around. He goes: Its okay, I can just pass you by here. He walks on the grass to your left.

You walk back to his house talking about the meaning of Donnie Darko, the death of the community, and ‘honesty’. You plan to go to waller park to eat and chill out. You make tuna sandwiches, walk to your house, put on warmer clothes and have some tea.

You listen to the Donnie Darko soundtrack on the way. Its just right. When you eat the sun is going down and the wind sets about a chill but it becomes clear to you how wonderful and just-so it is being with Shane. He is the type of person you can be yourself with. It’s good that you are friends. Its not bullshit at all.

When you drop him off, you don’t even talk about what you are doing. Its just obvious that this is what we are doing. It is just-so. It means we are tired, but not tired of each other. He says lately he has been looking forward to taking showers. You say that you keep expecting to run into Tom. That every gray haired slim fellow you walk past makes you turn your head to get a glimpse. He says that today was a good day, that he tries to think about the day near the end of it. You listen to nice music from the 5^th and 6^th Harry Potter films as you drop him off. The first track is somber and the second track is whimsical. You take a bath when you get home. Trish talks with you in a wonderfully warm way regarding school. She hugs you and wants you to be doing it for you. You say you will sleep on what to do regarding your failed class.