A Late Night Glueing Session

Of connections and lessons from fractional friendships

I didn’t find the one thing in common between people that remain in my life, whom I’ve met, adored and simply know that “they will be around”.

My attraction towards people who wander towards opposite spectrum of lifestyles, who lived their whole life believing in wild ideas that I never once got close to - my attraction to differences means I accumulate dyads of intimate and open friendships, that have absolutely nothing in common with each other.

Tonight, I think I finally glued the pieces together.

What finally struck me — after an amazing film, after a mirroring conversation with a dear friend, after countless thought attempts and questioning, dialogues after dialogues.

The single thing in common between everyone that has scratched and continue to scratch a significant (arguably, the same) mark in my life:

It’s not how much they have stimulated, taught or brought to me.

But the fact that each connection is a reinforcing, almost comforting reminder of how much of the world I know absolutely nothing about.

Time spent with these beloved people who stayed, translates to time when my ignorance is confronted through exposure, yet never with ridicule; with verisimilitude, yet never once with disfigurement.

Time I spent with these people lessens the space my ego is able to fill up (or in reverse, expands the air). It celebrates raw, bloody cluelessness, condemns superiority of one or another.

Recently I broke ties with few people I once adored, almost idolised (absolutely for the wrong reasons). After glueing the pieces together, I quickly realised why: I have misjudged their novelty as inspiration, without noticing that this novelty would also, eventually, assimilate into my world, bit by bit.

I never doubted their confidence, never related them to mediocrity, never imagined my ability to lift them up — because I never looked past the facade of novelty.

Whoever left, even though they might have originally entered my life as a person of wisdom and offered new ways of perceiving and knowing - they left, because they could only tell me what they know. But never how much they haven’t been made aware of.

Tonight, I think I’ve finally glued the pieces together.