today

"friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... it has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival."
~ C. S. Lewis

how good to have friends, people that we can merge ourselves with; the refraction of perspectives gives telescopic sight. what we can bounce off of a friend is a concept, a notion of ourselves that we have gathered, and we present it freely...a concept which is taken, and puttied, and molded in another mind, mirrored, until we really begin to get a better idea of what we meant in the first place. they can show us things, they can take us farther...obliterating our boundaries and creating impressions of some unexplored territory to the east. they will notice different things, they will append our own selves until we begin to merge the lines and become confused. and then they position us, they help us to see where we fit within this larger picture. they bring our artisan selves, our works and spirit, to places that we have not physically or emotionally been to. places that we shall not know for some time, but which could alter our way of looking at life.

my friends are powerful forces. for them i would burn my books, my money, my car, my apartment. i would sacrifice these things to do real good for them. time is never 'spent' with them; it is savored thoroughly. it is crafted and shared. to spend time is the function of a job, lathing away wafer-thin slices of us so as to preserve the rest (for what else is the remainder intended?) and in the space with our friends, in nurturing environments, we grow back to our former selves. we relearn skills, we reconstruct our memories which had been partially-stripped. we are the children of our freely-chosen experiences.

so damn, it's great to be here. my people build me up, when i am down; they recall the shapes that i am missing at any given time (which takes a fair bit of analysis and knowledge of myself on their part), conjure them from our shared spaces, energies, and present them to me swathed in new packaging. or forgotten packaging, which is the best sort. i could only hope to do them this same service when it is needed. there is responsibility inherent in knowing someone (if they can be said to be 'known'), that we must keep vigil over them for when they are in a time of need. we all need, at some point. being close, that is really something to be proud of....not independence, which callously walls the heart against hope.

i hope some of that made sense.

"treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being."
~ Goethe