Discover Friends, Fill the Void
25, Mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Void of Empty Lives
As a rookie police officer in San Jose I responded to a call. I learned from the caller that her family suffered challenges much greater than being the victims of theft. They lived in a gorgeous suburban house in a beautiful neighborhood with well-manicured yards. In her time of sorrow I mentioned that she might want to reach out to friends and neighbors for comfort, advice and healing. Sadly, she said, “I don’t have any friends. We moved here several years ago, but don’t even so much as know the names of any of our neighbors.” I had no response to the empty feeling she conveyed.
Recently I was visiting with my brother and his family in a similar neighborhood. While visiting, the course of conversation turned to the lack of social contact within the neighborhood. “Nobody talks to anybody.” I chimed in since I had spoken with the next door neighbor earlier in the day, or so I thought. I commented that he was a really nice guy. Everyone was pretty shocked; he never talked to anyone. I told everyone how I was impressed that he took a few moments from mowing the lawn to talk to me. “That was the gardener!” Oh, well he was sure a nice guy! I’d take him as my neighbor any day.
Later that day, I observed the real occupant of the house as he arrived home. He got out of his car, and walked directly to retrieve the trash bin at the curb. He promptly went in the house and closed the door. He diligently made sure that his gaze could not connect with mine, at all.
The gardener was engaging and interested in my well-being. Neither one of was planning how to react to one another. There was no fear, no stress. I’m pretty sure that he had not taken a class in making friends, I hadn’t. The interaction came naturally to both of us.
Social Heritage
The knack for forming friendships is in our nature. Unfortunately our modern society tends to mask our natural instinct. We become too busy or too preoccupied, or too scared.
The reality is that as a species we are social. We want to and need to understand and support each other. We evolved to where we are because we learned to do things together and to conquer challenges. Historically, our social network provided us with food, shelter, protection and association. With the gift of language to communicate complex thoughts, ideas and emotions we were destined not only to survive, but to thrive. We are meant to share our joy and carry one another’s burdens.
Friends are of vital importance to our whole being. Alone we may subsist for a time, but we cannot thrive. Family and friends are key to our happiness and fulfillment. Without our social interactions, we are subject to withering away. This is why solitary confinement is considered such a harsh punishment.
Loneliness
On October 2, 1959, author Rod Serling aired “Where is Everybody?” This was the first episode of the series, ‘The Twilight Zone’, where Serling addressed our deepest fears. The first fear he chose to share was about loneliness. The episode portrays an astronaut who had been placed in a hangar in total isolation for 484 hours and 36 minutes. The idea was to simulate what a man would have to go through if traveling in space by himself over a prolonged period of time. In his dreams the character stepped into a town that he had created in his imagination. It was a mental attempt to create a world to escape from loneliness. But his mind was not quite able to fictionalize people to populate the town. The trauma of isolation took him to the brink and ended the experiment. The effects of the isolation on the astronaut led the observing commander to conclude, “The barrier of loneliness — that’s the one thing we haven’t licked yet.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Where_Is_Everybody%3F
More recently, in 2015 a reality TV show, “Alone” performs the experiment of dropping ten individual survival experts in ten separate locations on a forested island in northern Vancouver, offering $500,000 to the person that lasted the longest. They are given cameras to document their ordeal along with minimal gear. Constructing shelter, building fire, finding and preparing food and dealing with dangerous predators were tremendous challenges. But the greatest challenge was the complete separation from family, friends and any human contact.
http://www.history.com/shows/alone/season-1/episode-10
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alone_(2015_TV_series)
Communities
As you travel to villages and older neighborhoods in southern Europe and Latin America you will find unadorned houses, each with a front door that leads directly onto the sidewalk. Initially it doesn’t appear to be at all inviting. However, the design, like a protective corral comes from a societal structure where a common patio was contained in the center of the block. The men would leave to work while their wives would go into the patio to watch over the children, do laundry and cook and perform other chores together as a community.
In the United States, before the advent of air conditioning, it made perfect sense to provide a large porch, a shaded place to spend late afternoons out of the heat that had built up in the house all day. Families would sit out on the porch or go for walks in the neighborhood to cool off and to socialize. When air conditioning came along, the porches became vacant. Walks through the neighborhood have become less interesting because there are fewer people to visit with at their porch.
How-To’s of Friendship
There are many sources on what friendship is, how to make friends, and how to categorize and maintain friendships. How-to guides on the topic of friendship abound. These guides give us ideas on how to break from cultural aspects that smother our natural inclination toward friend shipping.
Last summer while on a weekly hike with a friend, I was inspired by his experiences and his life skills. He laid out to me the path of service he is building. The process of sharing helped him gain more clarity in his goals. I grew to admire him more and more as I saw his depth of character surface. Learning to deal with the untimely death of his father several years earlier, he spent a lot of time alone in deep introspection. He found great healing in developing a relationship with outdoor adventure. As his healing continued, he realized that he had to reach out. He felt compelled to share his discovery, with friends. He described in great detail his dreams of bringing others into the wild to come to know themselves and escape from the “baggage and chatter” of life.
I was surprised with his request, “Can you teach me how make friends?” He wanted nothing more than to share his joy with others. Yet friendships were already flowing in his direction.
I thought back on how he and I had met and began our tradition of weekly hikes. He was working at an outdoor equipment store. I walked into the store and saw him facing away from me. From the back I thought he was someone else. I slapped him on the shoulder. My first thought was, “Oh-oh!! Startled, he turned around and challenged me, “Who are you?” Rather than apologizing and walking away, I went deeper, “I am one of your best friends ever.” He asked, “Well then, what do you like to do?” We started our weekly outings. No fear, no expectations. Through our experiences we drew close and came to know each other well. We have also come to know ourselves better, fortifying our dreams and purposes in life. Our combined experiences continue opening doors. We now see each other two or three times a year. We share our friend-shipping experiences.
Abundance
Though not always immediately apparent, friendships are not in short supply. Expanding your sphere of friends begins by learning to know and accept yourself, and more importantly learning to get to know and accept others. Think back on your experiences and note how friends have helped you define who you are. Friends share your joys and carry your burdens.
If we allow our God-given instinct to thrive, friendships will forever flow into our lives like the waters of an artesian well. The possibilities and benefits are endless.
