In my ever changing perception of life, I stare at the enveloping skies above and think of the world and consequently, life, in the context of a huge fabric. Likened to the patterns made by the clouds, birds and whatever else makes the sky occasionally ‘embroidered’, I think of these relationships we have amongst each other as stitches. Stitches – big or small, pretty or not, dull or colourful, interesting – stitches nonetheless. These stitches make one life distinct from any other; these stitches determine our uniqueness!
As a starting point to an insight into the different psychological make-ups of these relationships, think about the moment a baby takes its first breath. Commonly if born into an ordinary nuclear family, this is followed shortly by skin-to-skin contact with its mother, a cuddle with its father and perhaps its first attempt at suckling for food. In an old Chinese language, the bond between a mother and child is often contrasted against the connection between the ten fingers and the heart. Put your hand on your heart, unarguably, there is the physical distance in-between; however, if you cut off the hand, it hurts like hell! Indeed romance fails us and so do friendships, but the relationship between parent and child, less noisy than all the others, remains indelible and indestructible, the strongest relationship on earth, so much so that no bond has proved to be stronger. The love between a man and a woman instantly becomes more intense by experiencing the birth of their child. The love the child has for its mother naturally extends to its father, because in effect, its father is an extension of its mother. In one miraculous moment, a family relationship of passionate devotion is born! As the family grows, the love extends to other siblings and the child’s family becomes its first experience of any social obligation in life. From this relationship one begins to understand the concept of attitudes and behaviours. In learning the complexities of siblings’ behaviours, the child understands that while some types of behaviour are acceptable to him/her, others simply are not. The child learns to manipulate these attitudes to adapt to his/her own needs. The family relationship is paradoxical. It requires the most intense love on the family’s side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the family and become fully independent. And it begins!
As a direct consequence of ‘cutting the apron strings’, we form ‘friendships’. Some of these friendships are as a result of behaviours learnt whilst part of our family unit, and others are formed based on our own little peculiarities. ‘Friends are the family we choose for ourselves’, while this quote is at best, really cheesy, it bears some semblance with the truth because the prototypes which friendships take in our lives are similar to big tree - a huge, successful oak tree for example. It has many branches. It started out as a seedling. Along the way it became a little tree and developed a few branches. Unfortunately, along the trail of its growth, some of these branches broke off. During the process of metamorphosing from seedling to tree, new branches formed at random stages; there was no protocol for the formation of these new branches. Apparently, the essence of true friendship is to make allowances for another’s little lapses. When a little rot becomes a huge life threatening disease, it is then probably less destructive to wither it out permanently, hence the reason why the branch got lost. Alternatively, there was a natural disaster, a huge storm or wild fire which by no fault or interference caused the branch to fall of its own volition. The former refers to cases where friendships are intentionally terminated for lack of compatibility, while the latter, to situations where both parties grow up to understand life differently and consequently no longer speak the same language. The new branch being formed randomly along the way is much akin to the saying that some of life’s truest happiness is found in friendships we make along the way. Much of the vitality in a friendship lies in the honouring of differences, not simply in the enjoyment of the similarities. While you never find an orange growing off an apple tree, it is rare, but not a total impossibility to find a white rose amongst red roses. This indeed is rare but rare in this case is most beautiful. Whether formed from childhood, or in old age, by and by, no distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each others worth.
Perhaps learning to be a good friend is the requisite a,b,c in the genesis of a romantic interest. After all, according to Jeremy Taylor, love is friendship set on fire! Often mind-set developed in our prelapsarian days establishes the foundation of our personalities. Traits similar or dissimilar in another person will often form the object of desirability. The unity of two people in love is the direct experimentation by these two people of the social skills required to survive in life. Elizabeth Ashley said, ‘in a great romance, each person plays the part the other really likes’. A direct corollary of this hopefully is a romance which ends up being a life time commitment. Sometimes, this is attainable, but the nature of life is such that in love there are no guarantees. Should the former be the case, boy meets girl, both fall deeply in love with each other, and life permitting, they start their own family. And thus the cycle of relationships being a birth to death experience starts all over again, i.e. the first breath of life is taken, and so on and so forth.
Relationships therefore, are a fundamental trend of life which we learn more about as we grow older and wiser. In doing so however, the deep-seated issues that come to light are skills that if applied correctly, could potentially lead to a lifetime of happiness. This bears its axis on the ability to create a balance in our relationships, skills which do not come easy at all. The vital elements are acceptance, forgiveness, compromise and greatest of all, love!
If we can love without season or ceasing, it reflects in the active relationships we create with other people. At the end of life, we look back at our fabric of life and realise that these stitches determine how we lived! For when the stitches were rough and unpretty, we took it with a metaphorical smile and moved on. The result was that the stitches subsequent to that were schooled to be absolutely beautiful. We cannot dictate the way the world reacts to us, but we certainly can dictate the way we react to the world. It is therefore up to you to make your stitches beautiful!
Here’s wishing you beautiful stitches while creating your cycle of life, good luck!
;-)
Sally
1 comment:
Good stuff!
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