Taming

Too many people, too little time.

I've been blessed to live in places where there have been an abundance of people to whom I can easily relate and get along with.  Actually, I have a theory that you could be friends with almost anyone, because people are generally awesome once you get them talking.  But regardless of that, I still think I've been put in places where I have an extraordinary amount in common with an extraordinary amount of people.  Which leads to a problem: we are finite creatures which means that we only have a finite amount of time to spend with other people.  There are lots of people, lots of personalities to which I am drawn.  There are many people about whom I've thought, "we could be really good friends."  But there are only so many people that you can know in any meaningful way, and even fewer that you can become really close with.  (Sociologists would agree.)  So how is one to choose? How is one supposed to figure out who, out of all the smart, funny, relatable people that one could know, are the smartest, funniest, and most relatable?  Is it even possible to find the "perfect" friend?

What I've come to realize, is that the people you end up knowing and knowing well are random.  You happen to do the same activities as a certain person, live near a person, belong to the same organizations as a person, have a number of the same classes as a person.  Chance circumstances have a lot to do with who you know.  I think this used to bother me.  Its especially troubling, I would imagine, when it comes to things like deciding whom to marry.  How can anyone be "the one," the perfect match when who you get to know seems random anyway.  I remember once making a list (I was like thirteen at the time) of all the pretty girls I knew and ranking them according to categories like 'looks,' 'personality,' 'intelligence,' etc. all so that I could come to some sort of rational basis for choosing to set my affections on one of them.  But what thirteen year old me didn't realize is that love has its own dynamic, its own internal 'logic,' which cannot be captured by mere rationality.

I thank Antoine de Saint-Exupéry for giving me the language to express what I have come to realize over time.  "Taming" is the secret to how one rose, that at first looks just like any other rose on the bush, can become the most beautiful flower in the world.  It is the secret to how one person, not much different from any other person, can become a special friend. In The Little Prince, this is expressed perfectly in the dialogue between the little prince and the fox.  The fox explains to the little prince that if he wants to have friends, he needs to 'tame' someone, which is 'to establish ties.'  He says:

To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys.  And I have no need of you.  And you, on your part, have no need of me.  To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes.  But if you tame me, then we shall need each other.  To me, you will be unique in all the world.  To you, I shall be unique in all the world.

This is what it means to be in relationship with someone.  It means to put yourself in a position of vulnerability, a position of needing someone.  It's this process of coming to know someone that makes them stand out, that makes them important to you.  And I think this is what makes the question of whether the people we know are the 'best' people we could know a silly one.  To tame someone is to know them, to let them enter your heart, to care about them and let them care about you.  They may not be the best or the brightest, but that's okay because they are the ones you know.  There is a freedom here to not question why you are friends with someone (and not someone else) but to accept the fact that they have become unique to you and to accept the 'logic' of love.

"'Go and look again at the roses,' [said the fox,] "You will understand now that yours [the one the little prince left on his home planet] is unique in all the world."
. . .

"The little prince went away, to look again at the roses."
. . . 

"[To the roses he said], 'You are beautiful, but you are empty...One could not die for you.  To be sure, and ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me.  But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing.  Because she is my rose.'"
. . .
"And he went back to meet the fox"
. . .
"' Goodbye,' said the fox. 'And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
. . .
"'It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.'"
. . .
"'Men have forgotten this truth, but you must not forget it.  You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.  You are responsible for your rose...'"

This, I think, is what it is to truly live.  It is to tame others, and to let ourselves be tamed.  It is to waste time with people, because that is kind of what other people are there for.  And when we do this, it enables us to see others in a way that no one else sees them.  And we when we do this, we allow others to have a claim on us...forever.

To everyone whom I have had the great pleasure of getting to know in little ways or in big ways: thank you.  Even if that fact that we are both finite means I haven't yet gotten to know you as well as I would like, you should know that you really have made a difference in my life.  All of you.  So thank you.