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.

The Sacrament of the Present Moment

Different paths led us here.  We each came here on our own journey.  And soon we will follow different paths away from here.  For our journeys are different.  But what matters is that now, in the present, they overlap.  We cover the same ground. We take in the same scenery, pass by the same waypoints, and even share the company of the same fellow travellers.

Sometimes I think the sadness that sometimes falls between us is not so much because the part of the journey we have together is so short, but because each of us can't understand the path the other must take in the end.  I can only really know what it is like to travel the journey I was given, and you yours.  In the end, my path is not to be your path, and your path is not to be my path.  This keeps us apart even now.  For how can I understand you, if your path and mine are not the same?

But come, let us walk together for as long as we can.

The Searcher

Bill smiled to himself.  The symbolism could not have been clearer.  (Or was it symbolism?  Bill had forgotten nearly everything from his college semiotics class.  In any case the meaning was obvious.) There was the answer staring him directly in the face.  His thoughts jumped back to last night.  Not that they had far to jump.  All day thoughts of last night had been rolling around in his head.  Last night had been one of those rare, wonderful moments in time that you can't really be sure will ever happen again.  If Bill had counted the moments like this that he could remember (moments that were by definition unforgettable), they would have fit on one hand for sure.  Close friendships are rare enough, he mused.  But then there are those moments, that you certainly cannot control or try to make happen, when those barriers that keep even kindred spirits apart are removed or let down.  Perhaps it was the calm of the night. (It was almost always at night, wasn't it?)  Perhaps it was the impermanence of their situation.  No, this was not their final parting of ways, but the impending, albeit temporary, spatial separation was in someways a microcosm of a much more permanent separation they knew would eventually be coming.  Whatever it was, the conversation ran deeper than usual.  "The meaning of life" would be an apt way to describe its content, although Bill meant that in the most inclusive sense possible.  Bill had decided long ago that the meaning of life had something to do with music, religion, and sex.  No other things have quite the power to captivate and are so central to the human experience.  (If you are a tone-deaf, impotent atheist, you probably don't have much to live for, Bill figured.  Bill also liked having an excuse to introduce people to the term "hemidemisemiquaver.") But it was obviously more than just the content of the conversation that made last night so special, Bill thought.  It had to be the people he was with.  Maybe he should add friendship to his "meaning of life" list.  He had never wanted so much just to pause time.  He didn't care that he was now doing manual labor on barely two hours of sleep.   Bill would have gladly done it all over again.  It just added to the a strange, wonderful, indescribable, and oddly dissatisfied feeling had pervaded him all day.  Yes, dissatisfied.  That was the part that Bill hadn't quite understood until now.  Strange, because they had even talked about this very thing, about Augustinian restlessness, about how humans can't quite ever be satisfied, and about how the best sources attest that the most ecstatic human experiences only make the ache, the longing, the dissatisfaction even worse.  Hadn't C.S. Lewis called this Sehnsucht?  Hadn't Tolkien mentioned "regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness"?  Of course, Bill had felt this restlessness before, and accepted the received wisdom that it only gets stronger the more ecstatic your experience.  But he had never felt it to quite this extent before.  Usually, it was the chance sighting of a pretty face that would drive him crazy.  But the happiest things he could remember?  Not so much.  This was probably why he didn't know what to make of his dissatisfaction, until now.  But there it was, the answer staring him directly in the face.  (It's all in Lewis, all in Lewis! He was right after all!)  Or perhaps more correctly, pounding his eardrums. Someone nearby was playing music.  Overall, not a bad selection, Bill had thought.  It sort of makes the day less monotonous.  But then a song by U2 came on.  Bill had always enjoyed U2, and this song in particular, but hadn't really paid close attention to the lyrics until now. 


I have climbed the highest mountains
I have run through the fields
Only to be with you
Only to be with you...


...I have kissed honey lips
Felt the healing in her finger tips
It burned like fire
I was burning inside her...


...But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for
But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for


Bill couldn't help but smile.  It all made sense now.  Last night was but another reminder that no matter how much we seek, even though we reach the very heights of human experience, we won't ever find quite what we are looking for.  Not in this lifetime, anyway.

The Best is Yet to Come

“The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.”  
- Madeleine L'Engle

For a student, Spring presents a paradox of sorts.  Just as nature is teeming with new life and promise, the year (the one that matters most to us students, the academic) comes to an end.  Granted, this is usually a much anticipated end, and certainly one which comes in the fullness of its time.  This end also marks new beginnings.  Always it marks the beginning of summer, and for those graduating, the beginning of an entirely new phase of life.   It is just the way of the world that "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." (Words which apparently belong to Seneca, as much as to Semisonic.)  But no matter how exciting these beginnings are, there is a  certain sadness that still comes with the ending.  I have to say goodbye to seniors I know who are graduating, and I don't know when I will see them next.  Moreover, this is all a reminder that I have just one short year left myself.  At the end of that time, I will have to say many goodbyes, and to part ways with many people.  We were travellers together for awhile, and now we are to be no longer.  Our paths may cross again; they likely will, but it won't every really be the same.  Time gradually takes is toll, leveling out emotions, weakening our bonds.  Close friendships fade.  Weeks become months become years.  The tragedy is not the parting; it's that eventually the parting no longer seems tragic.

Yet, if there is one thing I have learned over the past few months, it's that life is constantly going to surprise you.  It's hard to describe, but I didn't have the Spring semester I expected to have and if I had planned it out beforehand, it wouldn't have looked anything like it did.  But the semester was better than I ever could have imagined.  I was surprised by the friendships that blossomed, the moments I shared with others, and the things I learned.  God showers his blessings in ways which are so unexpected.  I can honestly say that it just keeps getting better and better.  Each year I live seems better than the last.  I remember when I was fourteen, thinking that that was the perfect age to be.  Then, I felt that way about age fifteen, and then about age sixteen, and so on and so forth.  At every stage, it's hard to imaging life getting any better but I am always surprised.  So now, more than being sad that the year is over, I am excited to see what the next year has in store.  The key, I think, is not to grasp to what you have or to what you think you want, but to let the gifts of the year come to you.  After I graduate, as sad as it will be to leave certain places and people behind, I take comfort in knowing that there will be new people that God will put into my life, ones that I can't even imagine now, but who will become as much a part of my life as people I am closest to now.  As I grow, I will continue to learn more things, about life, about myself, about my faith.  I can't even imagine now what that will be like.  I think this is what L'Engle is getting at with the quote above.  Each year adds to the richness of the one before it.  I don't lose the friends, the experiences, the lessons I learned before.  They all have become a part of me, made me who I am, and continue with me as I become who I am to be.

Yes, the end of the year is sad.  That's the way of life.  Even our most joyful moments are tinged with sadness, that sadness which knows that all things on this earth are passing away.  But if we approach life with arms wide open, ready to receive blessing, I am convinced that the best in life is yet to come.

Pensées

Sometimes lots of good ideas just hit you at once.  Indeed, it happens to me quite often that I'm overwhelmed with all the good things I want to do, the things I want to plan, the books I want to read, and the things I want to write.  The main problem is they can't all possibly be done at once, so it just leaves me in a frantic rush to do as much as I possibly can and then fizzles out by the time my alarm goes off the next morning and I don't feel like getting out of bed.  My goal here, writing today, is simply to write a few scatter thoughts that have been on my mind, each worthy of a blog post in their own right.  A big problem for me is that I am too meticulous in my writing.  I try almost too hard to express precisely what I want, when in fact no words will be perfect in describing what it is I'm talking about.  I spend too much time trying to find the perfect phrase, etc.  So I am trying to do the exact opposite right here and now.  I'm just simply going to write.  I hope my scattered thoughts you might find interesting, but in someways I just want to get them down on (virtual) paper.  It's quite possible that this way of writing might just be the perfect way to make ideas stick.  Peter Kreeft, philosopher at Boston College, thinks that Blaise Pascal's Pensées is one of the best books ever written precisely because it is unfinished and scattered.  If it had been completed and followed a perfectly logical progression, it would have been ruined.  So God in his mercy killed Pascal before his book was finished.  I don't know whether I agree with Kreeft, but Pensées is pretty good and if I volunteer to write down unfinished thoughts, maybe God will spare my life.

One things that's been on my mind is the idea of self forgetfulness.  There is another answer to the riddle which I proposed in my last post.  The Self.  The only way to find one's self is to completely forget one's self.  Get so caught up in what you are doing, that you become completely unselfconscious.  Self-consciousness is generally a bad sign.  If you are self conscious, you can never truly be yourself in social situations.  If you are self conscious about the kind of job you are doing, you are probably doing a bad job.  To paraphrase Kreeft, no one ever made a good impression by trying to make one.  Just think about the absentminded genius.  They are so lost in their work, that they forget to take care of themselves or they even forget where they are.  Learning to become disinterested to even one's own desires and happiness is moving swiftly down the road to joy.
I love the change of the seasons.  Much to my joy, I've discovered that the smell and feeling of Fall is the same in London, England as it is in Southeast Michigan, or South Bend, Indiana.  The first days of any change in season are always so wonderful.  The smell brings back memories of the same time in years past, as does the feel of the wind or the weather.  Running around the nearby park has brought back memories of playing high school soccer on windy days in October.  It reminds me of my backyard during fall, both in Michigan and even dimly in Indiana, though I was seven or younger at that time.  I think of playing kickball in the backyard with friends.  I think of the leaves falling around the lakes at Notre Dame, and driving up Notre Dame avenue just after Fall break, the golden dome in view.  I am reminded of beautiful faces.  Fall makes me feel lovesick and homesick at the same time.

Friends.  It's struck me that those friendships which I most especially value are those which make me feel completely humbled.  I've been blessed through my life to meet many wonderful people.  Sometimes I just wonder to myself in sort of awe, "How is it that I am so lucky?"  There isn't anything that I could possibly have done to make myself worthy of this friendship.  And so I experience their friendship as pure gift.  Friendship is a gift you give, but more importantly is a gift that you receive.  When I go wrong is when I think "shouldn't these people want to be my friend.  Yeah, I've got lots of great personal qualities."  The reality is that I do not deserve to have friends and that I can't make anyone be my friend.  It is pure gift.  It's about standing in receptivity to the gift of another person.  For a Christian, I think friendships are particularly important because they teach us how to be a receiver, the relationship we always stand in towards God.

I think this bit about friendship ties in nicely with the theme of self-forgetfulness.  In a true friendship, the self-consciousness of meeting someone has fallen away.  You no longer think about thinks like "What sort of questions should I ask this person?  What should I say?  What do they think of me?"  Ironically, it is losing this self-consciousness in relationship that allows one to be oneself and to actually share more of oneself.  Deep friendships have reached the point where sharing deep truths about one's self is easy and natural.  It's as though the barrier of the self has broken down.

What about love?  (Upon reflection, that questions terribly deals with the ambiguity of our language.  Let me rephrase: "What about Eros?")  I have found it difficult to think about marriage in terms of this ethic of self-forgetfulness.  In my present thinking, I haven't been able to see the married state as something which does enough to "draw one out of The Self."  I'm not saying the problem is with marriage, but rather the problem is with my own inadequacy.  When I look a marriage, I see a good thing, a beautiful thing.  There are many things I find attractive about that state of life.  But were I drop everything and get married today, I would be pursuing it as something that I want, something that I think would make me happy.  I want this woman to love me and I want to love her and spend time with her because that gives me joy.  Thought of like this, that is hardly a drawing out of the self.  But like I said the problem is with me.  I've never reached the state (or if I have, I don't remember it particularly well), where I've been so transported by the joys of Erotic love that my own desires have melted away and my self so forgotten so that the 'I' becomes 'we.'  I've not reached that place where lifelong love and commitment becomes not something that I want as I, but as some completely natural and seemingly inevitable next-step to join together a selfless 'we.'  Perhaps I'm romanticising love too much.  However, it does make perfect sense to me when older, happily married couples say that "We've more in love now that when we were first married."  It's because they lived through so much together, and have been required to make so many sacrifices, that they most certainly had to forget themselves and their own wants.  I mean they have made sacrifices not in a petty, "We'll do what you want because it makes me feel good to give you what want," sort of way, but in a way which requires real pain.
(Edit: I don't mean to introduce a discontinuity between friendship and Eros.  Indeed, I think a true romance will inspire a feeling of humility just as a true friendship does, and that romantic love will be experienced as a gift, just as friendship is.  I also think they pose a similar challege, in that both are often initially sought in response to a personal desire, but in both that desire can be transcended.  What I wrote about Eros could easily have been written by someone else about friendship.  Perhaps, I should just retract the whole paragraph.  Nevertheless, I think it is true to say that perhaps because there is greater attraction to Eros and the possibility for self-transcendence is even higher, it is more difficult to initially escape the self-seeking element.  The reflection above betrays the subjective state of the author and should be understood accordingly.)

The last paragraph took me an outrageous amount of time to write compared with the rest of the post.  If it's the worst paragraph, it certainly proves Kreeft's theory.  In anycase, I hope I can return to a more free-flowing style for the last few thoughts here.  The first is, when thinking about self-forgetfulness and such over the past few days, its occured to me that perhaps I should blog less.  While blogging might initially seem more other-directed than simply journaling, for me this is entirely not true.  Way too often I am motivated to blog in part by a vain desire to have others admire what I've writen, combined with a need to share what I am thinking.  But perhaps what is even more annoying, is that when I have an awesome thought, I can automatically think to myself "Boy, that would make a great blog post.  Won't people think I'm awesome for having such a great thought."  That spoils the thought as a thought in its own right, and is pretty vain to boot.  Although, if I decided just to journal about these thoughts, I'll probably still have an intrusive complusion to journal.  Perhaps the easiest solution to allay some of these qualms is to just check my Blogger stats much less often.

Finally, related to the blogging/thought hoarding problem, I've often gotten frustrated in my past trying to obsessively seize with my mind beauty things or cool experiences.  The worst is when I have a camera, which becomes an extension of my mind, and I begin to take pictures complusively, trying to save the memory of what is there.  Not that I discourage picture-taking, but I've found the enjoyment of a thing is often spoiled by trying to enjoy it.  Better just to be receptive and to let things come as they are.  Then you'll be surprised what you can enjoy if you are not trying.

Later Dudes (and Dudettes for those feminists who claim that the word 'dude' excludes 'dudettes.'  Actually, why do some feminists insist that terms like 'waiter' works now for both 'waiter' and 'waitress,' but get really mad if I don't specify 'woman' in addition to the term 'man?'  Perhaps they would get offened that I specified 'dudettes.'  I'm so confused.  And I wish everybody would stop making generalizations.)!