People Who Need People

More often than not, if I’m suffering someone else is involved. That’s about as straight-forward as I can put it. I suffer because of other people.

Put differently, I rarely if ever can recall a time where I was unhappy when I was, say, out for a solo walk in the woods, a hike on a mountain, gnoshing a meal, or watching a game on the tube.

No, to really suffer you need to add people into the mix. The mate who leaves (or squeezes the toothpaste tube in the middle), the boss who belittles you, the neighbor with the nicer car, the taller friend, and of course the ubiquitous ‘they’ who are forever lurking out there, somewhere, making life miserable for the rest of us (usually the imbeciles who vote for the other candidate, drive for 11 miles with the turn signal on, or pose some ill-defined threat to you and your loved ones and your marvelous way of life).

But don’t take my word for it, see for yourself. Ask yourself when was the last time you suffered when someone else wasn’t involved. Chances are that even in those gray-vague moments when you can’t quite put your finger on what’s wrong, someone else is out there, haunting you at the periphery of your existence. Perhaps it is a sense that the years are marching by and you haven’t accomplished enough? But even there, aren’t you picturing yourself coming up short in relation to others?

As I see it, people are the source of all suffering. If we could just get rid of all the people, how much happier we’d – well, I’d – be.

What makes this all the more fascinating is that we don’t necessarily need other people to make us happy. Do we? That aforementioned walk in the woods, the hike on the mountain, the meal or game. Many is the time I’ve been perfectly content engaged in those activities all by my lonesome. Indeed, there are some days where I crave that ‘me time.’

And yet …

How many of us have caught ourselves thinking, “This experience would be better with someone else.” And usually that ‘someone else’ is someone in particular. We want someone to laugh at the same parts of the movie, to happily wolf down the food we prepared, to marvel at the same stunning sunset.

Human beings. Apparently, we can’t live with them, can’t live without them. I’ll close with the inestimable Kahlil Gibran’s take on the meaning of friendship.

On Friendship

Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.”
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.