Relationships

The entire world is interconnected. The individual and his ecosystem.

Family plays a very key role in the structure of relationships. Our primary relationship being our parents for the formative years of our life. Our secondary relationships being our friends. Our other peripheral relationships being societal – our school, our employer, our social frameworks such as the newspaper boy,  the guy at the grocery store, the dry cleaner, the family doctor, the pastor etc.

Among this plethora of relationships that weave a subtle web around an individual; few sustain through a lifespan. Most relationships are need based. Friendships are the relationships that a person chooses; hence they remain strong for far longer.

As a child, it is important to have a strong web of ties, both family and friends. If the perspectives influencing a person’s thoughts are varied, they offer a balance that is inherent by the nature of diversity, and hence  a child  develops a healthy tolerance for multiple schools of thought, variety in life views and ultimately a stability of character; that comes of exposure to a diverse outlook on Life in general.

An only child suffers a serious handicap in that sense. They do not have a peer to grow up with, play with, rely upon and learn from. The perspective offered by a sibling is much more balanced, relative to that of a parent. I realized this, when I had my second child. I marvel at the way they interact with each other, love and enjoy each other thoroughly.

Orphans. These are children that I often think about with sadness.  I do know that pity is not what they need, it is consistent stolid relationships and love. And even though I have started my early steps in terms of social service; I still feel that I am not aggressive enough; in that I have not made any steady relationships with children at orphanages. Perhaps one soon day.

Friends. I have had many friends in childhood. So many that I classified them – Friends to climb trees with, friends to sit with at school, friends to play with every evening, friends to bike ride to school with. Alas, they have all dissolved with the many moves that we had to make with my father, who had a job that took him away from a place after every third year. As I grew up, I had a steady group of friends in college. Friends that really knew me well, and that I could rely on blindly.

I think friendships are the gifts God sends your way. I also think each juncture of Life brings you just the right kind of friend to help you through it. Some friends bring the outside in perspective, some friends yell at you if they see that you’re not steering yourself correctly.Some friends make you laugh if they see you getting stressed out over small things. Some friends hold you in their arms as you cry over the crises in your life.Some friends are your 3Am, “timepass friends”. you yak with them if you cannot sleep, you go to movies with them,you spend time with them, no commitments. These are people you get saddled with, spouses of your best friends, people who commute with you on the tube or in the carpool, parents of your children’s best friends. Not that these relationships are superficial and meaningless always, some of these friendships stand the test of time, life and last long after you start them. I recall as I struggled the through the last trimester of my second pregnancy, I had utter strangers hand holding me at the most difficult times.

There are friends that you really care for from the innermost depths of your being. You never want to lose such friends, because they bring you alive in ways  that you do not understand or fathom, they understand you completely. They know you more than you know yourself. These friends may or may not keep in touch with you frequently, they may not meet you for years and years; however when you are in need they miraculously pick you up, stand beside you, talk to your fears and make you whole again.  Sometimes you cannot reach such friends when you need them, but know that somehow you will be alright, because somewhere in the world they are wishing you well. Perhaps looking out the window at a full moon, perhaps smiling at rabbits in their garden, perhaps shivering on a cold winter day while they wait for their train, perhaps as they sip a hot soup before their favorite TV show. Somewhere they are thinking of you. You are truly blessed if you even have one friend of this kind. It is said God comes to you in the form of such friends.

In that sense, I believe that the entire world is truly connected. Blanketed with love and goodness spun by God.

I also think that the relationship that one shares with their parents has to be slowly petered down, once  a person becomes an adult. I know this firsthand, since I have not been able to do it myself; and it is a huge dependency habit that one can live without. I identify with the sense of independence that parents instil in their children in the US, much earlier in their adolescence. It spawns tremendous self confidence and sufficiency in a child. It is a mature system when children plan study loans, plan careers meticulously when they are barely out of their teens.

My perspective, strictly.