Your Head Will Explode
The big things take weeks to mull through and finalize, and in the between time, I find myself constantly racking my brain for stuff that might be interesting. Every day there are insights, analogies, poem beginnings and one-liner thoughts yet to be sought out. None of that is translatable to sufficient length for posting though. Thus, after three hours of on-and-off jotting bullet-point thoughts, outlines, and saving drafts for future work, I still have nothing.
Nothing I can get a start on. So I've devised a plan to deceive myself into writing something anyway. I'm telling myself that since I don't have any one big thing with a page worth of writing and a conclusion figured out, I will write about several small things to constitute one big thing. Inevitably it will end up as only one big thing because of the process.
Time is fifty-percent of friendships. At least. I'd have to say that your time, what you give, and what you say are the three twined pillars for building friendships. Of course it can all amount to essentially nothing if the other side is unwilling to return any amount of anything, but with a combination, the result is almost always a friendship of some sort. Time, however, is half, while words and giving are only half combined. I see this through simple observation. Time with another is never spent entirely without words, but words can be said without time involved. No matter how carefully planned and delivered a series of words can be, a single afternoon even in socially uninviting circumstances is far more effective.
Which is disappointing to me.
I find it sometimes fun, or relaxing, or invigorating, or even all three to stand near groups of people, and try to comprehend multiple conversations at once. It's a thrilling mental exercise to cohesively be able to intelligently answer either one if the situation arises, or to comment from time to time on either. I have found, somewhat to my disappointment, that such a skill isn't practically needed to get by in life, but some nerdy part of me delights in it anyway.
More to the point, time is so integral to friendship that I've realized one must be careful in building deep friendships, as time available can be rudely and suddenly reduced to near zilch by a friend moving to college, or getting married, or starting some business or any number of other things. Things which reduce the means of building to giving and saying, which are largely wasted if used without time involved. Furthermore, deep friendships are simply not possible without significant time spent in building them, after which they require far less time to maintain. However, by no means does this mean it is a good idea to build one strong friendship to the point where it backslides much more slowly, and then immediately start another. As one of my friends put it, "You can only be amazing friends with so many people before your head explodes". Perhaps a little vague and open to interpretation, but accurately described nevertheless.
Perhaps is does deserve some small explanation. It's difficult to stay on topic with an explanation because of the Christian faith entwined, and the viewpoints and heartache it brings, but I'm going to ignore the obvious and obligatory rabbit-trail-knot-tying-all-points-covered-several-page-article explanation so I can come back to it later. What fun! So the exploding head really just describes in a single word, the feeling of heartfelt yearning, concern, and love for another. Which, when coupled with lots of people, easily becomes more than the heart and mind can take, pretty much resulting in a sludge slow breakdown of some relationship which eventually- and quite often painfully- deteriorates. Leaving us with one less to think about so we can operate again.
Quite often, that is horrifyingly sad. The hope is that the relationships which deteriorate are the ones which have already become a strong friendship through the Lord, and don't so much completely disappear, as they simply recede. In example, two college roommates that marry off and live in different states. A relationship like that would never disappear, for when the two met again the relationship would only have receded and settled slightly. I'm not entirely sure that made good sense, which means it probably didn't, but I'm leaving it up to you this time to figure it out.
What really brought all this home, is that there are some people I honestly need to let go of. Not let go as in forget about, but let go of as in building to a crucial and amazing potentially-head-exploding point. I can use words to build up and encourage, and that should never be forgotten. But time is short, and it is better used in large amounts to deeply impact and strengthen a few, than shallowly scratch many.
There is a quote that I can't find or remember that I want to end with, so this is just my best shot at remembering what I can.
"The way of the world would have us going shallower and shallower with more and more, as opposed to going deeper and deeper with fewer and fewer." And also something about how after becoming shallow with so many, we will find ourselves alone in a crowd.
Very true. If anyone knows where/what this is from, please let me know!
Nothing I can get a start on. So I've devised a plan to deceive myself into writing something anyway. I'm telling myself that since I don't have any one big thing with a page worth of writing and a conclusion figured out, I will write about several small things to constitute one big thing. Inevitably it will end up as only one big thing because of the process.
Time is fifty-percent of friendships. At least. I'd have to say that your time, what you give, and what you say are the three twined pillars for building friendships. Of course it can all amount to essentially nothing if the other side is unwilling to return any amount of anything, but with a combination, the result is almost always a friendship of some sort. Time, however, is half, while words and giving are only half combined. I see this through simple observation. Time with another is never spent entirely without words, but words can be said without time involved. No matter how carefully planned and delivered a series of words can be, a single afternoon even in socially uninviting circumstances is far more effective.
Which is disappointing to me.
I find it sometimes fun, or relaxing, or invigorating, or even all three to stand near groups of people, and try to comprehend multiple conversations at once. It's a thrilling mental exercise to cohesively be able to intelligently answer either one if the situation arises, or to comment from time to time on either. I have found, somewhat to my disappointment, that such a skill isn't practically needed to get by in life, but some nerdy part of me delights in it anyway.
More to the point, time is so integral to friendship that I've realized one must be careful in building deep friendships, as time available can be rudely and suddenly reduced to near zilch by a friend moving to college, or getting married, or starting some business or any number of other things. Things which reduce the means of building to giving and saying, which are largely wasted if used without time involved. Furthermore, deep friendships are simply not possible without significant time spent in building them, after which they require far less time to maintain. However, by no means does this mean it is a good idea to build one strong friendship to the point where it backslides much more slowly, and then immediately start another. As one of my friends put it, "You can only be amazing friends with so many people before your head explodes". Perhaps a little vague and open to interpretation, but accurately described nevertheless.
Perhaps is does deserve some small explanation. It's difficult to stay on topic with an explanation because of the Christian faith entwined, and the viewpoints and heartache it brings, but I'm going to ignore the obvious and obligatory rabbit-trail-knot-tying-all-points-covered-several-page-article explanation so I can come back to it later. What fun! So the exploding head really just describes in a single word, the feeling of heartfelt yearning, concern, and love for another. Which, when coupled with lots of people, easily becomes more than the heart and mind can take, pretty much resulting in a sludge slow breakdown of some relationship which eventually- and quite often painfully- deteriorates. Leaving us with one less to think about so we can operate again.
Quite often, that is horrifyingly sad. The hope is that the relationships which deteriorate are the ones which have already become a strong friendship through the Lord, and don't so much completely disappear, as they simply recede. In example, two college roommates that marry off and live in different states. A relationship like that would never disappear, for when the two met again the relationship would only have receded and settled slightly. I'm not entirely sure that made good sense, which means it probably didn't, but I'm leaving it up to you this time to figure it out.
What really brought all this home, is that there are some people I honestly need to let go of. Not let go as in forget about, but let go of as in building to a crucial and amazing potentially-head-exploding point. I can use words to build up and encourage, and that should never be forgotten. But time is short, and it is better used in large amounts to deeply impact and strengthen a few, than shallowly scratch many.
There is a quote that I can't find or remember that I want to end with, so this is just my best shot at remembering what I can.
"The way of the world would have us going shallower and shallower with more and more, as opposed to going deeper and deeper with fewer and fewer." And also something about how after becoming shallow with so many, we will find ourselves alone in a crowd.
Very true. If anyone knows where/what this is from, please let me know!
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