MY ESTRANGEMENT & ENCOUNTER

I

In spite of our willingness and reluctance to tell others who we are, there is in each one of us a deep and driving desire to be understood. It is clear to all of us that we want very badly to be loved, but, when we are not understood by those whose loved we need and want, any sort of deep communication becomes a nervous and uncomforting thing. It does not enlarge and enliven us. It becomes clear that no one can really love us effectively unless he or she really understands us. Anyone who feels that he or she is understood, however, will certainly feel that he or she is loved.

II

If there is no one who understands me and who accepts me for what I am, I will feel ESTRANGED. My talents and possessions will not comfort me at all. Even in the midst of many people, I will always carry within me a feeling of isolation and aloneness. I will experience a kind of SOLITARY CONFINEMENT. It is the LAW, as certain as the law of gravity, that he or she who is understood and loved will grow as a person; he or she who is estranged will die in his or her cell of solitary confinement, alone.

III

There are many things inside every one of us which we would like to share. All of us have our own secret past, our secret shames and broken dreams, our secret hopes. Over and against this need and desire to share theses secrets and to be understood, every one of us must weigh fear and risk. Whatever my secrets are, they seem, more than anything else, to be deeply and uniquely a part of me. No one has ever done the precise things that I have done, no one has ever thought my thoughts or dreamed my dreams. I am not sure that I could even find the words to share these things with another, but what I am even less sure of is this: how would they sound to other?

IV

The person who has a good self-image, who really and truly accepts himself, will be greatly helped at this time of dilemma. It is not very likely, however, that someone, who has never really shared himself, could have the support of a good self-image. Most of us have experience and done things, have lived with sensations and feelings, that we feel we would never dare tell another. To the others, I might appear deluded or even evil, ridiculous or vain. My whole life could appear as a hideous deceit.

V

A thousand fears keeps us in the solitary confinement of estrangement. In some of us there is the fear of breaking down, of sobbing like a child. Others of us feel restrained by the fear that the other person will not sense the tremendous importance of my secret to me. We usually anticipate how deep the pain would be if my secret were met with apathy, misunderstanding, shock, anger or ridicule. My confidant might become angry or reveal my secret to others for whom it was not intended.

VI

It may have happened that, at some point in my life, I took some part of me out of the darkness and placed it in the light for the eyes of another. It may be that she did not understand, and I ran full of regrets into a painful emotional solitude. Yet, there may have been other moments when someone heard my secret and accepted my confidence in gentle hands, I may remember what she said to assure me, the compassion in her voice, the understanding look in her eyes. I remember what those eyes look like. I remember how those hand took mine. I remember the gentle pressure that told me that I was understood.

VII

It is only through this kind of sharing that a person comes to know himself. Introspection of itself is helpless. A person can confide all of his secrets to docile pages of his personal diary, but he can know himself and experience the fullness of life only in the meeting with another person. Friendship becomes a great adventure, there is a continuously deeper discovery of myself and my friend, as we continue to be reveal new and deeper layers of ourselves. It opens my mind, widens my horizons, fills me with new awareness, deepens my feelings, gives my life meaning.

VIII

Yet the barriers are never permanently broken. Friendship and mutual self-revelation have a newness about them with each new day, because being a human person involves daily change and growth. My friend and I are growing, and differences are becoming more apparent. We are not growing into the same person, but each into his own. I discover in my friend other tastes and preferences, other feelings and hopes, other reaction to new experiences. I discover that this business of telling her who I am cannot be done once and for all. I must continually tell you who I am and you must continually tell me who you are, because both of us are continually evolving.

IX

It may be that the very things which first attracted me to you now seem to work against communication. In the beginning, your sentiment seemed to balance off my more intellectual inclinations; your extroverted ways complemented my introversion; your realism counter-balanced my artistic intuition. It seemed like an ideal friendship. We seemed like separate halves that needed each other to become whole. But now, when I want you to share my intellectual vision, I am annoyed that you take no interest in my objective arguments of reason. Now, when I want to show you that you are not logical in your sentiment, it does not seem to matter to you at all. In the beginning we seemed to fit together so well. Now your desire to go out to others and my more introverted inclinations which seek solitude seem to be divisive.

X

Of course, our friendship can still be. We are standing within arms’ reach of that which is most humanly rewarding and beautiful. We must not turn back now. We can still share all the things we once shared with such excitement, when I first told you who I was and you told me who you were; only our sharing will be deeper because we are deeper. If I will continue to hear you with the same sense of wonder and joy as I did in the beginning, and you will hear me in this way, our friendship will grow firmer and deeper roots. The tinsel of our first sharing will mellow into gold. We can and will be sure that there is no need to hide anything from each other, that we have shared everything.I am continually experiencing the ever-growing, ever-new reality of you, and you are experiencing the reality of me. And, through each other, we are together experiencing the reality of life.

XI

“LIKE GOD, WHO ONCE SAID IT IS NOT GOOD FOR A MAN TO BE ALONE “

XII
YOUR SLIGHTEST LOOK EASILY WILL UNCLOSE METHOUGH I HAVE CLOSED MYSELF AS FINGERS,YOU OPEN ALWAYS PETAL BY PETALMYSELF AS SPRING OPENS(TOUCHING SKILLFULLY, MYSTERIOUSLY)YOUR FIRST ROSE