Created by: brent on 2000-02-15 12:52:06
Last modified by: brent on 2000-02-15 12:54:55
Summary: It may be possible to keep a friend without it, but traveling
to visit a friend in person gives life a sense of continuity.
Author's statement:
Nothing seperates people like distance. People become
close, forging valued friendships but for whatever reason,
they move elsewhere. For friendships to continue, in spite
of the seperation of space, one or both parties must make
periodic contact with the other. Maintenance of long distant
friendships is necessary, because it becomes very easy to
lose all contact with the person; one moves without
notification, or the other gets a new phone number. It can be
curtains for a friendship.
Ideally, one will travel the distance, visiting the
other in person, renewing the friendship.
"That friends should come to one from afar, is this not
delightful?" -Confucius
Life is full of obsticals and challenges, ups and downs;
living our lives is a full time job and enjoying the friends
we have nearby, may be all our friendship dollar will afford.
Those outside the physical realm eventually become the
fondest of memories, once the last Christmas greeting card
leaves the mantel.
Those who do put enough gas in their car to get there,
who put enough dollars in a pile to cross a state line or
two, to visit a far-flung buddy, homie or mate, those are the
good people. They give a sense of continuity to life,
bringing the past experience and the present together in
communion, reaffirming one's relationship to time and space,
a parallel to the interconnectedness of everything. We move
in a continuous line over the terrain of our lives, a rigid
structure of time, plotted with memories of living.
It is significant when someone from those memories
intercects where we are now.
Visit a far-flung friend.
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