“Have you ever read Vonnegut?” he asked, curious if they had.
“Why do you ask?” his friend answered answered with question of their own.
“I read a passage that made me think about something you said, about when people look for and expect to find their everything in another, ONE, and how it’s a foolish burden to put on another’s back.”
His friend listened.
“He made a case for big families, how when a woman gets married, what she really wants is people to talk to; and for a man, what he really wants is people to tell bad jokes with, and for people to not be so judgy. He said how, with big families, that was what one received when they married into another big family; but with smaller families, instead, a woman gets one more person to talk to about everything, but it’s a man; and the groom gets one more pal, but it’s a woman.”
“And what’s the point?”
“A man won’ always understand what a woman’s saying, even when he tries; and a woman doesn’t want to always hear dumb jokes. When they fight, they think it’s about something specific—money, power, sex, kids—but it’s really something else.”
“What?”
“You are not enough people!”
His friend smiled.
“Healthy lives need friends, circles, and connections. Even as much as we are, we will never be every need of another. We all need friends, connections, bonds and places and people that give enrichment to our lives beyond a single fixed place. Romance of connections that doesn’t have to be physical or that way, but just connections that exchange energy and spirit and enrich one another by what each brings to the other’s being.
It’s easy to live a fulfilling life with connections that enrich. Diversity in any environment strengthens resilience when stresses hit, when some parts fail, and others fill in and help through the adversity. If it’s all on one, and the stress breaks the point of focus, there’s nothing left to sustain.”
“What do you think of what he said?” his friend asked, making considerations of own from passage.
“I’m not particular on telling bad jokes to large companies, but—having lived isolated largely from my own personality’s nature—I see the need for meaningful connections that bring enrichment and diversity to lives. Common interests where they hold, expressions and art shared and discerned by similar minds and souls.
Life is richer when we’re not alone, when you feel connections and care with others in this beautiful but sometimes lonely world. It needs the romance of believing one is seen and maybe even understood in exchanges and happenings that come about by living open-eyed and soul.
You are not enough people! True, if you expect one to be all; but when we drop the burden that doesn’t make sense, and love them for the ONE they are, expecting and desiring only that, we see they are enough and life is enriched by the rest of circle, each connection in having value, place, and purpose of their own. It’s all for the better when lived with gratitude and awareness of the gift each experience and engagement brings.”
“I like that,” his friend spoke. “We’ll never be everyone to one, but we can always be us; and that’s more than enough for those who desire us for that: romance of recognition and expressed appreciations for who it is we are.”