We are simply a product of our environment. No matter how much we want to disprove our “characteristic” nature, we are most certainly brought up with a lot of nurture, and this definitely plays into the role we take on in society. However, although perhaps my tone is a bit negative, I believe this is an agency that we can manage to keep under our control. The beauty of friendship is such that we can find and choose any person in the world (due to the advent of technology) to be our friend and therefore nurture us. In the olden days, people could sometimes not even linger around (much less befriend) someone of a different race, background, and whatever else. Today I will dive into what this beauty is and what it provides, and how to try to gain it.

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What is the Beauty of Friendship?

One of my best friends Sven whom I run “The Deep Plea” podcast with was someone I met online, we’ve only met in person once for a week in the span of knowing each other for more than 3 years. However, it is a friendship filled with deep conversation, contemplation, and creativity. From the podcast episode, I cited a quote from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and my two favorite parts of the quote are:

“that I perceived the necessity of becoming more acquainted with more languages than that of my native country”

and

“I greatly need a friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and affection enough for me to endeavor to regulate my mind”

I believe a great friend should be a pinpoint needle in doing both of these tasks. Never becoming somebody else, so they have their own sense of style, thoughts, and creativity (to add more languages to another) and be willing to spark that same unique creativity they have in others. Our regulation of mind from the 1st person perspective is narrow, but a friend with their views and thoughts expands that narrow tunnel to a grand prairie.

Ultimately, we want a friend that has some similar interests as we do. But align all of these interests, and you get a boring copycat or a yes man that narrows your vision even further.

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Then, How Can I Get it?

If you have watched the episodes of “The Deep Plea” podcast, Sven and I sometimes tend to ask questions that are wrong in their approach. I believe this is one of those questions, although it is natural to see something and want to achieve it somehow, and receive practical advise on how to do so. I wanted, sometimes desperately, to make a new friend group like one I had that was similar in Wisconsin where I grew up. I would dive so narrowly into this viewpoint that a friend group would surely make me happy inside that I would start to lose sight of the good friends I already had and had no intention of giving up.

I’m sure we have heard the idea that the more we chase something the faster it runs away. Sometimes I wonder if that is for everything or only certain topics. Obviously it doesn’t make sense to bash our head against a wall everyday because we didn’t get what we wanted that day, but it is something interesting to ponder about, from my creative brain to yours.

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Conclusion

Here is a quote from me in the first “The Deep Plea” episode:

“[a friend] not treat you as a romantic sweet boy, but someone who’s trying to find a place in this world”

Here is a quote from my buddy Sven in the first “The Deep Plea” episode:

“a lot of times when we talk about our lives we go back and forth about what’s going on it’s like a little therapy session but it’s just two friends really getting to know each other and like figuring things out together”

So is the dance of friendship. I don’t have it all figured out, and I never will. It is nice to accept the fact that all learning sectors are endless holes, because then everybody is simply in the same stage as learning, nobody having “completed” anything.