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Friends and lovers
Mar. 26th, 2006 09:46 amI'm feeling inspired after reading a great post by ![[livejournal.com profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hot_turkey about the importance of lovers being friends and of the delights of having friends with whom one can have wide-ranging creative and playful discourse. (Hmmm, too formal and stilted. Reading too much French. Shift.)
I like my friends to be smarter than me. Fortunately, this is pretty easy. Intelligence is a wildly multidimensional quality. It's especially easy for my friends to be smarter than me if they're either older or younger or have spent time in other cultures (same thing, if you think about it) or have interests I don't have, which they always do. It is a sure thing that they are smarter than I am if they simply are playful and curious, and these are qualities I treasure in my friends. Of course this means we are all mutually smarter than one another. Sometimes we even outsmart ourselves! :-)
I like it when my friends give me a viewpoint that I would never have myself, either on something familiar or something brand new. I really love it when there is enough overlap that we can inquire deeply into something where we both have enough background to go deep. Unfortunately, my friends rarely have really deep conversations with me. I tend to be intellectually aggressive and sometimes come off as a jerk. It can also be challenging because I question everything!
Outside of my wonderfully large circle of friends I often have trouble making contact with people. I enjoy living in the world of the "bohemian intelligentsia". People who participate with Burning Man, Tantra, etc. People with training from the Human Awareness Institute, Landmark Education, Body Electric, etc. People who read extensively and diversely. People who have traveled widely. People with exposure to diverse spiritual disciplines. People who value and express consensuality and authenticity. Etc., etc. No one has all of this richness, but in community it is accessible to all. No wonder my friends seem so smart to me.
_Greg
hot_turkey about the importance of lovers being friends and of the delights of having friends with whom one can have wide-ranging creative and playful discourse. (Hmmm, too formal and stilted. Reading too much French. Shift.)I like my friends to be smarter than me. Fortunately, this is pretty easy. Intelligence is a wildly multidimensional quality. It's especially easy for my friends to be smarter than me if they're either older or younger or have spent time in other cultures (same thing, if you think about it) or have interests I don't have, which they always do. It is a sure thing that they are smarter than I am if they simply are playful and curious, and these are qualities I treasure in my friends. Of course this means we are all mutually smarter than one another. Sometimes we even outsmart ourselves! :-)
I like it when my friends give me a viewpoint that I would never have myself, either on something familiar or something brand new. I really love it when there is enough overlap that we can inquire deeply into something where we both have enough background to go deep. Unfortunately, my friends rarely have really deep conversations with me. I tend to be intellectually aggressive and sometimes come off as a jerk. It can also be challenging because I question everything!
Outside of my wonderfully large circle of friends I often have trouble making contact with people. I enjoy living in the world of the "bohemian intelligentsia". People who participate with Burning Man, Tantra, etc. People with training from the Human Awareness Institute, Landmark Education, Body Electric, etc. People who read extensively and diversely. People who have traveled widely. People with exposure to diverse spiritual disciplines. People who value and express consensuality and authenticity. Etc., etc. No one has all of this richness, but in community it is accessible to all. No wonder my friends seem so smart to me.
_Greg
