What relationships are all about
Relationships can be a beautiful thing. Or not.
Depends on how fulfilling, supporting and mutually stimulating they have been. Or are.
Relationships can hurt. Can they be repaired?
Yes and no.
Even if repaired on the surface, relationships once damaged take away something from the whole. It is like leaving a scar. Or maybe leaving a bleeding point unattended that continues to hurt. The hurt can come from any source: a friend, a working partner, family. I came across this beautiful letter on the net titled, “A Letter to Humanity”, an extract of which I share here:
“You and I are different people, but in the end we are the same. We are only human. As humans, we let each other down. We promise love before we know what it really means. We abuse trust. We break hearts. We make mistakes. I have made my fair share of mistakes as well. I’m sure I have hurt you too. I know there are parts of you that I will never truly understand and therefore cannot fit into the small boxes of reasoning that I have tried to place around these complex situations. I know that there was a reason why I believed in you, and therefore there is a reason why I still want the absolute best for you. Friendship, family, and relationships seem so well defined with their expectations, but very rarely are all of those expectations going to be met. That is the chance you take in believing in people. In the end, loving each other only teaches us about love, as a separate and beautiful entity that is unparalleled to anything else in this world.”(March 4, 2014)
Exchanging notes on the same topic, someone recently wrote to me, “The relationships are conceived and experienced as part of a certain social reality, and not independently as in isolation. So feelings of the individuals involved are less important than perhaps the context which actually drives our behaviour.” Whereas it is true that man is a social animal and lives in a society and thereby influences the surroundings as well as being influenced by it, there will always be variables that make each relationship unique in its own right, so to state that the feelings of individuals are less important, is not strictly true.
In any given relationship the degree to which one chooses to ‘give away’ of oneself is different. Self-disclosure involves sharing of facts, experiences, and views. It can be an intimate act. It is taking a calculated risk of how much one wants to share and with whom. Certain kinds of communications can stunt the growth of a relationship while certain kinds of communications can nurture and offer strength to the relationship. Then there is the risk factor involved in disclosing too much about oneself. Does the friend of today become an opponent of tomorrow? Can anything shared be used against one? I speak especially in context of the Pakistani society where going to a shrink may be considered as being ‘mental’ or ‘queer’, with a fear also of confidentiality breach. Sigmund Freud, by all accounts quite chatty in his own consulting room, warned other psychoanalysts against self-disclosure. The analyst, he advised, should strive to remain anonymous, a blank slate upon which people could project their unconscious fantasies, conflicts and desires.
”The doctor should be opaque to his patients,” Freud wrote in 1912, ”and, like a mirror, should show them nothing but what is shown to him.” (NYT, January 1, 2002)
Does self-disclosure offer a catharsis?
Depends on, really, to whom you are opening up to.
It helps unburdening ourselves of the pain, the turbulences and pressures we carry with ourselves. Interestingly (and this is entirely my own opinion), unburdening ourselves can also be a catharsis for the one we unburden ourselves upon. He/she might identify threads of experience that he/she has undergone too and without deliberate realisation, a bonding may form drawing one out of a bubble one lived in. Support, empathy, understanding are powerful rewards for self-disclosure.
This brings me to an interesting question.
Can one talk more openly to a stranger than someone one knows? And I am not talking about a psychiatrist. I would say yes. The greatest thing about talking to a stranger is you can ask for input, share your distress and thoughts and it will not haunt you like it would in the case of someone who knows you personally. Exploring a mind and finding the intelligence within can be most gratifying than one realises. Of course this will depend on the intelligence level of the person reaching out. One does not need to be distressed over what a stranger thinks of your odd questions and your unburdening. The level of vulnerability in talking to a stranger is much, much less. One does not need to fear a stranger judging you. But wait, this is not about fear of talking to people you know, it’s about being comfortable with talking with people you don’t. The beauty of this is a complete lack of any commitment at any level. In the flood of life, to have spoken openly on issues is a blessing. A bond is always created when there is any exchange in virtual or physical sense at any level.
It’s the kind of bond created upon which I comment upon. Some bonds are based on a relationship that continues irrespective of the quality of relationship (mostly blood bonds fall in this category), others are purely voluntary and the depth and continuity purely voluntary too.
The people determine the above. The bond may though lead two intelligent people to share views, nonetheless it precludes any kind of apology if one cannot continue doing so for any reason or time duration. Or terminate future contact altogether. However, there is a chance of a good friendship developing here. My best friend today is someone I stumbled upon twenty-five years ago (or she stumbled upon me, depends on how you look at it) as we both bought our groceries from the same outlet. Falling into a chat, this casual encounter gave birth to a beautiful friendship that has sustained to date. The bonding such a relationship may bring may well be quite unlike the kind of friendship one shares with childhood friends or those who know us long enough thereby expecting certain codes of behaviour (especially in terms of communication). The important thing here would be expectations from the other. It is after all expectations in any relationship that let us down.
Letting guard down sometime, somewhere is a process of healing oneself. To some degree. Maybe after a huge loss. To open up is a prerequisite. Reminds me of Joseph F Newton, “People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.”
Coming from a person of YAA's intellect, imagination and creative abilities, the reader would know this article couldn't just be for change of taste alone. To some, however, her 'Dialogue with a stranger' may well seem to negate off the shelf travel guides which caution you how intimidating, exhausting and risky it could be, especially for the women folk in our society. To some of her near and dear ones, it might appear as though she is only offloading her personal grieves. Strong and resilient as she is well known to be, this piece is certainly not any appeal to pity.
It's difficult to fathom the depth of this writing. It surely seems to transcend psychology; it's philosophic alright. I believe she is traversing the 'zero line' of personal and societal grieves, anxieties and burdens. Somebody's one liner that she has cited is so meaningful, ''loving each other only teaches us about love''. How true, for how many mortals can claim to have reached the pinnacle of love; Sufis, yes perhaps. We all know that 'perfect stranger' or 'complete stranger' is someone who one has never known before and 'hello stranger' is somebody who one rarely comes across. When it come to choosing the right one for offloading burdens, the search itself can be exhaustive; so he or she has to come across by accident. As for our societal mistrust and hatred, and resulting mayhem, carnage and massacre, no amount of conflict resolution between old sectarian rivals seems to work. Taking a cue from YAA' article, wouldn't some re-conciliatory dialogue between the new generation strangers from otherwise old rival groups help this society? The same may apply to Indo-Pak conflict/dispute resolution and so on; the list is long.
Very like all creative pieces there can be many a different angle that one can look from at the 'Dialogue with a stranger.'
Congrats to YAA for a such a thought provoking article.
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