Transcribed Talk by J. Jaye Gold
Part of our assignment as spiritual seekers is to examine the unexamined concepts that we at some point bought into and have carried along with us. One of our jobs is to explore whether these concepts actually have some substance, or if they’ve just annexed themselves onto us somewhere along the way and we’re still going through the motions without ever having assessed whether there is something to them. Along these lines, I want to talk about the concept we have of how people become friends, how people come to feel close to and bond with one another.
One story we have is what we see in the movies, and the other story is how we live our lives. We would like to have formed friendships like Thelma and Louise, or Butch and Sundance, or Julia and Lily, or Rick, TC, and Magnum.[1] Even though these are our models, and we would like that to happen in our lives, we’re left wondering why it doesn’t. We’re left wondering why there is something missing in our friendships. I think if you look honestly, you will acknowledge that the people you call friends are not Louise to your Thelma. They’re not Butch to your Sundance. Even though there is something tremendously magnetic and attractive about that alliance and that allegiance, we usually find ourselves without it.
I want to talk about this because it would be beautiful if we could have these relationships, and I want you to know that it is possible. The intensity of the lives of Thelma and Louise robbing gas stations, or Butch and Sundance doing what they did, or Julia and Lily’s bond, which was born of an intensity of another kind, is available to us. There’s no reason why we couldn’t partake in the fruits of friendships of that kind if we weren’t working simultaneously to push them away, to eliminate them, to negate their possibility when it arises. The seed of a connection of that kind is having memorable moments together—not necessarily robbing gas stations together, but memorable moments with several additional components. First, both people involved must really be there, each with the other, both present to what’s happening. Second, both people must be appreciative of what’s happening, and there must be no attempt to dilute the intensity of the moment. In fact, the impact of the moment must be allowed to flourish. Without that shared intensity, those friendships will not exist. You might have people you call your “friends,” but if you think of the passion between Julia and Lily, or between Butch and Sundance, you know you don’t have that.
Some people feel the bond of their family in this way. A friend of mine was talking with her siblings, trying to work out how to care for their mother who has Alzheimer’s, and at some point during the discussion her sister said to her, “Well, you can have your friends, but your family is, you know, family.” There’s something to that. Why is that the case? When you were growing up with that family, whatever the circumstances, you went through it with them. You couldn’t get out of it, and a certain connection was developed from the inability to diffuse the impact of what you experienced together.
Now, however, you try nonstop to diffuse the potency of the moments you have. When something starts to get hot, you’re the first one to go to the refrigerator for the ice cubes to pour on it. You make something into nothing. You say, “Oh, it’s okay, nothing’s going on here,” not realizing that in the moments that you behave in that way, you deny yourself the opportunity to create those kinds of associations. You may use the word friends, but you are not friends in that way with each other. You may have some level of commitment that you will be there, some level of dependability that you will help each other, but the essential catalyst in forming ties and fusing people together—or more accurately, in removing the obstacles to the natural coming together—is heat. Heat is the essential catalyst, and you don’t allow heat in your environment. You don’t create heat for each other. If heat for some reason or other develops, you do what you can to diffuse it, to eliminate it. You coat yourself with some kind of insulation or extricate yourself from the situation.
Say for example somebody asks you a question that has the potential of developing some heat. The potential is there for creating a connection between you and the questioner if you would say something that allows the process to continue. Instead, you’ll do something like deny that what they’re asking about ever happened, or you’ll try to explain how it didn’t happen in the way they saw it, and what really happened is nothing at all. Then you’ll go on to the next thing. With that approach, the potential connection you had with that person is terminated. You remain associates. You might be close associates if you live together, but you don’t live together as real friends in the true sense of the word.
Really, you’d prefer to have your separate house and your separate teapot, your separate this and your separate that. Why? Because when you have to work it out with somebody, there’s the potential for intensity and a little bit of heat. I understand that putting out the fire, as it were, makes you more comfortable, but your practices of pretending, of softening the blows, and of diffusing intensity—practices that you’ve found to be effective in the pursuit of a comfortable life—have a tremendous price. We’ve all come to “respect” each other’s right for establishing intensity-free zones, but we don’t recognize that in so doing, we’re assuring ourselves of a life without those deep friendships.
In a wonderful book about seekers who embark on a voyage to what René Daumal calls “Mount Analogue,” the first time they sit down to eat together, Father Sogol, the leader of the expedition, explains that now they get to eat and talk together, but soon they’ll get to suffer together.[2] For us, now we can eat together and play together and do different things together, but if we’re not willing to “suffer” together, we won’t find the connections we desire. I’m talking here about the suffering in subtle moments that happens so many times each day. It’s the suffering of being asked, “Are you going to town now? ” and you’re thinking, I don’t want to do one more fuckin’ errand. Don’t ask me to do an errand. There is potential here for intensity together. Instead of keeping your thoughts to yourself or blaming the other person, you could put it out there and say, “This is interesting. Here’s where I’m at…” You get to feel it, the other person gets to feel it—you’re suffering together. So many of those things happen every day. Ten small opportunities that are so available equal one really intense opportunity. People are hot to travel and do adventurous things because they have some dream that the specialness of the place or event is going to do something for them, but the real question is, what will you do for yourself?
You have the opportunity, if you recognize it and want to take advantage of that opportunity, to create liaisons like Butch and Sundance’s, or Thelma and Louise’s, or like Lily and Julia’s. It will take a reexamination of your concept of how life is to be led, of how to interact with other people, and of your need to surround yourself with an “intensity-free zone.” The next time somebody says something or does something that you recognize is not harmonious, or not as that person would wish it to be, will you bring it to that person’s attention? Will you allow the heat to build, or will you do everything you can to make it into nothing and get back in the zone? Shared difficulty is what brings people together. Our job is to try to build that by using subtleties, not by having to have some disaster, tragedy, or large thing happen. It may be that you’ve given up. If you have, my job is to rekindle that possibility within you. My job is to teach you that those connections can be made between people if you allow the heat to build when it appears to be there. Know what the people around you consider important for themselves, call their attention to it, work it out with them, and you’ll find yourselves getting closer. The potential is always lurking around us. You don’t have to make anything up; you have to learn to resist the urge you’ve had your whole life to diffuse the intensity and reexamine the necessity of making yourself comfortable in that moment. Recognize that you’re paying a price. This subtle suffering together and the heat it builds, and the bonds created from it, are what you need if you’re going to make real friends in this life and become true allies on this path.
[1] The movie Julia is based on a story by playwright Lillian Hellman, recounting time with her childhood best friend, Julia, and later, her dangerous efforts to support Julia’s anti-Nazi cause (1977, Vanessa Redgrave and Jane Fonda).
[2] René Daumal, Mount Analogue. See footnote #1. Daumal, influenced by his friendship with G. I. Gurdjieff’s student Alexander de Salzmann, uses the analogy of mountain climbing to explore aspects of the spiritual climb.