Looking at Eyes

When was the last time you stopped and actually looked AT someone's eyes? I don't mean you were looking them in the eyes while talking, or seeing "into" their eyes, or anything like that. I mean exactly what I said, when did you last actually look at someone's eyes?

I've seen a broad range of eyes over the last few years, full of colors and hues that have made me pause and marvel at what I have seen.

Eyes a shade of grey that can only be found in a cloud lit from behind by the sun.

Eyes of different sizes and colors, a mismatched pair that yet still worked well together.

Eyes such a rich, sparkling sapphire blue that demand your attention and admiration.

Eyes the striking green of a rain forest after a summer shower.

Eyes a black as midnight that seem to swallow you whole.

Eyes a hazel that couldn't seem to make up its mind, shifting back and forth between green and brown.

There are so many eyes all around us, offering so many different sights and beauties of their own. So the next time you are talking with some, take a moment, and look. See their eyes, and find their unique beauties.

Thoughts on Friendship, Part 2

A few days ago, I sat down and started to write out this blog, and got several paragraphs into it. "Why do we want friendship?" I was looking at it, analyzing it, trying to explore it, but I simply couldn't seem to make much headway with it. So I left it alone for several days.

During those few days, with it percolating in the back of my mind, I realized several things. First off, the ins and outs of friendship, as a subject, have most likely been explored since people were first capable of making friends. So anything I can say will most likely be a rehash of everything ever thought of. No surprise there, but it's fun to discover things for yourself, right? Secondly, I realized I was over-thinking this entire thing. Sure, there are bits and pieces of the topic of friendship that I really want to dive into and explore, if only for myself, but this part, the why we want friends, seems really simple now.

In essence, as I see it, we want friends because we want to know we matter to someone else. We want someone to talk with, to play with, to share secrets with, to make discoveries with. We want someone to pull us up when we're down, who can see through our outer shell and know what we are really thinking. We want someone there who will call us on the carpet when we won't be honest with ourselves. We want someone to stand up for us when others try to put us down. We want to matter.

What more is there to say about it? Wanting to know that someone cares about us is a part of being human. It doesn't have to be a lot of people. But knowing that at least one person is there for us, whenever we need them, can be the best feeling in the world.

Thoughts on Friendship, Part 1

So, to introduce this, I've been thinking on the concept of friendship for the last while. What is friendship, why do we seek to have friends, what are the different kinds of friends we have, and lastly, how we keep friendships alive and how those friendships end. I going to be looking at these ideas over the next while, though with no promises as to how soon they'll all be out. Be warned, this is a thought experiment constantly under development, so it may move and change as these posts appear.

So, let's start off with the question, "What is friendship?" That, I think, is a paradoxical question, in that it offers both a simple answer and a complex answer.

I ran across a fortune cookie the other day that put it this way: "Friendship is understanding with love." Okay, not exactly a fortune, but an interesting thought nonetheless. I read it and thought, "so is that what friendship is really all about? Understanding with a side order of love?" (Okay, I was in the restaurant at the time, so it seemed appropriate.) It really is a simple way to summarize what real friendship is, though - knowing someone, understanding them, and loving them.

Friendship is something more, though, when you really delve deeper into the concept. It embodies more, such as trust, concern, service, sympathy, and devotion. If you take out any of these concepts, you weaken friendship, even to the point where it decays to nothing (I'll come back to this in a future post). When you find yourself caring about another person, interested in spending time with them and having fun together, wondering about how their life is going, caring about their concerns and worries, supporting them through both good and bad times, you are experiencing the fruits of friendship. It is all of these things, and so much more.

I still feel that this is an incomplete ideal of what friendship is, at best. The more I think on it, the more I wonder if it is possible to truly define what friendship is and what it can be. Maybe it is something unique and individual to each friendship. Maybe there are so many traits that go into making up friendships that no one friendship can have them all. What do you think? Do you agree with what I've considered here? Do you disagree? Have more to add? Let me know, I've love to hear what you think. I highly doubt I'm done thinking about it myself.