Relationships in Suspended Animation

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I have been reading about intimacy and relationships in the Dalai Lama's "Art of Happiness." In the work the Dalai Lama asserts that compassion is the primary underpinning of all human relationships. That compassion forms the gentle and understanding foundation that supports all positive interactions. In many ways it is the "walk a mile in my shoes," "see the need in the other's life" perspective. As the primary tenet of Distilled Harmony - Foster Harmony - is essentially the same idea, I read along in a "right on!" frame of mind.

The chapter focused primarily on how one should bring a compassionate and open attitude to new or existing relationships. Lovely insights there that I need to mull over a bit more. I’m afraid that may result in some "point the finger at thyself” moments. But I'll put that off for another day.

However, the reading got me thinking about a rather unique set of compassionate relationships that play unique but vital roles in my life. They are what I think of as "relationships in suspended animation" or RSAs.

Back in 1975 Paul Simon wrote a song called "Some Folks Lives Roll Easy." Part of the lyric goes like this:

And here I am, Lord

I'm knocking at your place of business

I know I ain't got no business here

But you said if I ever got so low

I was busted,

You could be trusted

RSAs are the those unique and precious relationships where we can go “knocking" when we are "so low we are busted," even if we "ain't got no business" there.

They are not simply old relationships. We were watching an Midsomer Murders" rerun last night in which the protagonist's daughter engineers a reunion of her "dearest school mates," whom she has not seen for a decade. Not positive how that scans out in the US school system - but these folks seemed to be early 20s. Well, I hope it was storyline considerations that mandated the conclusions, but the reunion was a total disaster in the Midsomer tradition of multiple murders.

RSAs are quite different. We may still be in touch with these suspended animation connections, especially in these days of casual, almost unavoidable, social media connections. We may see their partners, kids, cats and dogs. We may respond with a desultory thumbs up, a like, or a cleverly pre-designed emoticon. Very 21st century. Very McLuhan hot media. Those kinds of interactions do not warrant hitting the "suspended animation" reset button. Remember the rest of Simon's lyric: "You said if I ever got so low I was  busted, you could be trusted." 

Usually we reach out to our RSAs after exploring a pressing issue with our most valued, but everyday, vital sounding boards - spouse, partner, valued colleague, BFF, etc.  Somewhat in contrast to Simon's lyric, I would assert that the issues that prompt us to reach out to our RSAs, need not be driven only by the "so low I was busted" times, they can also be just the opposite - seeking affirmation in a great new opportunity or choice. The important part of the lyric is "you could be trusted." The important aspects are significance and trust. We reach out to our RSAs when we really want additional trusted advice on some important issue in our lives. But we definitely do NOT want to crowd source it to Facebook or whatever bot is crawling our webpages.

So we set aside our lingering fears of rejection and remember that this was, and hopefully still is, a person "who could be trusted." And we begin the search for email addresses, physical address, phone numbers, etc., that will allow us to start the process of "knocking at their place of business."

There will be anxiety associated with waiting to see how, or even if, someone answers the knock. But I truly believe that most often the response will be worth the risk. And the Dalai Lama agrees. Oh, yes, the Dalai Lama and I very, very close .  .  .  .  . Or at least I think we might be, were I to ever actually meet him .  .  .  :-)

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