Here, there and everywhere

A Simple Line

A stranger gave me a short ride to the station yesterday. What she said will stay with me for a long while.

Reason #3

Arts fill us with hope

Reason #4

Arts show us the grace of trust

5 Reasons to befriend the arts

#5

Arts make us think. 

Friends at a café

I saw people trying to talk across tables at a café. It takes courage to reach out. To be friends.

Tea time

Tea Time with friends is such a treat. Even food seems to taste better with friends.

Hanging out with Friends

It's so much fun!

Who is a Friend?

The conversation between the mother and child in the Bully documentary stays with me. The mother explains to her son that friends connect. The child who is being bullied mercilessly by his school mates asks plainly, heartbreakingly 'if they are not my friends who are my friends?' Indeed who are friends? When does teasing become bullying?

Dare to Befriend

Heartbreaking Stories about the consequences of bullying. See The Bully Project. So I say DARE TO BEFRIEND.

Friends Jiving

Friends jive well together!

Gandhi on Peace, Love & Friendship

Old Friends

Reading Andrew Sullivan's Love Undetectable: Notes on friendship, sex and survival. Insightful and beautiful! Distinguishing between friendship and love he writes about the steadiness of friendship.

Likeness/Unlikeness

I have been thinking about friendships across differences so was struck by this sentence in Emerson's essay on Friendship. "Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and unlikeness,.."

Friendship Tales

The story of Bella, the dog and Tarra, the elephant here.

One Tall Dog

I saw two tall people and one tall dog out on a walk and thought about what C.S. Lewis writes:

“Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . ."” 

Childhood Friends

Meeting an old friend is like finding your favorite childhood toy. Are childhood friends best friends? Just found a paper on best friendships.

Inspiring DIfferences

Saw 2 friends out on a run on the Esplanade. It was awe-inspiring to see the young guy running on carbon blades. Both of them seemed comfortable running together.

3 Young Friends

Motivated to do a new drawing everyday. Making new friends on Twitter. Check out Claire Holgate. #dailydoodle @clairhol. And an ink drawing everyday #inktober Jake Parker.

Birds of a Feather?

I saw pigeons and sparrows happily pecking away at crumbs together while I ate my lunch outside the mall.

Friendship Diversity

Ann Friedman's piece on friendship diversity speaks to the friendship across differences idea that keeps coming up in my work. Ms. Friedman writes, "When it comes to your friend group, though, making a conscious diversity effort is fraught, to say the least" More on the nymag site. 

Loneliness and Friends

We need friends. We all know that. But if there is any doubt there are plenty of reports. And then there is the loneliness scale that I have sketched below. Adapted from the UCLA loneliness scale downloaded from The Fetzer website. 

Plato

Plato writes as far back as 350 BCE "Similarity begets friendship." Phaedrus. 

I wonder what he meant? 

How do children befriend?

Scholars studying children's friendships report that it's complicated. Complex verbal and non-verbal cues are involved. Also children tend to have more misunderstandings with friends than acquaintances.
A paper on children's friendships here.

The Origins of Friendship?

The origins of friendship is a puzzle.
I read about inter-species and intra-species friendships in the wild and captivity.
Shirley and Jenny - the 2 elephants' story is tragic. Revealing.
See the video - Shirley & Jenny Meeting after 22 years and the update on PBS.