Thank you, I really enjoyed the original discussion.
I’ve often been thinking of time distribution and personal CRMs lately. It’s very easy to fall in the trap of spending all your time with a significant other - and find out years after that all your relationships are ghosts of their former selves. I see that in my parents: at 70 they might have 10 people between them that they care about and see more than twice a year. How sad is that in a marriage that hasn’t gone well for two decades?
But the campfire analogy is so bleak, so distant from other people. I don’t have a neat visual for it but what I would like is to spend quality time with a core group of 10-20 people per week, good times with another 20 every month, and see another 100-200 every year at least (mostly family). Is anyone managing a schedule like that?
I agree, that analogy seems a bit excessive. A little afraid of commitment and building deep connections and deep joys.
I mean, there's the phenomenon of building over-expectations on someone else and becoming excessive in trying to monopolize their attention (although I believe it's mostly only a problem when not reciprocal).
Let's not go the other extreme though. When no one can really connect and trust someone else, you're just sharing a moment of warmth in the vast darkness...
I have some friends that understand me very deeply, and that I also understand very deeply. Spending time with them and talking I feel like discovering the same things they did.
And then I try to cultivate friendships with people quite different then me (but that I admire of course). This is to not be caught in a bubble thinking my field is all there is in the universe ...
( Funnily enough any field can suffer from that -- Your field Technology? It is the structure that supports everything; Your field is Language? It is the medium that underlies all thoughts; Your field is Mathematics? ... )
Overall it shouldn't be about number of friends, but about being able to share deep (in the sense that you both really capture what's being shared), good things (feelings, emotions, lessons, etc) as much as possible. If you feel you're having that you're in the right path.
Unless you are including large group gatherings like parties and reunions, meeting 100-200 other people you know is by no means an easy task. I'd say, for me, almost impossible at the moment.
I’ve often been thinking of time distribution and personal CRMs lately. It’s very easy to fall in the trap of spending all your time with a significant other - and find out years after that all your relationships are ghosts of their former selves. I see that in my parents: at 70 they might have 10 people between them that they care about and see more than twice a year. How sad is that in a marriage that hasn’t gone well for two decades?
But the campfire analogy is so bleak, so distant from other people. I don’t have a neat visual for it but what I would like is to spend quality time with a core group of 10-20 people per week, good times with another 20 every month, and see another 100-200 every year at least (mostly family). Is anyone managing a schedule like that?