Good morning friends,
Just curious... what do you think this title means? “ Friends who turn on friends’s friends;” specifically in reference to the words “turn on.” I suspect your meaning has a lot to do with your personal experience. During the night, Amazon Sage dream-travelled back in time, to the study of a young author who had some very interesting things to say on the subject. Sitting across the desk from Anais Nin, our courageous explorer felt both honored and a bit of trepidation. After all, this woman’s writings can be pretty steamy. Think Henry Miller, June Mansfield, and The Tropic of Cancer. In letters between the three, Anais Nin was once described thus:
Because of our human tendency to create meanings that fit in with the way we see the world (aka, our poustou or our self-world construct), some of you will indeed interpret those words to be about friends who sexually arouse your other friends.” However, others will think it refers to a friend’s rejection of their friends’ other friends; perhaps even betrayal. Certainly, depending upon the circumstances in which the behavior occurs, either can be seen as a betrayal... or not. Imagine if we chose to apply humor or even compassion to our friend’s tendency to turn on our other friends. How might that change the eventual outcome of our friendships?
“Anais initiated [conversations about sex] by questioning June about her lesbian experiences, but June also coaxed things along, taking perverse pleasure in provoking Anais to constantly escalating displays of passion, which she promptly told in great (and sometimes exaggerated) detail to Henry.” I’d say this is clearly one meaning of “friends turning on friends.”
Because of our human tendency to create meanings that fit in with the way we see the world (aka, our poustou or our self-world construct), some of you will indeed interpret those words to be about friends who sexually arouse your other friends.” However, others will think it refers to a friend’s rejection of their friends’ other friends; perhaps even betrayal. Certainly, depending upon the circumstances in which the behavior occurs, either can be seen as a betrayal... or not. Imagine if we chose to apply humor or even compassion to our friend’s tendency to turn on our other friends. How might that change the eventual outcome of our friendships? In an upcoming blog, I will speak to some of these intriguing possibilities, but first, I must ask you to think about three pertinent questions: First, what does it mean to you to be a friend? Second, when do you draw the line for a friend’s bad behavior? And the last one is key: Can a friendship ever get beyond one friend’s betrayal of the other? Stay tuned for more as you ponder my favorite quote from Anais Nin, “We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.”
