November 1, 2026: Intimacy, Friendship and the Four-Body Problem plus One

Games are a compromise between intimacy and keeping intimacy away. Eric Berne (author of The Games People Play).

I think intimacy is the last taboo in many ways. Sonya Walger

The point of intelligence to create the space-time for something other than just cognitive intelligence to thrive. Hoonōs

A reminder about what the four-body plus one problem is:

1) Our biology; 2) Our psychology; 3) Our social structure; 4) Our environment: our objective location, both local and distant; The plus-one: the space/time between and within stuff.

Intimacy and Friendship are more than a “two body problem,” so perhaps it would help if we comprehended the following:

The “loss” of either friendship or intimacy means neither was ever on solid ground in the first place.

Everything is “real;” it’s the adjectives describing reality that matter (e.g., subjective or objective reality).

Life, love, and learning are a stewardship and that’s our real job. Then we know we have gifts, whether we have true friendships, true intimacy, or neither.

Intimacy and friendship involve ratios, but those ratios are not a static distribution.

Blame does not help as it’s like throwing salt on a wound (okay, maybe the salt can sterilize a wound, but is torture a necessary infliction?).

We are all frightened of friendship and intimacy to one degree or another—life can seem like it is on a vulnerability-protection spectrum.  We are taught that vulnerability is a problem that has solutions. Food helps alleviate hunger; warmth alleviates cold; A/C alleviates heat; babies need caregivers; sheep need a sheepdog. Sheepdogs need a shepherd; shepherds need…

For what it’s worth—and I encourage skepticism—here’s what I’ve found: We all get hurt. We all get lost. But many times, the only thing “to do” is to not do anything, especially impulsively.

Betrayal is especially difficult to respond to by doing nothing. Okay, maybe there is a bit of a solution: Just hurt. Don’t pile it on and don’t spread it around. Doesn’t seem like much, but it’s less messy. Sometimes less is more—a kind of annoying bumper sticker. But what about those who are emotional grifters busy collecting and molesting feelings and vulnerabilities (molestations are not just sexual)?  Shouldn’t they get their comeuppance?

If freedom is what we seek, does making a bigger mess help?  Okay, sometimes making a mess of things can be lighthearted, but making a mess of other people is not the same as hoping for accountability in ourselves or others (“one has to break an egg to eat it” is not a rule meaning we always have to break something to get something).

Sometimes I think we all (including me) like to wear a crown of thorns or a horse-hair shirt or walk with rocks in our shoes or whatever misery we feel we can pull out to show we’ve earned our vulnerability. That’s our idea of a get-out-of-hell card?  We’re all vulnerable anyway. We don’t need an excuse. And we don’t need to use vulnerability as a “come-hither” card which can really be a trap. However, the “come-hither” card can be an alluring as long as it’s not weaponized.

Perhaps the weaponization of heart and mind is why humanity plugs along like a square box going down the road. Clearly, we can be an amazing species. But when anyone, human or not, assumes the role of guarding the “source,” there will be unnecessary problems.

Doing “nothing” does seem counterintuitive, but perhaps we might benefit from adding that behavior to our skillset. That’s not even close to a new concept, but the application is not even close to becoming a practice, much less a “normal” behavior.

Finally: Loneliness is a very different state than being alone. The former is a form of self-torture; the latter can be beauty. Learning involves more than either state as we need to know how to be appropriately alone-alone, alone together, and together-together. When all three are well recognized and seen distinctively, the very soul of nurture, friendship, intimacy, grace, and love have room to breathe.

We as well as individuals can create healing information if we allow it to enter. To create that possibility, we need to know the difference between being incomplete and being defective. And even if we’re defective, all the good still awaits us with aplomb.

Make room for the unexpected. Make room for wonder. Make room for the stuff we love. Make room for laughter (including about ourselves). Make room for responsible mischief or “misbehavior.” It is the space/time in which we live. And though our known life has an end, I seriously doubt that life itself has an end.

Next month: Holiday’s beauty and messes (does hell actually get more attention than heaven?).