#relationship limitations

[emilytheapple]

The Puzzle

There are a lot of metaphors floating around in my brain (like clouds). Some of them are probably not great and most are probably not useful. I’m not sure that this one is useful or great, but it takes up a large portion of memory. The Puzzle is the way I view connections to other people. My puzzle piece is at the center of my perspective and it’s surrounded by the things and people that are the…

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[co-souled-blog]

The Tension Between Absence and Presence

When it comes to being in relationship with one another, every living person experiences a primal tension between presence and absence. This tension begins with the assumption that at the core of human nature is the deep-seated desire to be in connection with others.  In Genesis 2, a Biblical narrative that in many was points to the most intrinsic characteristics of our shared humanity, God realizes, “It is not good that man should be alone” (vv 18).

Where this tension really gets interesting, though, is when we come to realize the challenges of being present to those we love.  Even in our closest relationships, we cannot deny that the fact that we are individual beings, meaning that we can never fully encounter another’s thoughts, emotions, ideas, or memories.

On the one hand, this might be a comfort: the things that are most internal to me and most inaccessible to others are the things that allow me to form a unique sense of self, and therefore a sense of value. 

On the other hand, this idea can be extremely disheartening. Presence, in some sense, is an illusion, especially when it comes to the limitations of written or spoken language.   No matter how we might try, we could never completely and totally convey our thought to another person as they exist within our own selves. My ideas and emotions—my intangible signifiers of “self”—can never exist within the mind of another.    Achieving true, total presence, then, is impossible. 

And yet loving another person, at least by some definition, means desiring to be totally present to that person. Yet the more we seek to be present with another, the more we encounter the reality that that is impossible.  As we grow closer in love to the people around us, our sense of absence to them grows as substantially as our sense of presence.