G asks a Question: Have we been held together by the knowledge that, essentially, we share the same concerns? We know each other to the extent we know ourselves??? If so, does this offer the possibility that: Everybody else shares those same concerns? Is EVERYBODY, essentially, the same?
Something happened to a draft I wrote a few hours ago. So, maybe you received it, or maybe we will benefit by the simmering of my unconscious thought process since I wrote that draft. If you’ve already read something like this, then we know that there is some Truth in what I have to say--Truth, at least, for myself, if not for each of us.
We've always been concerned with Truth, perhaps that concern began when first we discovered that some things were not True, and even more important, that it is possible to deceive others. I know that I have always been an admirer of G's attention to the True, and his many journeys to find it, some far away and some quite close. S. has a similar need, grown out of the political lies that he had discerned early in his life. Those lies became, for him, painful, and political Truth became a panacea. Understanding his strength and honest directness makes it easy to be with him.
But, of course, I am off course. The question on the table is: what has held us together, and a part b, does that mean that everybody is the same as us...
Surely you jest, G, when you ask if everyone is the same as us. No, Virginia, we are part of a unique subset of the Human Race. So much for part b.
What are we? Products of Secular Jewish Upper-Middle-Class households, with aspirations to assimilate -- those aspirations stronger with some of our parents than others. Each household was of a liberal bent, and maintained the usual Jewish respect for knowledge, books, and education. We were sent to a fine school that reinforced those values. There we met and eyed each other from afar, at first.
Held us together? Time, itself, binds tightly--but that's only one of the knots. There are others. There is the Truth of our Mutual Nakedness--we've each known each other in the Before, and so roles and masks, blessedly, don't work with us. We know each other. Truth again. And don’t you think that the Truth of Us is the tightest of all the knots?
Generally we share a certain degree of intelligence--within a range--S. being a outlier, perhaps, but the rest of us are of roughly equal intelligence -- I could rank us--but I don't like to put a certain person on the bottom. So we are in a common range...I have always held that nearly equivalent intelligence drew married people together, as much as pheromones, or common interests like tennis or bridge. Likewise with friends.
Before now only S. reinvented himself and led a life different from that of all that preceded him. But when we came together at fifty, the essential was still there, we recognized him for what he was, just a boy like us. And he knew us.
Of course, there is the element “G..” G. is been the a magnet and has always kept us together. I fret that his relocation to the West will damage what we have. Perhaps allow it to slip apart. We knew each others’ parents -- an important element; we know our histories, more than our second and third wives, I think. We knew each others' wives in series. More ties that bind.
Not one of us had natural brothers. Mine was much older and had been in South Pacific during the war. A, S, D, H, and M had none. G had two brothers but they were estranged . So more than comradeship there was a brotherhood of necessity, that later involved into this brother-ship, albeit a dwindling as time has stolen A, S, D, & H.
Our familiarity with each other is without parallel. Notice that familiarity has the same root as family. We’ve always treated each other as equals. We’ve accepted each of us for what we are, have never asked for change, and have been loyal that no-holds-barred, stripped-of-all-pretension, naked man that we’ve known for over fifty years.
I am waiting to read the other replies – and G, you aren’t excused from the exercise. Asking the Q doesn’t exempt you from an A.
