Martian Sandy®

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Friends have been lost by people migrating to other countries.

 

Friends have been lost by people through politics.

 

Friends have been lost by people after neglect or betrayal.

 

Yet the opposites are also true, as friends have been gained after finding friends in a new company or country.

 

Friends have been gained through (political) collaboration amid harsh and unforgiving times.

 

Friends have been gained when your real friends helped you in your hour of need, after loss of wealth or support.

 

But while these moments seem contrasts, they are frequently even causally related. One thing leads to the other. New friends are gained after losing old ones, because your priorities shift compared to those of your old friends. It almost seems like a natural process as everyone's lives differ due to school, work and interests. Those parts of their lives schedule their lives in a unique way, which then leads them to eventually form different priorities in their lives compared to those of their friends who do not join them to a new school/company/religious activity/living area. Little time eventually leads to a disconnect or temporary disregard, although the old connections might give space to reconnect later on in life. Because the old connections are like an old community, offering a shared frame of reference about certain topics.

 

…

 

However there are other circumstances.

 

Circumstances in which after the decision of a person to go to a new company, a new country, sports club, religious meeting place or political party, not only friends but also a whole community and frame of reference is lost. The frame is slowly lost as a person doesn't any longer interact daily with the members of the community. Those members (slowly) start to regard the person as an outsider, maybe even judging the person to no longer be able to understand the community's worldview or problems. 

 

There's a complete disconnect, which can have multiple reasons. Often it is solely the embrace, by the person, of a new sports club.

 

A new job or social position.

 

A new religion.

 

And coming from those kinds of communities, like religions or political parties, it is understandable that the old cannot accept the new. That's because often, such groups aim to provide an answer for everything. A complete society and a whole special world to live in. Other groups can have similar views about how to order their societies, and some might even be willing to accept aspects of other worldviews in their society, but there never is a full similarity or acceptance of the other.

 

Therefore there's always a possibility of conflict, of rejection or denial. Or just plainly a loss of home, like you are not there anymore when things happened. The common experience is gone, even when you come back after years of being away without a big conflict or rejection. Again this is also an almost natural process, as groups form around common experiences with common understandings and feelings of belonging to the same flag/country/smart people. It makes goals achievable through collaboration and makes people safe, loved and possibly cared for.

 

…

 

Cared for by whom?

 

Care for whom?

 

Why do these groups need to be so strict? Of course INSIDE the group it is a matter of TRUST The trust that other members will help you with matters that you also care for, help you in times of need and make you feel special when you support the beliefs or aims of your group. 

 

Yet at the same time some of these groups start distrusting outsiders because they do not have the same beliefs. And they might not even care for these others, or for you when you leave them after disregarding their beliefs. Even if you might only disagree with the rest of the group on a part of the goal or belief of the group.

 

Of course it strongly depends on the type of issue in the real world, but the point here is: some groups just cannot fathom why you should disagree with them. And you might lose their friendship and companionship because of it.

 

One of the probable reasons for this harshness is the complexity of balancing strictness for community's sake with the freedom for its members to find new interests somewhere else if the community itself is lacking in what it can provide. A possible SOLUTION for this balancing act can be found, not by doing away with strict rules or a suspicion towards freedom, but by making it possible or easier for members of a community/religion/ideology to negotiate their adherence to that group's principles. In this way members would not cherry pick principles from different groups, but choose those that suit their own lives & environments and make a package of principles for their own lives. People actually already do this all the time, it's just that in political situations people need to show their allegiance towards groups that they EXPECT to get help or support from. Maybe the principles they actively adhere to in their daily lives correspond with those of other people, but together they are not KNOWN as a group. It could be a good idea to start CONNECTING these people more with each other….

 

But who do you trust to set this up? To negotiate the expectations in these new groups? For that, you might need something like (the) GOD(s).