Strange Friendships
I have travelled to Africa for a friend. He asked, I agreed.
As I was packing my bags, someone asked me a question.
The question was: "Why are you going all the way there? I can't even understand why you are friends with that guy? You have nothing in common and he is nothing at all like you... he is strange."
My reply: "…because the strangest people make the greatest friends…"
We live in a self-indulgent society.
Buy, use, dispose. Just in time is the rule of the day.
Western culture has become dominated with temporary fixtures for consumption, making the norm an exercise in self-gratification.
I find nothing remarkable in the norm.
Packaged conveniences, pasteurized experiences, a soulless existence.
If my prerequisite for friendship was normality, I would rightfully expect nothing more than self-gratification from my friends.
Fear is where the norm ends and where the strange begins.
There is darkness in the strange. But there is also beauty, truth, honour and reality.
The strange wear their hearts on their sleeves, they walk with their true nature exposed.
There is no concealment. The strange simply ‘are’.
In a world of window dressing, this is a social crime.
The sentence is exclusion. You are guilty until proven innocent.
So, the strange value connection - it is rare, and scarcity brings value beyond words.
For you, my strange friend:
there is no sacrifice too great,
no distance too far,
no topic beyond reach,
no question of loyalty.
When the weather turns,
When my fair weather friends have sailed for brighter shores,
When my fire has dimmed to smallest of sparks,
When I am on my knees with nothing left to give,
You are there. Because you are there.
The strangest friends make the greatest friends.
And the greatest of journeys.
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