How to remain close

There are many kinds of distances; but basically it's referred to as the space between two points. However, us humans can pull off the paradoxical behaviour of being both distant and close at the same time. We can sleep in the same bed, eat at the same table, work side by side, play on the same team, etc. and yet be further away from each other than the moon from earth. Physically we can be so close we can't get any closer, yet at the same time, we can be on another planet, so to speak.

I heard a story that I find to be a good illustration: "A man and woman are in a car travelling. The man is driving and the woman is in the passenger seat. The woman looks at the man, her husband, and says: "Remember how we used to be? How I used to always have my head on your shoulders and you had your arm around me?" The man looks at the woman and answers gently: "Well, I haven't moved" and keeps driving the car.

Sometimes we may find it necessary to seek both physical and emotional distance.

We may deliberately seek to increase the distance in order to clear our minds,

to review our positions, to allow for breathing room, but the distance I'm primarily

concerned with in this post, is the distance we put between ourselves and the other

because we have forgotten, ignored or just stopped nurturing our relationships.

Living under the same roof, sharing workspace, playing on the same team, being in a relationship, we may take for granted the inference of a certain intimacy, but like anything living, unless nurtured it runs the risk of withering. Just being in approximety does not assure nurturing, it takes a conscious effort and expression of care. Placing a watering can next to a plant does not water the plant, filling the can with water and then pouring it on the plant does.

We all live such busy lives that it is easy to take each other for granted, get caught up in just "living"

that we forget to "water" our relationships. The child who used to tell us everything is suddenly a tight-lipped teenager, our friend we used to talk to everyday has become an aquaintance.

Our partner who we used to talk to and discuss everything that mattered to us asks: "Did you have a good day?" but before we have finished our sentence he/she has already started to flick through the channels on the  "ithingy"/box/TV.

Individualism makes us forget the bigger picture, we forget our ancestry, it(individualim)hides our descendants and separates our contemporaries from us. We become preoccupied with our "selves", we subtly create a distance between us and the other and become so self-focused that in the end we become entirely confined to the solitude of our own hearts.

Unless,

we notice, nurture and value

Intimacy,

be it emotionally or physically,

 both and/or simultaneously,

A civilization is a heritage of beliefs, customs, and knowledge slowly accumulated in the course of centuries, elements difficult at times to justify by logic, but justifying themselves as paths when they lead somewhere, since they open up for man his inner distance.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery