To friends...

Welcome back to my idle ranting.... it's been a while!

This column is dedicated to my friends... inspired by someone which I hope that I can eventually call my friend.

What do you find interesting? Some people like stamp collection... some people like to go out or go to movies, some others are into pottery. While I have many interests, my biggest interest is connecting with beautiful people. By beautiful people I mean beautiful souls... people who in different ways exemplify (to me) what it means to be human. This interest stems from a need to believe in the hope of a better tomorrow, a hope that is inspired, in essence, by beautiful people. My continuous quest for defining my own humanity is another motive.

The bottom line is... I am proud of the friends I have. If you're my friend and you're reading this, I just want to say thank you. The fact that we're friends means that, in my eyes, you're beautiful in one, if not many, ways.

Sometimes the beautiful soul I see is only superficial... scratching the surface unhides everything that is intended to be hidden. Other times it takes time to unravel the beauty of a soul because it's been buried under layers of societal conditioning. It takes time for me to really know... even though over the years I've developed an eye for beautiful souls. Rarely has my instinct failed me. In the end, my friends all have a common thread... while defining it may be difficult (my friends are extremely diverse), you can see it clearly when I introduce them to each other, which I frequently do.

While I can judge at first glance (or at least I think I can), I never really know until I'm close enough. There is no real time frame that dictates how quickly the relationship develops. Sometimes circumstances catalyze things, like my relationship with a good friend of mine who's been with me through the good and bad of this very last year - even though we've only known each other for about a year or so. The point is, we don't call each other friends until we really know each other.

I may never know everything about my friend. They may not know everything about me. But at least in one facet of humanity we're perfectly transparent to each other. What it amounts to in the end is that I can say that I really know this person. Before then, we can't really be friends. In the end, there would no need to ever define limits and boundaries. I must be able to touch my friend's soul in some way, and they should be able to touch mine. This is my measure of true friendship.

To all my friends, thank you so much for the opportunity you've given me to experience your humanity.

To friends to be - now you know what it takes for us to be friends.