>>> Item number 33156 from WRITERS LOG9407A --- (64 records) ----- <<<
Date:         Tue, 5 Jul 1994 18:35:02 JST
Reply-To:     WRITERS <WRITERS@NDSUVM1.BITNET>
Sender:       WRITERS <WRITERS@NDSUVM1.BITNET>
From:         Mike Barker <barker@AEGIS.OR.JP>
Subject:      ESSAY:  It Takes Two to Tangle

comments welcome.  critique and flaming not required, but will be read.

(I have a feeling I shouldn't have led with a pun...)
tink
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                         It Takes Two to Tangle
                       Copyright 1994 Mike Barker

    Griping.
    Bitching about the past, the future, the government, men, women, and
everything and anything else that comes to mind.
    Sometimes that seems to be the predominant sport on the networks.
    I suspect the reason is simple.  It is easy to snipe at ideas, to
find fault with those who are trying to do something, to ridicule the
dreams of those who haven't given in to the corruption of cynical waste
yet.
    It is not so easy to do something, to dream, to build an idea.
    Relationships are one of the common targets for ridicule.  Why would
anyone dare to submit themselves to a relationship, with its outworn
baggage of trust, of mutual growth and gain, and other intimate
violations of that essence of individualism that Americans, in
particular, protest over other claims of society and life?
    It isn't as easy as griping, that's for sure.
    Griping is a sport for one.  It takes two to tangle.
    But while it does take two working together to tangle well, I'm far
from convinced that relationships are dead.
    It may even be that as in earlier times when the emphasis shifted
from clan-to-clan or social benefits to individual benefits, the current
examination and agonizing over just what makes a relationship will work
to reinforce relationships when and where two (or more) choose to invest
the time and effort to construct and keep growing a relationship.  These
tangles may not resemble, except in superficial simplistic views, the
earlier more rigid running of relationships in socially approved and
delineated ruts.  They may seem to be lacking in the permanence and
social approval of old.
    But having burst the restraints of social definition, we are left
with the struggle to build relationships "from the ground up."  This
struggle practically ensures that fewer relationships will be formed,
since the level of involvement needed to form them is so much higher
than ever before.  It also ensures that those which do form will tend to
be stronger, since the "initial investment" by those who participate is
greater.
    And, in time, I suspect that the great mass will settle for some set
of simpler relationships, socially approved and defined.
    It is so hard to always be starting over again.
    And when two want to tangle, they'd rather have some guidelines to
hang their vines on.
    In Vino Veritas?
    Or at least, new bottles for this year's wine.
    Even if the bouquet is very similar to last year's.

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Val asked
- what is the state of the relationship today, and where do you think
- relationships are headed in the future?

a sort of an answer?
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