When we get good at understanding human nature, the way people respond to us is easy to figure out. We get good at reading the signs others gives, to their affection for us, their inclusiveness and their comfort with us in their lives. Of course this is good news and generally we are able to read signs like great big signposts when we are looking at the signs we are given.

Sometimes these signposts become confusing for very good reason. When we are with others we might be reading big signs we are looking for, we hope we are receiving the friendship and inclusion we seek. We may want this or that person to be part of our living and we form opinion based on what we see and feel about people. We also have other signs we look for inside us. We are all different and want different things from those we encounter, this is where our sign and reading of them can get complicated. For our wants and needs from people we know do vary according to our feelings about ourselves.

We may want to be more friendly with some, more close and intimate, and with others just friendly with enough closeness to the level of trust we have. We have others we might wish to be in partnership, as close buddies or if we are free to, to become very close in partnership and intimacy. And in particular, in the latter instance we become very selective when we are attracted to a friendship which may become more than just good friends.

In fact our selectivity in sign reading might be so thin, we just see enough of what we look for and miss the whole array of everything else a person may be. Our desires are always prejudiced by our needs and wants. We become good and selective in what we see. And when we do this we forget those elements which may be risky, and cause greater problems long term for our and their well being. We need be careful when we meet vulnerable people and be careful with them. And we may be vulnerable to their affection and inclusiveness. And we may read motives right or wrong or motives can change as quick as a lightening bolt if we don’t read things as they are and not as we might pick up selectively.

We need to be honest in our mind and open up the possibility to trust our judgment and share our innermost vulnerability. That we might be rejected in friendship at any level for any reason.

We need to be flexible how we deal with where people are today, for people do change their minds and I face these dilemmas today. For indeed the reading I have with various people I know varies quite significantly day to day, and what I see is sometimes inconsistent with what I know of the history and long term connections. People do change their minds, do get close and do get more distant as their other connections change too.

I tend to keep myself close and connected to what I see and know and bear evidence from connections and how they develop. What people tell me is not just in their conversation it is in their behaviour and inclusion of me. I am tough to know for I am inclusive and don’t shut people out on the top and middle levels. I keep myself safe inside by being who I am daily and let the deep of me permeate everyday living in my consistency and care.

Others keep separate a deep they feel they may have, they keep secret some of their inner being in case it is vulnerable and turned over by people and events. For me this just keeps things out of possibility and for them more certainty in safety.

What is sometimes lost in our shallow touch with many is the freedom of the deep for in the deep we get good with connection. Mind when we swim to the deep of ourselves, we train ourselves to experience deeper levels of risks. And that can be intimacy or rejection, as we go deep and learn to be good in the deep, we need be mindful that others barely keep their emotional heads above water. And the deep so attractive for its touch and connection can drown some as others swim with deft strokes. And we still need be aware our own ability to read things with signs made and not honoured for the honour in our signposts can be as quicksand and disappear when others are in dire want rather than ordinary need.

So complex this human doing, that we can all make life easier when we open our minds to the day and the future of what we are and how we like to be. And that we understand the good of society and how it forms us and how our civilisation produces restrictions and keeps something in us in check where we may stray from our own convention and good sense. We find boundaries around which help and hinder our emotional development and our friendships in society.

We can be good at helping ourselves and others when we take a view of living our values and principles, how we deviate from the truth we are, and how we connect to our true nature.

Not easy when from birth we are schooled to hide and offer masks to our fellows in this world, where danger is kept low as we pretend to be ok and fine, that we are comfortable when we are not, that we get what we want and need from our brethren and more importantly from those we want close and intimate. And especially when we are uncertain, it might be better to pause and reflect.

Wherever we are in our friendships, the more we are, the more we get to a place of equal disclosure, the better we can be as friends to whatever level we might aspire. We do this as we become confident in our true nature and not in what we feel is acceptable to others and society. And where there is hesitancy, be forgiving, where there is deception inside others let it go, and go where you need be, maybe the same place or other places, merely let go those which might seem most attractive, for if they feel the same way, they stay with us, or go on where they must as their values and principles take them. We need only check our reality, and accept it. When we do others find their reality much quicker, they are with us or away from us to where there is comfort, acceptance of this means choice and control, love and inclusion or being on the outside is arrived at more quickly and with less drama.

Easy? Fucking hell, maybe, can be, might be. We only know what we know from endeavour and letting all unravel in the openness we create in our relationships as we are, we receive and as they we love receive, we enable our own and others views.

As we do this, our inclusion and friendships are going through the same process in those we encounter. And we are forgetful of others in the process as we are our own motives most of the time. We need be more mindful where we are, and where others are too in the same moment. And this I will endeavour today, and every day. Especially today and we might be happier people for the openness as offered, and safety in inclusion rather than danger of hurt in exclusivity and manipulation to particular ends. Being loving is letting these opportunities out into the open and then we can be busy with closeness and free of obligation we might regret in hindsight where resentments charge all our psyche and our demeanour can become ugly with rejection. Smiles and say cheese for the camera, and in that frozen moment know you give me as much as I can determine in a lifetime together and eternity.

When artists reach our deep and examine with great expression we see it in the blink of an eye. We see that moment a thousand times a day and can read it as nature intended. If we choose. And if you choose there is an artist, Lovis Corinth, seek him out and apply your blink of an eye to understand the true nature of man in some of his work. Be blown away by your own perceptions of living and being, and make good your outlook!