Mi'sen

Is this an underused conversation scaffolding? • group enjoyment -> discussion • Q/A, spreading knowledge & questions; from experts to novices, insider -> outsider, old -> young • signals the value of directing attention towards areas which might otherwise go ignoredhttps://twitter.com/misen__/status/1124587633278169088 …

Book groups might be an obvious example, but ‘physical’ clubs - eg: sports clubs - seem more successful for quality friend search/matching. Why? Implicit trait trust > explicit interest proximity?

Do you need a mutual attitude of openness to establish communication? I suspect yes, otherwise people are just talking to themselves in vague proximity to other insulated people.

This all reminds me of @visakanv talking about finding ‘soulmates’. I find making friends difficult, historically at least, but the friends I do have are high quality. How to make good friends is super interesting to me (I’m pretty good at being a friend, less good at matching)

One problem with seeking connection via shared interest, related to Sloteridijk’s thermotope; the shared pampering space, which insultes the person — a shared ‘escaped reality’, a We-Cave — and the connection never comes a cross-context friendship. eg: church people

There is a concept of tendrel — something like auspicious connection — which is pivotal to vajrayana praxis. Good friends share a lot of connection, maybe. So, how? This often gets used in some weird metaphysical magical thinking way, but good friendship _is_ magical/ish: