The boy who could not feel

The following is a true story.

Once upon a time a man found himself consumed with the idea of finding real truth. The more he sought it the more he found all the many barriers to truth which together weaved an almost impenetrable blanket of illegitimacy over everything and everyone in his society including the man himself; at least the man he had been. The experience changed him magnificently. He shed years of untruth from his mind, became a person of much more humility and honesty and integrity and much less a man of ego. The horror which at first was born of the endeavor slowly changed to joy and peace and freedom as the man found new appreciations for the vital realities of logic, causality and context. He became very gentle and forgiving and full of love and pity.

When he eagerly went forth to share all this good news he discovered at once that people wanted nothing to do with it and did not trust him and so he learned to tread gently and do a lot of playing dumb for other people’s comfort.

He realized that he had tread into the realm of enlightenment but without a map to know just how far.

Then he met a boy who amazed him for the boy seemed to have incredible capacities for honesty, humility and intelligence and an instinctive mistrust for the ruling structures of society which the man knew very well to all be entirely corrupt.

The boy took a close interest in the man and began to ask questions about the deeper realities of life. The man respected the boy’s mind so much that he answered honestly, with no playing dumb in order to protect his new audience from the discomfort of challenged illusions the way he had to do with most society-imprisoned adults most of the time.

The man and boy quickly bonded as dual outsiders in a world they both felt alien to, or so the man perceived. The man was open about his journeys. The boy was eager to hear about the learning which had come out of them. They came together to talk on a regular basis; weekly for a long time and then at longer frequencies as the boy went to high school and then to college..

Their friendship seemed cosmic to the man; based on things beyond the mechanisms of society. Their friendship, the man perceived, was on a philosophic and spiritual plane. But the man came to love the boy like a son, while the boy felt more and more burdened by social anxiety and felt that somehow their friendship and their bond would never be understood by the peers which he struggled to relate to. Thus he tried to keep their friendship somewhat a secret which the man did not fully realize at the time, nor did he think that a good idea at all. He knew what dark hearts hid in the chests of normal people and the secret delight they would take imagining that something scandalous must be going on in any unusual relationship between an adult and youth.

He counseled the youth against secrecy but also did not worry about it much, for the youth would soon be an adult and surely their relationship would change and be more based on tangible collaboration in the realms of art and spirituality. They would inspire each other’s creative work and pursue enlightenment together, the man felt sure. And the man would finally teach him more of the wise understandings which he had been patient about; always letting the boy’s interests and circumstances and limitations dictate the approach of this learning.

He came to view the boy as his best friend, for it was only with the boy that he could be fully himself, not because he wanted to keep any secrets from anyone, but because the boy was the only human he respected quite enough to speak any hard truth whatsoever to; for the boy had such a powerful and open mind. One evening he asked the boy who his own best friends were and the boy named the man and one other friend from college.

The man knew that the boy had an extremely rare privilege with regards to their friendship. The boy had a friend that he could trust to no end, who would always respect what he had to say, never judge him, never think him weird or odd or anything like that (because the man had learned everything that the human creature is capable of and embraced the logic and causality that revealed that everything the human creature is capable of is normal). The boy had a friend who would always be honest with him,  always be supportive, and would always love him and never betray his confidence. This was a friend he had total freedom to say anything to.

A friend you can safely say ANYTHING to.

Who else could make such an honest claim about a friend? Think about it. Almost no one. Ever.

The man always wondered if the boy fully understood the rarity of his privilege. But as with most things the man was very patient. They talked earnestly together with no limits. They shared their fears and tears and “secrets” and deepest insights and deepest self-accusations and the man was always amazed at the boy’s growing intelligence.

The boy had a problem with empathy. That became apparent for many reasons but as always the man was patient and in no hurry to fully confront him about this (though the subject had been tentatively approached on occasion).

One manifestation was that the boy had a terrible habit of not returning people’s messages and though he admitted that he knew that it hurt people’s feelings, the man was pretty sure that the boy did not fully comprehend. The boy had once tried to explain what empathy was to the man and the boy got it all wrong. The man had felt sad for him at that moment and chose not to challenge him on it at that moment.

The boy’s habit of ignoring people grew worse with time and many friends gave up on messaging him at all. The man meanwhile was feeling hurt more and more often by this.

Over the years the boy’s explanation for this bad habit changed each time they talked about it. The man did not care to imagine whether the boy was trying to be honest or not. He loved the boy like family and chose to always trust him no matter what; for one of the beautiful aspects of love is the surrendering to the loved one the power to hurt you and choosing to trust that they won’t.

Finally the boy graduated from college and began to work regularly on his music and part time at a job and he was pursuing frequent experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs and was very excited about the realms of mental perception this seemed to be opening up for him. The man noticed that the boy’s mannerisms and personality seemed to be rapidly changing and he commented on this and the boy seemed to perhaps take this as an insult rather than simply concern.  

So with this new logistical freedom the boy and man planned a significant outing together. A significant exploration of the human mind. It was the boy's idea. The man was looking forward to it very much and very content that after about eight years their friendship seemed to be reaching that fully adult stage of collaboration, and then the man received a message from the boy which read:

I don’t want to continue this relationship not feeling the dynamic anymore, sorry

And now the man is confused and hurt and sad every day.