There is no being or becoming without relationship. from the beginning, we grow to sense the need and import of relatedness. We human beings have the longest period of dependency among any living creature. At birth, in total helplessness, we engage in our first coupling, mother-child, and from that time on, the more sophisticated our lives become, the more interrelated we become. In a sense, we spend our entire existence weaving one relationship into another until we've created, like the web of a spider, a complete pattern.
Our very survival seems to depend upon our relationships. In childhood, if we are denied loving encounters with human beings, we wither, fall into psychosis, idiocy, or die.As adults we continue to depend upon our interactions in togetherness for our greater joys and our most significant growth. We take this process for granted. It seems to be only in moments when we experience disconnection, times when we are severed from close relationship-either by death, divorce, or physical separations that tear our closeness apart and leave us alone-that is becomes apparent. It is strange, then, that even knowing of our desperate need for relating, we continue through much of our lives to engage in thoughtless, vacuous behavior which only results in isolating us further.
