A person should be both interested and interesting – however one need only be interested because ‘interested people make interesting people’. If one is interested then they will naturally become interesting because their interest will lead to questions, experience and learning – and thus more knowledge, and the more one knows then the naturally more interesting one becomes. If one is interested then one learns from the experiences of others. This allows one to be empathetic or compassionate which in turn leads to kindness and generosity.
Empathy is listening to another’s experience and understanding and relating to that experience through ones own experience. It is the basis of all friendship and conversation. A conversation involves people communicating about their own experience, whilst relating to the experiences shared through their own understanding and experience. A friendship is a good mutual understanding of shared experience – this allows two people to relate. As empathy is learnt through listening to other people’s stories then this allows empathy and thus kindness and generosity, which are necessary for friendship.
The relating of experience allows people to communicate freely – both verbally and non-verbally. The more one understands another, the more one will communicate. The innate understanding that defines friendship enables this communication to be silent. One could say that ‘it is not the sharing of conversation that defines a friendship but the sharing of silences’. It is within these silences that friends understand their shared experience and reflect upon it in an introverted way. Thus to develop friendships one must be interested and interesting. Being interested will lead to one being interesting. It will also lead on to the development of empathy and compassion and thus generosity and kindness.
