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Quote of the Day: Friendship and Butterflies
I had eventually come to understand that friendship was a delicate, gradual process that mustn’t be rushed or seized upon but allowed and encouraged to take its course over time. I pictured it as a butterfly, simultaneously beautiful and fragile, that once afloat belonged to the air and any attempt to grab at it would only destroy it.–Daniel Tammet
When a friend of mine recommended that I read Daniel Tammet’s autobiography, Born on a Blue Day, I realized I was encountering a man who saw the world in a very different way than I did. At age 25, he was diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, as well as a savant.
The beauty of Tammet’s condition is that it moves him sometimes to describe the world in unique and fascinating ways. His description of friendship was unlike anything I had read, and I was touched and intrigued by it. To think of friendship as something to be treated gently, and to be allowed to bloom over time was a sensitive and poignant way to see it. We don’t own our friends; we give them our commitment, but allow them freedom at the same time. In Tammet’s case, those who are on the spectrum sometimes have difficulties developing relationships; Tammet, from his stories, overcame that difficulty. The image of the butterfly was one of fragility and the ephemeral. I feel deeply about relationships, and these qualities describe my own experience.