Decades of friendship

Those that share our path in life. Those that we have chosen to keep around through the changes and the years passed. It's inspiring to see them remain someone we consider worth our time, worth our friendship, worth their space in our souls.

With that in mind, I thought it could be refreshing for you too, to read the words of someone who seems to always want to live life remaining true to who he is, while always, always being kind to others.

So you will forgive a more casual tone to this post, since we have known each other for about three decades.

Hopefully, after reading his answers, your soul will feel lighter, and you will understand why we have chosen to keep each other around since we were kids.

I chose to simply ask him four questions which answers I was curious myself to know, while knowing he was going to offer something authentic (he always does), and worth empowering our souls with.

I have to say I have deeply enjoyed reading his answers myself, and I hope you will too. Such an amazing human, and, honestly, I am so happy I asked him for this collaboration for the blog. It has certainly made me happy, and I hope it will make your soul smile too.

So here it is, four vastly varied questions for my childhood friend Dani to answer as he best saw fit:

To start with, tell us something cool about a less well-known animal.

Bees sleep a lot of time each day, similar to humans. Except for the part about sleeping "inside" flowers (most humans don't do that… I think)

What would you say is your favourite manga series and why?

Hard to decide, but if I must choose a "complete" manga I think "The girl from the other side" (Totsukuni no Shōjo: Siúil, a Rún) is up there with the top ones, due to its fairytale-like aesthetics and its somewhat simple but deep story. It is also relatively short, and slow-paced, but I think it is well centered around its own main story, with few characters and little deviation to other "sub-stories", which I think works well in this case. It is quite unique in terms of both image, story, message, etc. for a manga, imo. If I can pick just an arc of a manga and not it as a whole, then I would probably pick the first arc of "The Promised Neverland" for its story and how its written, off the top of my head.

Virtues of boardgames as a bonding activity. Discuss!

Boardgames are definitely not the best option as a bonding activity for some people, but they are for me, at least, so... I think one of the strongest points in this regard, that a lot of people miss (in my humble opinión; I may be wrong) is that social interaction can be hard and confusing in many instances. Is this person being nice for the purpose of being nice, or are they trying to stablish a deeper/more meaningful bond? Is there other ulterior motive? Is there some irony there that I missed? Was that a joke, or were they serious? Or maybe a bit of both? Are we all operating under the same assumptions in terms of what can or cannot be considered appropriate? (probably not). Boardgames come in many different forms but, if they are well designed, they will always be accompanied by (relatively) well defined rules: what the players are allowed to do and what not, when and how; what is considered cheating and how it can be prevented/detected/dealt with (depending on the game, "cheating" can be an inherent part of it, but it can usually only be done in some ways that are also explained within the rules, so... is it really cheating?). Even when the rules are not too clear, players will usually "fill in the gaps" and decide on those edge cases as a group. So, in that sense, boardgames create a sort of "subspace of reality" were people are encouraged to abide by a shared series of rules and expectations that create common ground for them to interact with each other. This eliminates most of the ambiguity that makes bonding outside of such scenarios a bit (significantly?) harder or more confusing. Games where different teams are formed, those of colaborative nature, those where deception is an integral part of the game, or roleplaying games, also allow exploring and learning more about different facets of each other in a more subtle/gentle way. That is, if one is willing to "be themselves" while playing, even if they are roleplaying a character that may be entirely different from who they are.

We have known each other since we were 6 years old or so... What is one thing you miss from when we were kids? (One that you feel like sharing publicly)

Ok, so there are many things I miss, so let me chose two instead of one, if possible. In general, I would say that I miss meetups the most, usually to watch a film and comment on it, or go for dinner (then a film? :P) or to the fair, or when one of us was abroad and we would just travel to meet again after a while of not seeing each other, and "be together in a foreing place". You know, that feeling of belonging and being "safe" in the middle of "I don't know this place at all" kind of thing. So just being around each other more frequently, really. But if I had to choose a specific activity, it would probably be playing charades and trying to make words/films/books/ideas into gestures for others to figure out, or trying to figure those things from someone else's gestures. Specially when it involves trying to make people guess "enzyme" ("enzima") by cheating and making them say "above" ("encima").

Keep being authentic, keep being yourselves, keep being kind souls... And I hope those souls feel lighter after reading his words. I know mine does.