I've been a life-long believer in maintaining contact with those whom I have come in contact with, whom I considered 'worthy people. Wasn't it Socrates who opined several millennia ago that 'A superior person cultivates superior friends.'? [And yes, for all who are stuck in the nihilistic 'Evil White Culture' paradigm, he was one of them but just put that aside and consider the wisdom of this attitude on the raw merits of its intrinsic, humane insight.]

Of course, when we get much older, many of our close confreres and fellow bikkhus start to drop out of the life-cycle (i.e. 'die'), leaving us naturally more and more isolated from the vital essence of meaningful human contact, but that should not discourage our taking proactive, affirmative steps to maintain these amenable associations while they live.

I am, for example, a ferocious letter-writer by nature. Back in the pre-PC era I quite often sent off 4-6 page letters written on a typewriter to my broad circle of friends. Rarely did anyone respond in kind (since so many are not writers to begin with), but it brought me a lot of positive energy to do so. I later directed a lot of my writing inclination into mainstream writing activity. Viewed in retrospect, I think my intent was to help stimulate others' minds and encourage them to consider life from as many angles as possible.

Today, in an era when the internet reigns supreme and email is dying out in deference to a few quick words sent via smartphone texting, I still regularly send out scores of emails, papers, articles and so forth, despite a paucity of returns. Is it productive or not? I am unprepared to say, but as a retired medical practitioner who used to be 'joined at the hip' with pagers, call-back alerts and telephones, and such, I have a long standing aversion to verbal (direct) communication and much prefer the luxury of expressing myself completely, eloquently and cogently via the written word, however much it seems to be an increasingly dying art.

Several times in the past years, a concerted search for an old friend or acquaintance has resulted in a wonderful and gratifying re-blossoming of that friendship. Just as many times, the 'rediscovery' process has been melancholic and unproductive, since people change with time and circumstance and that person you used to know and feel close to 'back then' may have not only changed drastically, they may never have even shared as much in common with you as you thought, back in the day. After all, as we age, the criteria we adopt for finding kindred souls to draw in to our circle changes also...its largely a result of accumulated age, experience and the benefits of insight and exposure to deeper wisdoms that only enhanced familiarity with the broader world brings.

Still, far from discouraging the practice of 'keeping in touch' and/or proactive efforts to cultivate new associations, we must always be mindful of that ancient great admonishment of both Socrates, the Buddha and even (reportedly) Lao Tzu, to seek out superior qualities everywhere we can...be they in terms of knowledge or in people themselves! The imperfect world we live in would be far better if we simply kept that knowledge at front and center!