My husband and I rented “Into the Wild” this weekend. Silly me, I thought it was going to be a story about a young man who goes out into the wilderness ill-prepared and dies. I didn’t really want to see it, so imagine my surprise when I find out that this movie actually offered more than I expected.

What struck me most about it was the whole relationship aspect of it. The young man was very relational in so many ways, and yet not so relational at the same time. When things got a little close, he moved on.  He followed this dream of living isolated in the Alaskan wilderness and when he finally got to the point that he decided he really did need others, it was too late—a not-so-classic tale of unreciprocated love in a sense.

What is it about relationships that makes us so afraid?

It was a bit of a revelation to me to find out that I was created to be for relationships. I mean really hard-wired to be a relationship person. Somehow growing up, and possibly not intentionally, I got the idea that individuality was where it’s at. I was all about being different. You know, most teenagers go out of their way to be like everyone else, but I intentionally went the opposite and I didn’t exactly do it quietly. It was the cause of a lot of angst in my life, but I rationalized that I should embrace the angst because that showed I was in the right. So the idea for me that it might be more natural for me to build and nurture relationships, was actually a new concept, and it was pretty radical. Imagine suddenly finding out that there are people out there in the world whom you can appreciate and be proud to emulate.

Maybe this is what happened to Chris McCandless in his life. He thought that going it alone was the thing that would bring peace, but he found, a little too late, that we need each other to reach the place of peace. I learned that, but I learned it later in life, admittedly.

I’ve thought a lot about relationships and why we need them, and I think we need them because they make us better people. Since I got married, I have started to care a lot more about others and that is partly because I get reminders every once in a while from my family that I am not the center of the universe. If it weren’t for being a mother, I don’t know if I would ever have learned what unselfish love is really all about and my husband keeps me grounded by telling me that I am not as wonderful as I build myself up to be in my own mind.

I also think we need others because we learn from them. We are limited in the amount of learning that we can accomplish by ourselves. We need others to learn about all the nuances of life and even then, we still miss a lot. We learn through the rejection, the acceptance, the giving and taking that is required of relationship.

I’ve heard people say that it must be heaven to live the hermit’s life, but I think we’d hurt ourselves by living that way because it is positively unnatural. People who are segregated from all human contact often go a little crazy, and I have even heard stories that babies borne as orphans who didn’t receive regular human touch turned their faces to the wall and died. We are built for relationships, and because we are built for them, we shouldn’t be afraid to open ourselves to them at every opportunity.

I believe that God built us, hard-wired us, created us to be in relationships with others and with Him. I also believe that we should be practicing relationship as often as possible so that we can all get really good at it. It takes practice. It takes nurturing. It even takes courage. You know what?  It’s worth it.