How does one

break the cycle of familiarity and complacency?

Honestly, I'm all ears.

So, quick story.  I say (often, and to the disapproving eye rolls of my room-mate/office-mate/life-partner) that I do not enjoy musicals.  That may not be entirely true.  In fact, there are quite a few musicals that I get a lot of joy-ish listening to.  One of them in-particular has been on my mind a lot lately.

Actually one song, of one of them, has a context that has been robbing me of sleep and general well being.

"What do you get?"

You see, world, I've been thinking a lot about relationships: close distance, long distance, casual, friendly, sexual, confusing, amazing, frustrating, life changing, what we get from them, and what we give to them.

"Someone to crowd you with love."

I think I have come to a point of realization, that the answer to the question that titles this entry, isn't found within yourself.  We lack the perspective on ourselves to radically and powerfully better/change ourselves in any kind of permanent capacity.

"Someone to force you to care."

That's why we entangle ourselves in another's life.  We grow, they grow, and if you are really lucky, you both grow in the same direction, and are able to continue to give that needed perspective throughout a changing, maturing, surprising life.

"Someone to make you come through, who'll always be there..."

But I guess that's what we want in the end, a companion.  In the truest sense.  A pair, intended to compliment or match each other.

"... As frightened as you, of being alive."

So here's to musicals that make you think.  Or rather, here's to created works that make you realize that everyone thinks the same things.