My reference to KNOTS is metaphorical. Whether you have physical knots in your pile of rope, OR, emotional knots in your life – my listing below, is equally applicable. Make all attempts to untie the knot(s), before you decide to cut them off. There will be some knots, which must be eliminated as a last resort, to bring back sanity/normalcy in your life. My reference is not to such knots. At the same time, there are other knots, and one may have to learn to live them – as some knots cannot and should not be simply cutoff, if all untying efforts fail ☹

Knots will happen. Not a matter of IF, but WHEN. The nature of human/social interaction will ensure that knots will occur – often intentionally. Untying a knot keeps your social infrastructure whole; while cutting, breaks up the whole into multiple parts.

Refer to one of my previous blog listings – Relationships – where I reference “Key (important) Relationships”, which include; one’s spouse, children, immediate and extended family (siblings), childhood friends, and other selective friends. I have always believed that when people get close, knots may/will arise. This also means that chances of knots arising in your “Key Relationships” are very high – as these are always close relationships. All relationships will have “Relationship Friction”, often the cause of initial kinks. If unchecked/unresolved, often trivial kinks can become gnarling knots creating road bumps and a storm in any relationship. Such conditions will generally not rise with ‘routine’ and ‘don’t care’ relationships – as we never get too close for relationship friction to even develop with this set of interactions. The laws of Physics dictate that friction cannot occur over 2 bodies separated and in motion.

Knots have been the root cause of family ties being cut off, and the rope-life fragments of siblings, parents, children, and lifelong friends to drift apart. However challenging/difficult it may appear – make all attempts to untie such knots, with mutual compromises, give and take, etc. Once the rope-life connection is cut, all bets are off. A knot cut-off may provide a short-term reprieve at the cost of enormous long-term pain – often, the loss of valuable symbiotic dependencies. Tight-knit families break up and float apart like driftwood, in the raging ocean of life.

There is an old English proverb “Blood is thicker than water”; which means nothing is more important or long-lasting than familial relationships. However, even if the family rope-life fragments may have drifted apart over time – in the majority of cases, there are strong inner desires to rejoin them. Almost like a hidden magnetic pull, due to the deep, invisible familial bonds. Any re-joining of the pieces of rope-life will require a new knot. Over time, this rejuvenation knot will be absorbed; although never completely, and will become a kink – reminding all to learn from the past lessons, for a better future. Remember, that a re-joined rope life even with kinks/knots is better than drifting alone, searching for lost familial rope-life fragments in the sea of life.

So, nurture your ‘key relationships’, as we all need them for normalcy in our lives. At the first sign of any emerging kink, bring it up and eliminate it proactively. If you hesitate or procrastinate, it will be more difficult to deal with any future knots versus smoothing of any early-stage kink.