“Don’t walk behind me, I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”
- Albert Camus
As simple and straight forward as this may seem, it actually has a profound meaning for me.
I try to avoid claiming to know too much about any one thing, but when it comes to relationships, especially of the human variety, I do feel a tad more qualified than most to offer insights and ideas that may be of benefit to any human who interacts with another human on a regular basis.
I feel that this quote speaks very clearly for itself, and I do not wish to taint it with my ramblings attempting to break it down for you if you don’t get it. This is why I am going to illustrate what this quote means to me with a personal antecdote and leave it at that.
For two years I lived in a unique situation. I resided in several places with anywhere from one to three roommates at one time (all of which rotated in and out with some frequency), with one or two of those as assigned work companions. These companions were rotated on a regular basis, each one staying with me for a period of anywhere from a few weeks to several months.
Over the course of those two years I had no fewer than two dozen such companions, and probably almost four dozen roommates in all. As a man, I find that women make the best living companions, but all of these roommates and companions were young men like me.
I do not get along very well with other men, I don’t relate to them on any practical level. From early on in that two year period it was obvious that the living conditions would either equate to a recipe for certain disaster, or offer a tremendous opportunity for personal growth.
Our daily activities required frequent travels over moderate distances, and most of our traveling was carried out on foot. Thus, every morning for two years I left an apartment on foot and walked around all day with a companion (a male companion, nonetheless), someone I had to stay within a few yards of at all time.
Did I mention that I was living in Mexico for those two years? Would it make a difference if you knew that nearly all of my companions were native Mexicans and I knew almost no Spanish? For the first few months I walked in silence with my companions and had plenty of time to contemplate the non-verbal communications that passed between us, both intentionally and unintentionally.
One of the first things I noticed was the relationship between how well we got along and how we walked together. My very first companion walked next to me most of the time, but if I began to walk slower than he wanted me to he would not adjust his speed. Some times I would trail several yards behind and he wouldn’t even look back to see if I was there. My next companion never walked beside me at all, but instead insisted on walking in front of me, as did my third companion. Later I had a companion who was timid and would not walk beside me. He chose to walk behind me and let me lead the way.
While, to him, it may have appeared that I was leading the way, his choice of where to walk actually had a drastic impact on our companionship. In fact, the walking arrangement between two people both affects and is affected by their relationship. It may all seem trivial to you, but consider the following:
In my first companionship we walked next to each other, side by side, as long as I was walking up to speed. You could say, as long as I was meeting my companion’s expectations he awarded me with a coequal walking arrangement, as though his presence were a gift to me. As soon as I was too slow for his taste, he passively pulled away from me in an attempt to make me feel as though our separation (the retraction of his great blessing to me) were my fault for not walking as fast as he wanted me to. Of course it wasn’t his fault, he didn’t change speed.
Certainly he had a good heart, and none of the above was actually going through his head as we walked. He merely demonstrated these attitudes in his actions (or inaction), and the message was as clear to me as it would have been to anyone observing. Not only did it reflect his actual attitude and role (though inexperienced himself, he was supposed to be training me) in our relationship, but it had a deep impact on it as well, causing me to withdraw and speak to him only when absolutely necessary. How was I supposed to speak to him with that physical and symbolic distance between us that he was so carefully using to “teach” me?
When my companions simply walked ahead of me, refusing to allow me to keep up with them, we experienced problems. These companions looked down on me and saw me as a nuisance and a bother, and this was reflected and reinforced by the walking arrangements.
In my companions who purposefully walked behind me, despite my best efforts to walk next to them, I noticed a lack of confidence and our work efforts were less effective.
My most effective and positive companionships were all marked with a side by side walking configuration. This is not simply a coincidence, it is a rule. Not walking side-by-side can be a symptom of bad feelings in a relationship, or it can cause them. Like I said before, the way a person walks with another person can both reflect and affect the state of the relationship between the two.
So, while the quote is symbolic in nature (the symbology of which I will not discuss) there is a very real, literal meaning here that is deeply engraved in my heart. If you ever chance to walk with me in person, please remember the wise words of Albert Camus, “Just walk beside me and be my friend.”