In arcades, in malls, in parks,
in places where people assemble like disciples,
in large groups, in smalls numbers,
there are places that continue to attract people,
for one reason or another,
because of what they mean,
and because of what they offer.

Friends meet up to talk, to see each other,
to catch up, to share some time with each other,
to have a drink with each other,
to have lunch with each other,
to maybe see a film at the cinema with each other,
to have fun with each other,
to celebrate life, and to continue to bond with each other.

The things that interest us,
the things that we think about
and feel the most passionate about,
are mostly the same things
that our friends think about,
and usually that is the reason that they are our friends;
the things that we could only share with our friends,
and talk about with our friends,
are usually the things that we cannot speak
to anyone else about –
because unless they know us and who we are,
the context of what we have to say
would be unfathomable to understand.

It’s easy to hang out with people who you don’t know,
but have something in common with,
now more than ever;
where before you would have to arrange a place
and a time to see and to talk to someone,
now, in the instantaneous interconnected age
of infinitely accessible knowledge,
we all can reach out in a second to someone
who might live five thousand miles away,
or five minutes down the road,
and have a conversation with them
using incredible technology in the palm of your hand,
as well as share moments that you have captured
and think they might like.

For thousands of years, people young and old,
children and adults, at different stages in their lives,
have come together to be in the same place,
at the same time as people
with whom they are exactly alike
to the degree that you might think
that they were separated at birth.
The draw to something amazing, and mesmerizing –
a feeling, a light, a flame, a memory,
an individual, a shared understanding –
is one that everybody and every thing
has felt and feels daily in all walks of life,
and to those who are members of every species on Earth.

There are things that we all want to discover,
and learn more about;
there are people who we wish we knew personally,
and we feel things for them
that before them we never felt.
There are clubs, colours, books,
music, past-times, fashions,
that can unite the many and the few, equally –
so much so that they make our heart shout.
There will always be places, and people,
where, and with with whom,
that we will crave to be, and to see,
to spend as much time in their embrace,
and simply hang out.