The Three Elements

A question I saw today got me thinking. A simple question. It seemed that way to me at first. A simple question that, however, made me self-evaluate my life so far. Because I only have to name three...

What three elements of life would you say are the most important to you and why?

We can say that life is full of... elements and because of this, it isn't easy to choose three, especially since they have to be the most important!

I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I chose very quickly, despite my unpredictable nature. I chose the most important ones and don't even want to think about them too much, as I don't want to risk changing anything.

In order of importance, they are:

Friendship

As a child, I considered family as the most important element of life. Parents and grandparents. I honestly thought I couldn't live without them, without them being around. I considered family the most important. Family, clan, tribe. Feelings that came from far away, from the mists of time, and inscribed in our DNA and genes. We were of the same blood... Parents, grandparents, and relatives always reminded me of that.

With the start of school, I began, slowly, slowly, to think differently. I started to have friends and more durable friendships.

I discovered that I like being friends!

Dan was my first real friend. We sat in the same pew at school from third grade until I graduated high school in twelfth grade! It was the friendship of the two Dani's, the real one, Dan that I tell about, and me, also Dan, but fake, because that's not my name on paper. They called me Dan, and that's what everyone who knows me still calls me, and many don't know it's not my real name.

Dan was my best friend until death separated us. About twenty years ago. I guess I don't have to say who's gone...

My life has been and still is full of friends. Not many, not more than ten. Some I see frequently and some I see very rarely. Friends have been closer to me, even closer than family, in all the difficult moments of life. There have been some...

To keep a good and long friendship you have to be very careful. You get a lot but you have to give as much. You must never let a friend down, which is not so easy.

Family

Family, of course, is very important. Not family in clan form, I don't mean extended family. The immediate family, husband, wife, and children, or, as they say nowadays, partners!

I can say a lot about family, but I think saying that our family is 45 years old this year is enough to prove how important an element of our lives is.

Art

If the first two elements were easy to identify (and I think these elements are agreed by most people), the third was harder to choose. I kept thinking about what is important in my life, besides the two pillars I mentioned above. That's how I came to art...

Life, to be worth living, must be beautiful. Many elements can embellish life and they are different from human to human.

It was a famous film, a classic film, Some Like It Hot! Paraphrasing, we can say...Some Like It... food, drink, money, health, love, travel, dream, sleep, power, etc.

I took a retrospective of my life and realized that art, in the form of music, film, painting, theater, and opera was and has remained very important and competed with the beautiful part of my life.

More than that. I was so lucky that two of the elements I chose, friendship and art, actually had elements in common.

My best friends are a theatre and opera director, a former ballerina, and her husband who is an actor. My other friends are a piano teacher and former rock musicians, now retired.

Another older friend was a painter who died a few years ago. He introduced me to the world of painters and painting exhibitions, and, of course, gave me some paintings (others I bought). Constantin Daradici, knowing my passion for the sea and Greece, gave me this painting for my birthday. Now this painting reminds me of the sea, of Greece, and a dear friend!

_{This painting was made for me in 2012. Author Constantin Daradici, Romanian painter (1948-2017). We were friends. Unfortunately, for a short time. Even if it doesn't seem like it, it has to do with today's story.}

Since I was a teenager I was attracted to art: music, film, and reading, but my adult friends, the ones I mentioned above, opened other horizons of the arts. They helped me to see the inner process of art making, both in theatre, opera, and in painting.

Surely the influence of these friends made art so present in my life. The life of an ordinary man lacking the talent of art making.

So, to @galenkp's question the answer is...