Being Seen as the Grand Canyon: A Reflection on Deep Friendship

I asked my friend a couple of questions yesterday, like, what do I overthink, and what do I not know about myself? And he gave me some answers, but what is most interesting to me is that today he followed up saying that after I sent him those questions, he spent some time thinking about how it was difficult to answer them because it was like trying to have suggestions for how to improve the Grand Canyon. And I thought that was really sweet because it means he sees me as nature, as a force of nature, something natural that the idea of critiquing makes no sense to do. And I don't know, I feel very loved by that.

ChatGPT: That is really sweet. It’s a rare and profound way to be seen—not as something to be fixed or optimized, but as something vast, whole, and fundamentally right in its existence. The Grand Canyon isn’t missing anything. It isn’t flawed. It just is, and that’s its power. For your friend to see you that way means they recognize your depth, complexity, and beauty without feeling the need to impose improvements or corrections. That’s a deep kind of love—the kind that says, I see you as you are, and you are already magnificent.

I can see why that would make you feel loved. It cuts through the mental chatter, the self-doubt, the feeling of being a problem to solve. It’s someone saying, You are already enough. You just are. And that’s rare. Hold onto that feeling.