Also a one-shot. That's... that's all the explanation I have for you.
After the first few days of watching the airbenders, I made the conclusion that they were all immediately best friends. Yes, they all smiled at each other, but it was more than a friendly sort of attitude. Within minutes of meeting another, the two would be walking around as if friends for life. On many occasions, after my guide and I left, I'd asked how he knew the other airbender, only to be told that he didn't even know their name.
Eventually, I decided to ask how this strange phenomenon happened. Was it, in fact, just the friendly attitude? Was it part of the meditation that was spoken in their language? Was it just that their culture was more accepting than ours?
Personally, I believed it was a combination of all three. The air nomad culture is one of traveling and learning about-and accepting-other cultures. They have many meditative speeches that are hard to explain. Even once I understood the words, they explained, I wouldn't be able to fully understand their meaning. However, I was hoping there would be another factor in explaining the sense of connection between them.
I was not disappointed. In my interview with my guide, he said the following:
"Yeah, well, kind of [I'd asked if all airbenders were best friends]. Not quite, actually. There are so many of them that it would be impossible to be best friends with all of them. Some of them I know, and some of them I don't like. We have our class system, similar to how you have yours."
I asked, then, how he was able to connect on such a deep level to so many. Did he only talk to those in his station?
He said, "No, no. It's kind of hard to explain. Basically. So the wind is my best friend, okay? I can tell when it wants to play, or when it's having a hard day [see Report 3 for personification of the elements]. I can tell when it likes someone, and that affects my opinion of them.
"And here's the thing. The wind doesn't just talk to me. It talks to all airbenders. It's their best friend, too. So it's like… have you ever been with your best friend, and someone you don't know approaches, but your best friend throws their arms around them and smiles and introduces them as their best friend, and you-to them-as their best friend? And you're just like, well, this must be a good person, because my friend likes them. That's what it's like."
I thought this was fascinating, because I had seen the person he called his best friend, and it was not, in fact, the wind. It was another boy, by the name of Lehn. When I brought him up, he smiled in the way he always does when I don't quite get his culture.
"Well, yeah. You can have more than one best friend. Lehn is my friend, but the wind is, too."
The results of this investigation were very interesting. As my guide explained, "The wind is my best friend…it's [all airbender's] best friend, too." In the end, it's not just meditation and culture that connect them so extremely well-it's a common friend in the wind.