Friendship:
Friendship is another one of those undefinable words. It simply means different things to different people at different times. It is easier to attach characterizations to friendship. These characterizations might include compatibility, kindness, loyalty, tolerance, 'covering another's back', protective inclinations, empathy, amusement, understanding, etc. Most friendships are transient, they come and go with time and place. It is hard to judge anyone based on the number of friends they have since some people are gregarious, others are not, and of course most are in between. Some of the strongest emotional friendships are between people and their pets. I suppose a good test of friendship might be to kick some one's pet and see whose friendship prevails. Good luck with that one. Some friends have been dead some time, yet still their presence is felt and lives within our psyche as some kind of learned understanding or behavior. Damn, I seem to have a lot of them. The lessons of your parents remain throughout life, embedded in your personage. Some friends are non palpable mentor friends upon whom you rely for guidance, much as I feel empowered by the wisdom of Lincoln and to a lesser extent others including Teddy Roosevelt, Churchill, Einstein, JFK, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Barry Goldwater, Mario Cuomo, the Dalai Lama, Victoria Woodhull, Terrell Owens, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Andrew Carnegie, Warren Buffet, Peter Singer, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Jefferson, Tecumseh, Barack Obama, and others. Of course I have never even met any of them but they have more interaction with my thoughts than do most of my 'real' friends. As I look over the list I am taken back by the realization there is only one female on the list. I suspect that rather accurately reflects the historical repression of females in political and social circles.
What really is your life except a reflection of your past experiences, real or vicarious? And who are those who determine these past experiences more than these real or vicarious friends? Good friends make you feel good about yourself, you are eager to be around them, you feel even better after you have been around them, and good friends---the real and the vicarious ones---enable the level of contentment in your life to rise. Aside from typical human friends, pet friends, and vicarious friends, I find Mother Nature is a powerful friend. I never feel less alone than when alone surrounded by nature. I can almost feel the power of connectivity to all of history, humankind, and the evolutionary process. It doesn't get much better than that.
I am not too keen on meaningless babble. These days you cannot help but be exposed to mindless babble in a society of cell phones. It is not that I don't think lighthearted, good natured verbal or inane nonsense has no place----I think we all need a good deal of that in our lives----but this kind of intellectual wasteland needs to be kept to a reasonable minimum. I really hate to watch people, as soon as they get a moment to themselves, automatically pull out their cell phone and search desperately for someone to engage with them in idle chit-chat. "Hi, I'm in the checkout line at the grocery store, did you finish the wash yet? Did Timmy get home from school yet? Blah, blah, blah." I think commuter trains need cell phone user cars and no cell phone user cars. And it just seems there is a strong correlation between cell phone use and the loudness of one's voice. That's another thing about Nature, you don't have to listen to shit like that imposed on your own conscious thoughts. Maybe some people barely have any such conscious thoughts.
Friendships may not last, for a multitude of reasons, but their past value can never be negated. It is kind of dumb to deny the value of a friendship because it ends. To a large degree, we are all sort of a sum total of all our friendships, past and present, mixed in with our own peculiar personality. Once distance, change in life priorities, change in interests, or just time limitations impact on friendship the friendship often ends. I can't generate much interest, for example, in attending school class reunions or past reunions of any sort because any current relevance is gone. You can never go home again. Sometimes a friendship ends because to continue it will disrupt an even more important friendship, like between spouses or other members of a group. Often a friendship ends simply because, like a once popular broadway show, you stay on the scene too long. Your 'act' has grown stale, is no longer entertaining, or relevant to changing age or times etc. "I Love Lucy" may have once been a 'can't miss' entertainment, but with changing times and age, it becomes trite, boring, and frankly annoying. And there is nothing "I Love Lucy" can do to restore the once interesting relationship. The magic is gone, gone with the wind, and there is no one to blame or any need to even kick your pet. Life is just that way. One should never view these lost friendships with other than an attitude of 'thanks for the memories'. Some, more foolish than others, refuse to let the curtain fall and, for the sake of habit, endure interactions with others that have become an endless series of multiple irritations and subtle digs of senseless character assassinations. One can always tell when a friendship is over----when you find yourself less than eager to find time to get together. There is little in social life more pathetic and futile than watching certain relatives or friends tensely dance around each other at arranged gatherings, while others involved engage in endless and biased evaluations of what is going on, debating whose fault it is for the situation. Hey, get real. People change, priorities change, age changes, all plays have an ending, some plays are short, some are longer, but all eventually run out of steam, and every group that starts out large will dwindle over time, for varied reasons---and when the curtain falls no sane audience boos and argues over which character is responsible for the play ending---but claps in appreciation for the good experience. A staged act which refuses to close and attempts to stay on Broadway too long, will eventually play to an empty house, have lost all of it's appeal, with any applause a mere insincere courtesy, a kind of obligatory applause for the past with little relevance to the present.
Friends sustain life, give meaning to your life at various stages, and for that contribution should always be fondly remembered. Friends may drift apart but they should never be torched or rudely disrespected because they suddenly no longer fit into your current life milieu. The goal should always be to let them go gently, albeit there may be sub, or not so subconscious pressures, when one feels the need to do it with words too disrespectful for a house of friends---a sort of burn the bridge, 'cut-the-legs-from under' message to your target. Sherman had to burn Atlanta before the South realized it was over. Yet all is well in our saga of life friendships as long as the band plays on with new razzle dazzle dance partners on the floor. Time will come soon enough when the band stops and all the razzle dazzling ends. I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens.
