A Word on Friends

A few of my friends have been going through some hard times lately. Mostly with their other friends. Lordy knows I've had my fair share of friend drama over the last month or so, and that really wasn't something that was their fault necessarily. It was me being selfish. A lot of people look to me when they need help or want to vent about something. It may be because I'm a good listener or that I'm really good at keeping secrets, whatever the reason, but people apparently feel comfortable when speaking to me.

My previous blog entry was a not-so-random rant of things that were driving me batty last week. All items on that list were directly related to one or more people currently in my life. There was quite a bit of lash out regarding that post, so I feel the need to clarify a bit. I am a firm believer in the power of free will. The choices you make, or fail to make, directly impact the outcome of your life. There is no such thing as destiny, god, purpose, predetermination, or any of that other stuff. And while I could go on and on and on about what I think of those particular subjects, I'll settle for saying that what they amount to is an excuse. Something else to blame when something is going wrong. The joy, and downfall, of having free will is that when something goes wrong, you have nobody to blame but yourself. 

So, when these people come to me looking for advice or to simply vent about the things going wrong in their lives, in most cases, I can safely say from my outside perspective, that it is their own fault they are in the situations they are in. I tell these people such. I'm not one for sugar-coating things when you come to me looking for advice. I just have no patience for it. I'm not a fan of telling people what they need to hear if it's not what they should be hearing. I call it how I see it. And that's not to say I see things perfectly, because in a lot of the cases, I only get the half the story, and a slanted half at that. But one would think that when coming to a friend for advice, you'd be as honest as possible. So I give what advice I can, people take it or leave it. Whatever they do, it's cool with me.

But recently, there's been a glut of people who are obviously making very poor choices. The choices are so obviously that in most cases, even they realize it. But they lack the ability (so it seems) to change what they are doing, even though they realize that the decisions they are making are hurting both themselves and the people around them. 

Regardless, it is because so many of my friends are incapable of taking action, definitive action, that I was so annoyed I felt like I had to write something. Selfish, perhaps, that I would get annoyed by the people coming to me for help, but come on.

You. If you're going to sacrifice the one person who truly makes you happy so you can dabble in maybes and uncertainties, then you deserve the sadness and pain that you will feel once you realize what you've lost.

And you. If you're going to sacrifice your long term happiness so you can manipulate and play with somebody else (for your own personal gain, no less), well then perhaps you deserve to be miserable for the rest of your life. 

The list goes on...

Sure, that's cold, but life comes down to decisions. You make them yourself, and regardless of how many people in your life tell you they're right or wrong, you are the one that has to live with them. So, when the maybes fall out from under you, when the playtime is over, and those that made you happy have moved on to better things, what are you left with? Only the cold and hollow consequences that come with choosing poorly.

Once again, moving on. The second part of my last post was about the things I appreciate in life. I've long gone through my life with the simple philosophy that I generally do not like most people. I'm shy, I don't give out my trust easily, I don't play well with big crowds of people. Perhaps the most important part of that is I don't give out trust easily. You have to earn it. In most cases, I'll expect yours before I give mine. Selfish, again, I know.

That fits very well into my view on friendships as well. I measure friendships in quality, not quantity. I am perfectly happy having a small group of close friends and having a larger group of acquaintances I talk to hang out with on occasion but to whom I am in no way close. This is certainly at odds with the philosophies of most people I know, including my room mate, which makes for some interesting discussions. But in my mind, I would rather sit at home most nights knowing that all the people I want to hang out with are busy, because I know that when I need my friends they will be there for me. I know that what I tell my friends will stay between us and it won't be used to hurt me at some later time. I know that my friends are my friends and aren't just people who are using me or trying to manipulate me, or who don't care at all. These are people who fascinate me and whose company I truly enjoy, people who challenge me intellectually, and people who are interested in what I have to say, just as I am interested in what they say. These are people who I would stand behind in a heartbeat just as I know they would stand behind me. 

Anybody else is not worth the investment of time and emotion that I put into a good friendship. Sure, we'll talk and hang out on occasion, we'll share some light discussion, but that's as far as it goes. They can come and go from my life with little, if any, impact. Perhaps, for the people who don't share my particular mentality, my view of that is harsh, cold, judgemental, or whatever, but there's little I could ever do to change that perception, so go on thinking it. 

So, to the people who are actually my really good friends, Brett, Jason, Damon, Justin, Jen, and most importantly, Randy, thank you. You mean the world to me. 

Social Musings

I've been wanting to write about this for quite some time now, and I think I'm finally going to start. There's a book out there called The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. It might be one of the best books I've ever read (as I mentioned in a previous post). Actually, there shouldn't be a "might" in that previous statement. The premise of the book is some ancient secret that is getting people on a college campus killed. But, far more importantly, the book is a meditation on friendship, what it means, why it's there, and what becomes of it. It's powerful stuff.

There's one paragraph that has always stood out in my mind. It was one of those things that I read on my first run through, and I had to put the book aside and just think about it. these guys have some powerful insights into this friendship business, and I'd like to share that particular paragraph here. 

"Hope, Paul said to me once, which whispered from Pandora's box only after all the other plagues and sorrows had escaped, is the best and last of all things. Without it, there is only time. And time pushes at our backs like a centrifuge, forcing us outward and away, until it nudges us into oblivion. That, I think, is the only explanation for what happened to my father and me, just as it happened to Taft and Curry, the same way it will happen to the four of us here in Dod, inseparable as we may seem. It's a law of motion, a fact of physics that Charlie could name, no different from the stages of white dwarfs and red giants. Like all things in the universe, we are destined from birth to diverge. Time is simply the yardstick of our separation. If we are particles in a sea of distance, exploded from an original whole, then there is a science to our solitude. We are lonely in proportion to our years."

For those of you that pay attention, you'll find my own, inadequate attempt at spouting the same philosophy in this post. But think about that for a second. Look past the names of the characters that make no sense if you haven't read the book, and think about what the authors are saying here.

For those of you (most of you) who have not read this book, the focus of the book is four friends who attend college. They think they are inseparable, but through the course of the book, the ties that bind them as friends erode until they are almost gone. It's painful at times to read.

I am a person who values my friends above all else in my life. My friends are my family, and I like to think that I'll have my friends forever. This philosophy, then, was very hard for me to stomach, this preposterous idea that the friends I had at the time would not be the friends I have now, that the friends I have now are not going to be the friends I have in the future. That thought scares me very, very much.

Yet, looking back on previous friendships, its easy to see the truth in this. I think about all the friends I used to have and have since lost touch with. I think about the friends I used to have whose interests have diverged from my own, and we stopped hanging out because there was no more common ground. And the thought of it saddens me, but it is the grim reality of life.

Does this mean that, perhaps, we are creatures MEANT for solitude? Sure, we all crave friendship, companionship, people to like us and be around us, but does that necessarily deny the idea that we are meant for isolation? Think about the people in your past that you have lost touch with. What about the people you know now? Do you think You'll know them forever?

Think, for a moment, about the way friendships evolve over the course of one's life. We start out in the younger years having hordes of friends (for the most part, little kids tend to get along with most everybody), and we spend as much time with them as our parents will allow. We sleep over at their houses; we have enormous birthday parties. As we grow older, our true friends thin out. Sure, we know lots of people, but how many of them do we hang out with. In actuality, probably fewer than we did when we were younger. Other things start becoming important: school, work, girl/boyfriends, and we slowly start losing the time we once had for actually hanging out with our friends. Fast forward a few more years, and we are all working adults with families or are working hard to get there. Our friends are people we see once in a while, email every couple of weeks, get together for a BBQ on occasion. We slowly move away from hanging out with friends to being more involved with work and/or family... our friends slowly fading into the background until they barely occupy our thoughts.

But doesn't the idea of "family" preclude the idea that we are always moving further away from people. Perhaps. Can't argue with the fact that marriage is (ideally) a lifelong bond of love between two people. But consider for a moment the steadily rising failure rate of marriages. Are we, speaking on a societal level, losing the capacity for true love? Have we, as a society, moved so far away from our center, been pushed so close to oblivion, that we are forgetting what is at the core of us, as humans?

None of these are questions that I would presume to answer, as it's impossible to know. I am, however, interested to hear what anybody who's reading this has to say about it. Feel free to comment/email me. Are we lonely in proportion to our years?

Random Musings From a White Cubical

Got another showing of the Dark Knight to attend this evening, and suffice it to say that I'm quite excited. Even better is the fact that it's on the IMAX screen, and almost everybody (everybody save one person, that is) tells me it's far superior on the IMAX screen.

Can. Not. Wait.

It's been a very draining week. Mostly because of Monday, which saw me at the bar until 2am Tuesday morning. Just a quick note: it's not the brightest thing to do, being at the bar until 2 on a work night. No bueno.

It was the going away party for Steve and Mark, who are, sadly, moving to Wisconsin. The two of them have been good friends of mine going on about 2 years now, and it saddens me greatly that after nearly 2 years of friendship, some distance is going to end it. Mark and Steve are not good at keeping in touch through means other than face-to-face contact. Meaning no emails, phone calls, IMs, text messaging, MySpace messages... no anything really.

Sigh.

Life moves on, I suppose. I'm reminded of a book called The Rule of Four, which was written by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason. It's one of the best books I've ever read, and the reason for that is it's got some of the best meditations about friendships in the history of popular fiction. I don't use the word "meditations" lightly either. This book goes far beyond the standard discussion of friendships found in many books that deal with the subject. this book digs, and it exposes some very interesting truths (and does it very artfully with many impressive metaphors).

I am in the process of editing a 53 page training document, and let me tell you all how much fun THAT is. It's a very, very long process. Ordinarily, it would take me about 30 minutes to read a document of that length, but actually having to edit it... whole 'nother story. So much writing is involved, and editing documents online at the same time.

I'm motivating myself with thoughts of Batmen tonight. Well, it's more the thought of spending another couple of hours with the Joker that keeps me going today. Now I can't wait.

Tomorrow is the company summer event, and by event I mean lets go watch a baseball game. Whoop-dee-doo. Baseball is easily one of the most boring sports ever. Right up there with golf and synchronized grass growing.

Cool story time. This is totally true.

My old, old, old room mate was very much into the Colorado Rockies... the team, not the mountains. He was always trying to convince me to watch with him, even though I was so adamant about how boring it was. He was convinced that if I watched it, I'd lvoe it as much as he did. In an effort to get him to shut up, I agreed to watch one game with him.

That might have been one of the longet 3 hours of my life... flushed away never to be recovered. Sometime during the game, the announcers appeared to get really bored announcing the game, so they started doing a comparison between the flavors of cotton candy. The interviewed people from the (sparse) crowd, taste-tested, joked around about it, etc. They completely ignored the game. The camera would cut to a pitch here and there, but eventaully even that stopped and I felt like I'd been transported to the Food Channel instead of whatever local channel we were watching the game on.

I've often been told that baseball is far more interesting when you are there... to which i say BAH! because I've been to way more than my fair share of baseball games and know better. About the most interesting thing about being there live is waiting to hear if they call my ticket number so I can go collect some cheap prize. I mean, come on, if the announcers can't even pretend to be interested any more...

I'm going tomorrow only because
a) it's free
b) there's an all you can eat BBQ buffet-type thing
c) there's cool people there
d) I don't actually have to watch the game
e) I might be going from there to see TDK again with Randy
f) did I mention free food?

Friday has become a toss-up between going to Denver and playing Magic (doubtful, as there will most likely be clubs involved) or jsut sitting at home and ripping 105 booster packs. That could take a while. A looooooooooooooooong while, but it's not a very social activity.

I hung out with a friend who I only see once every 6-8 months or so. We saw The Dark Knight on Saturday. It's kind of scary, a little saddening even, but when we were talking, it dawned on me that even though we used to have so much in common, we've both changed a lot. Out paths diverged somewhere along the way, and now there is very little we have in common. Our philosophies, world views, interests, personalities, everything has changed. It was a very interesting conversation, but it was different than what I've been used to, less synergy, fewer "on the same page" moments.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about our conversation was the fact that he seemed completely miserable in his life. Now, it's possible I could be wrong, but I don't think I am. Since the last time I talked to him, he's fallen further into the realm of alcoholism. Seriously, hardcore, bad shit. We're not talking like a few drinks a couple of times a week... we're talking about every night on the couch until he passes out. That's my idea of being happy with life...

There were many occasions where "my job sucks" came up in the conversation too. It was quite obvious that he hates his job, which happens to involve repairing vehicles for the Army. the pay is apparently good, though.

I'm saddened a little by this stuff, but, there's very little (as I've learned lately) that I can do about it, so moving on....

3 hours until Dark Knight!

As The Rule of Four gets at, we are all beings that, like matter at the center of an explosion, are propelled outwards for the duration of our lives. We start out with people who are close to us, but as time goes on, we move farther and farther out, which drives us farther from those around us. In the end, we are left floating, miles from those who are closest to us.

Tourney Report + Other Things

So, after a week of getting roughly 3.5 hours of sleep per night (that's from sunday - friday), I got about 4-5 hours of sleep on Friday night, then Randy, Seth, and I drove 2.5 hours to Ft Collins to compete in a Magic tourney. I got my ass kicked, quite simply. I played in 5 rounds and won a whopping one of them. On the plus side, the one match I won was against a guy whose rating towers above mine, which made the victory the highlight of my day. Woot. I was using a homebrew deck, actually a modified version of the deck I played at the last tourney. Didn't fare quite so well. Now the pressure is starting in regards to building a net deck, just because that kind of deck has good odds of winning. Humbug, I say. Winnng's not as much fun when it's not something that you earn yourself. And while a good chunk of Magic is play skill, it still feels like cheating to use a deck that somebody else built. Besides, when everybody's running the same deck, that's not really a lot of fun.

On an aside, if I WAS going to copy a deck, it's be yours, Randy. Way more fun to play than the other decks floating around the metagame. Plus it's got strategies against all the rest of them.

It was a fun day nonetheless, aside from the ride home. Much asshole-ish-ness on my part, apologies all the way around.

Anyway, I had a fascinating email conversation with a friend today about douchebaggy friends. It seems he's been going through much of the same BS that I have when it comes to friends. It's nice to find somebody who can sympathize, though I wouldn't wish the pain that comes with douchebaggery on very many people.

He said one of the more interesting things to me today during that conversation. to quote "never take friendships personal". I find it almost depressing that this phrase it at once oxymoronic and true. Friendships are supposed to be personal; that's the whole idea of having friends. But, considering that most people are in fact assholes, I'm learning that it is probably better only to take the really close friendships personally. Fortunately for both of us, we do have some true friends who are there for support. Another one of the things we chatted about today.

So, that's my story. Now it's time to go proofread. WOOT!!