Dear friends.

Dear friends. Dear friends indeed. How wretched are we, that tragic prices must be paid over and over again, to afford us these occasional moments of lucidity.

My thoughts have been rather turbulent these past weeks, void of purpose with the fulfillment of my only ambition for two years, and filled with a deep-seated fear that I would be unequal to the challenges that lie ahead. I have therefore not written much here, preferring instead to keep to the sanctuary of my own blog.

I am still no less troubled, but tonight I am moved to write. To write about me, about you, and about us. Am I okay? Are you okay? Are we okay?

I daresay I am okay, and all of you should be, too. But the state of ‘us’ is rather fluid now, as we stand on the threshold of a new and what is probably the most pivotal period in our lives. Certainly our lives will scant resemble the ones we used to lead. We feel the need to embrace new ideas, yet we still (I hope) cherish the ideals of our youth.

I have in the past come across this idea, putting elegantly in words what we intuitively know: There are objective goods, and there are subjective goods. Some things are good for you, are right, whether you like it or not. In this category would fall our morals and values, and probably, LOL, vitamin C. Some things are good for you only if you believe them to be. In this category would fall such things (more mundane you might note) as an appreciation of literature, or fine living. If you are forced into these things, they will never be good for you. But, as with many things in live, some things do not fall neatly into a single category. Like, famously, education, or to be more exact, the education system. We are by and large beneficiaries of the system, and feel strongly that education is a force for the great and the good, or at least increases employability, which is not to be sneezed at. Yet we see people desperately struggling against what are for them insuperable odds, and sometimes doubt creeps in.

Probably because of my upbringing, I have always subconsciously believed that all good is objective, and I think this is reflected in my words and actions. I freely admit that I am extremely intolerant of viewpoints that diverge from mine, and would always seek to influence those around me to see and do things my way. My policy has always been, do it, it is good for you, you can understand why later. And I get very upset when people, despite what I say, still persist in their course of action. Given that some of my ideas are extremely elitist and snobbish, I can be very hard to get along with at times, and I had no qualms about mouthing off against anything that crosses my path. At my worst I had to constantly remind myself that others have a right to be heard also (that is, by the way, one of my values) to prevent myself from going ballistic.

As I struggle with this failing, I am lead to contemplate: what are friends then, to arouse such passion within us? Can we define this word that we use so freely? They are not outstanding people, certainly—almost everyone is a friend of someone, even Kim Jong Il. They are not people who meet certain fixed criteria we set, for I am sure we have friends that are diametrically opposed to each other, nor can we imagine replacing a friend by someone who by all measurable criteria is ‘better’ that a current one. We like old ones better than new ones, an oddity considering most of the rest of our preferences.

Allow me to venture an opinion. Friends are people whom we know and are comfortable with. We know them, in the sense that we know how they react to things, how they think, what they eat, among other quirks. Comfortable is more vague, but I am sure we intuitively know what it means. They are nobody special OBJECTIVELY, but because we know them and live with them, they become SPECIAL.

It is not very clear, I know. (It is 3 o’clock now, after all.) It may never be. But what I am trying to get across here is that no matter what they have failed to measure up to, friends remain special to us. We stand up for them against outsiders even when they are wrong, we keep their secrets, we tell them ours, we forgive their failings (most of the time) and expect them to be similarly blind to ours, for no greater reason and no lesser reason that they are our friends. When we push (as indeed we should) for them to better themselves, we must remember this. We want them to change because they are our friends. So at all times we must strive for a balance between pushing them and respecting their independence, because it would be rather pointless if they are compelled against their wishes. It would defeat the purpose of our sincere wishes for our friends’ betterment, and it would defeat the friendship.

I give you many friendly days ahead.