What is a Friend?

Following on from last weeks philosophical “promises are meant to be broken” I'm moving onto friendship today, but before I go on, I would just like to say that I did actually bring in the cheesecakes as promised to Uzma and Nicola. (it looked like the one over there, but mine was taller as Nicola kindly pointed out) So I did actually keep the promise as I originally made it (see last post in December). It would seem that they like this dessert (no complaints ... yet), but this will be the last cheesecake I make for a while. Uzma has kindly asked me not to make anymore. She is worried that she will become addicted. Nicola is keen to be in this blog as well and so keeps looking over. Yes Nicola, I have mentioned you, four times now. 

Nicola is writing about friendship (she’s studying psychology)and I came across a set of instructions for her, regarding the submission of the written report. It was about stapling the completed document prior to submission. It read as follows:

“Once you have completed your report, staple the pages together (using one heavy duty staple top left) with the Coursework Header Sheet on top. Do not hand in your work in folders (plastic or other types) or spiral- (or otherwise) bound. Do not build up your submission with layers of regular-size staples (risking cuts to examiners and loss of marks for presentation). Since the University does not provide a heavy-duty stapler for student use, the Department suggests that students obtain appropriate stapling at a commercial photocopying shop (such as Prontaprint, Kall Kwik, Rank Xerox, etc.). A 13mm depth staple handles 70-100 sheets, and a 17mm depth staple handles 110-130sheets, for example, so know in advance how many sheets your report contains.”

Apparently the staplers on the left just wont cut the mustard! Nicola will have to go and purchase or otherwise obtain a big huge industrial type stapler like the one on the right.

Anyways, I digress. This week I am on about friends and friendship. The word ‘friend’ is defined in many different ways, a Google definition returns:

 a person you know well and regard with affection and trust; "he was my best friend at the university"

A friend, according to the website ‘ten word wiki’, is “That person you thought you could trust... Two faced arse” (http://www.tenwordwiki.com/friend)

Friendship ... The Oxford dictionary defines a friend as a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations. During the course of your life you will accumulate a number of friends.  Some good some bad. Friendship is all about how much you care and understand each other. It is a pure relationship, which would make your friend smile, feel good as to how much you love him and care for him (or her). It is all about talking, listening and building up a strong relationship loyalty among each other. It is string of love which develops gradually with each other’s involvement.

There are certain cases where friendship may not last for a longer period and might end up or lose its importance of love and regard for each other. Sometimes friendships might end with unresolved conflicts and tiffs which mean that this type of relationship was not so strong that could hold on its own in adversity and bad times. Friendship is not about merry-making and fun it involves equal loyalty from both the partners. At least you can choose who you ‘friend’ as opposed to choosing your family. Them you are stuck with. Speaking of choosing your friends, with the aid of social networking sites on the internet like myFace and SpaceBook people have began to build up vast number of friends in competition with each other. I for one don’t understand that. People trying to outdo others by having more friends. I too created a profile and was inundated by a number of ‘friend requests’ from people I had not seen since I was in high school. I was pleasantly surprised to hear from some people, others not so. What I do not understand is, there were a number of people that neither I was not friendly with, nor were they with me. But all of a sudden with the advent of these online social networks they suddenly wanted to be friends. Normally that’d be fine, but if you didn’t want to be my friend 15 years ago, what makes you think I want to be your friend now? I don’t mind being a friend, but I don’t particularly want to be a number in a ‘friend list’. The most likely eventuality of which would be that having accepted a friend request, would be the last you ever hear from that person. They wouldn’t even know if you later deleted them.

That’s why I have kept my list small and manageable. Retaining only those who I will keep in contact with.

Within ones group of friends, there tends to be one who is a ‘best’ friend. Not all friends attain the status of ‘best’. A true friendship does not consist of a huge number of friends you keep but it is valued by its worth and capability to hold you and stand by you in all phases of life. That said finding a best friend from among your friends is the hardest task to do. A lot of people say that the best friends automatically come closer from among a group of friends and you will never have to make an extra effort to do find one. Your best friend will be the one who will understand your strengths and shortcomings and stand by you in all your good and bad phases of life.

In closing I would like to leave you with a final thought.

A good friend will always come and bail you out of prison. A true friend will be sitting next to you saying “Man, we really ****** up this time!”

Promises are made to be broken and lies are meant to be kept

“Lying is not only excusable; it is not only innocent; it is, above all, necessary and unavoidable. Without the ameliorations that it offers, life would become a mere syllogism and hence too metallic to be borne.” H. L. Mencken 1880-1956

So, my first day back at the Enquiry Unit, and I didn’t bring the cheesecake. My reasoning was simple; I didn’t want to bring in two, as today only Uzma was in as Nicola won’t be back till next week.  In any case, its day 2 now and still didn’t bring one for Uzma. I'm sorry. Next time ...    I Promise

If you examine the phrase at the top you will find out that 9 out of 10 times it is true. Hence the saying broken promises. 

I'm in a bit of a philosophical mood at the moment so I'm gonna pick this statement apart.

Let’s take the first part of the statement. ‘Promises are made to be broken’.  First of all let’s examine the state one usually is when one makes a promise or vows to do something. 90% of the time one is in an emotional state of frustration, despair, anger and or in a euphoric state. The theme here is that each of these states of emotion represents an extreme deviation from the norm, either an extreme positive or an extreme negative deviation from the mean.

When it comes to lies on the other hand, the person is usually thinking in a devious manner. It is more likely that the person is in more control of his or her senses when a lie is going to be told, simply because one spends time thinking about how one is going to go about telling this lie. So the process of telling a lie involves some thought, while usually the process of making a promise usually involves none.

One thing you can do immediately is stop making empty promises to yourself and instead stand up and be a man or woman and tell yourself the following. “From today I will examine each and every mistake I make in detail and sear it into my memory banks”. If you do this you will never have to make any stupid promises to yourself.

Once again remember there is nothing wrong with making a mistake in fact there is something good about making one, it gives us the chance to learn something that we might not have, had we not made the mistake. So let’s stand up and dust ourselves and congratulate ourselves for having the foresight to even recognize that we made a mistake. Most people do not even realize they are making a mistake or mistakes. Then take it to the next step, study your mistake and ingrain into your memory. When you do, your mind will automatically look for ways to prevent you from repeating the same mistake.

Some interesting thoughts I came across

We have everyone telling us that we should either fall into two categories, pessimist or optimist. Why is it they forgot the most important one, A realist.

Glass is half full or half empty, if you say half empty you are supposedly a pessimist and if you say half full you are an optimist. My response to both answers is that anyone who attempts to label you based on that response needs to have his or her head examined. The best answer is “who cares”

The more important question is, Are you thirsty or not. If you are thirsty you could do not give a dam if its half full or half empty you just want some water and if you are not thirsty you could not be bothered with wasting your time analyzing a glass of water.

Hope for the best why we should hope for anything, hope indicates one has resigned ones fate to another power or another person. It’s better to plan and fight your way up to get what it is you want. Hope has only one place and that is in a deep hole.

Why is it that so many people look forward to retiring? Let’s expand on this, to them retiring is doing nothing but sitting on their arse while their front end (stomach) grows at unbelievable rate. Would it not be better to say I cannot wait for the day I can get rid of these shackles that bind me to a 9-5-slave life and finally do the things I want to really do. Never retire always look to keep your mind and body busy.

Another interesting fact, why is it when someone is lucky we say he or she has the luck of the devil when they get out of a tight spot and not the luck of a God. Or why do we also say I had devilishly good time, why not a Godly great time.

One can be absolutely truthful and sincere even though admittedly the most outrageous liar. Fiction and invention are of the very fabric of life.

And finally ... in closing, what New Year would be complete without a resolution. Yet another promise that is made to be broken.  I promise to make a list of things that I have every intention of doing. But I will not do any of them.