Friendship and Ethics
The owner of the Religion, Philosophy & Ethics Blog at the University of Gloucestershire, UK sent a message lately over the PHILOSOPH mailing list inviting people to take part in a discussion about friendship.
This is a weird proceeding also called “spamming for traffic”. But since Blogs have become so numerous and it is kind of hard to get people to come back and enter a significant discussions on the topics you are addressing in your blog – especially concerning such heavy weight things like philosophical questions – I can understand the need to fish for traffic in mailing lists that share your interests.
Being the nice and loyal (especially when it comes to peers) person that I am, I went to have a look and I sincerely hoped to join into the discussion… and then devil hidden in the detail (or the code of blogspot.com or blogger.com blogs) showed his ugly face.
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Get it off your chest
I have been pondering this for quite a while. Wondering whether I should write it up, adress it or simply ignore it, like some people would say bad behaviour is best treated.
I have a long line of absent friends that disappear for a while, only to pop up once in a while. They’re friends nevertheless and even if you haven’t talked to them in a while, you know that they’ll be there when you need them.
Then there is another class of friends. The ones that I forced (ah, yes!) out of unacquainted love. I never have never walked through life discarding people, just because I was unable to see what role they were supposed to hold in my life. And just because love doesn’t happen, does it mean that this person is forever lost to us? No. Friendship between men and women do exist and they do work… as long as some basic laws are not broken.
Hope has to die: It’s a known truth that hope in love dies last and that you can hold out for years on end, just hoping that one day the beloved one will see, finally know what the lover has seen all along and say “this is right”. If a friendship is something that you hold on to just because you cannot get what you really want at this exact moment (sex, proximity etc.), then the friendship is a lie. And on top of things, you are asking your “friend” to give you something which he/she is obviously not able to give. Unfair? You bet.
Love is a gift: Not unlike faith that comes completely unwarranted, unasked and without inhibition, love is a gift. You can believe in Christ and state that its the one thing that will redeem this world or you can simply state that its due to some basic chemistry in the body that makes love just happen… either way, it either does or it doesn’t. No rational explanation, no Jesuit-style list of pros and cons can convince you, no matter how good the reasons are, no matter how hard you wish for it, you will not change that. It’s hard, it’s painful. Get over it.
Vita brevis est: Life is short. Too short to fool around. Too short to throw people and their feelings out, just because you cannot get over your hurt pride and believe me there is a lot of hurt pride once the word is out.
This list could go on and on… what use would there be?
The Bottom-line is this: Yes, I am getting married. Yes, I am happy. As happy as I can get I suppose and as happy as you could not make me. Yes, I will have a life without you, but not because I wanted it that way. YOU decided it. And if having no contact with me whatsoever makes it easier for you to keep up the story of how I wrecked you over, well, then I will have to live with that. I gave what I could and more. I have tried.
Can you really say the same?
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Vanity (once more)
It’s amazing how sometimes people seem to share some of your basic thoughts. It has just happened again, over at Nike’s nBlog.
Today, someone told me that he had heard the title “Society of Envy” as a characteristic name for our western world. And isn’t it appropriate?
How much time do we spend comparing?
Jealousy is not only limited to obvious things such as wealth and fortune. We begrudge each other our talents and abilities, our ways of life, our very own happiness.
I have ranted times and times before on this blog and to friends exactly about this situation since it has always been a part of my life and my reality.
As a complete no-jealousy person – just as Nike – I think I have a hard time simply comprehending why people envy others, their life, their books, their knowledge or their bank account.
But unlike Nike, I don’t think that Envy and Jealousy are at the real base of it. After years and years of being on the receiving end of people’s petty hurtful remarks, numerous broken relationships and countless emotional losses, I have come to the simple conclusion that Envy and Jealousy are just a phenomenon of the basic problem: Vanity.
The girl that’s so jealous of her boyfriend’s social contacts? The little voice of vanity in her head says: “I’m better than them, he should be with me…”
The Homecoming King that looks down on the nerds? His little voice of vanity says: “What I am is so much better, they should be more like me…”
The callous Philosophy student that cannot stand his peers sitting next to him who seem to be interested in anything? His little voice of vanity says: “I am detached and all of this is so stupid, and I have the right way of going about things… they should be more like me…”
And so on.
Vanity is at the base of 90% of all the insults and quarrels around us. Sure, jealousy does it’s bits, when people see someone that they feel inferior to or something that they might want, but without doing anything for it. But even there, it’s vanity: “I should be so lucky, I should have this… or that… why am I never that lucky?”
However: luck has nothing to do with a good life. Because we all work for it, we all do something for it. We go out and try to make it happen instead of just looking around and wishing for things that anybody else around us already has. And in the end, it simply boils down to this: you do what you can. You do what you can to lead a decent life, in harmony with your convictions, your ideals and your wishes.
But when you don’t, when you simply do not do what you can or what is in your abilities, that’s when you start envying people for what they have achieved. Yes, achieved. Because, let’s be honest, life is messy, life is hard at most times. I won’t start with the sheep and wolf theory again. But either you decide to go out there and make it happen, or you don’t. It can be as simple as that.
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First Snow and all the rest
After the clash with the Turkish Footballers, the first snow and its innumerable car accidents (somehow everyone loses their ability to drive a car as soon as the first snowflake show themselves) and all other smaller or bigger troubles, I am here and the year is almost over.
I’ve been to Paris and back, I did the one thing I could to make a wonderful relation work and I still haven’t finished my story. Hm… was that the right order ?
Eckhard’s comment on my last poem prompted me into action just now. Truth is there are two pieces in a row in this blog that simply reek of doubt, insecurity and all the really bad emotions that are just dragging everything downwards, deeper and deeper. For people that do not really know me or don’t have a day to day contact with me, it must seem that I am either on the edge of a borderline syndrome or deep in depression. That really is not the case.
It really is more a combination of ‘what do I want to write’ and the insecurities of the moment. As a poet (and yes, so sorry… I am such a confident little gal that I call myself a poet) I can actually get myself into any situation I want to write about. Just like an actor. This doesn’t necessarily mean that I am actually suicidal, just because I wrote that I am dying. A lot of people make this mistake… I remember B. calling me up when he had read Ice. He really thought that I was bad. But actually ‘Ice’ was just a little thing I had I couldn’t use in the Arthur-Story any more, so I rewrote it as a single piece. Things like that happen.
It’s true, things move on and on. And with a new idea for a project that will actually be useful (sic! it happens in my field as well) that I will hopefully realise with my beloved one, I have one more thing on my eternal to do list. And isn’t that just great ?
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That time of year again
It’s that time of year again.
The time of year when I think I should start writing again. Anything. Another story, another book, a better story, better poems and pieces. I really have no idea why it’s always when the nights become longer, when the day starts to redraw earlier that I get this urge to simply sit down and pour it all out.
And since one thing never comes alone but rather in a pair, it’s also the same time that I get overrun by the strangest doubts about everything… mainly about work of course. It’s the same story over and over again. I don’t even know what’s first. The doubt ? The urge to write ? Probably doubt. And probably the writing is a way to overcome the doubt or stall for time in addressing the urgent matters about my work.
It’s not like there wasn’t any reason to doubt. A lot of things seem hazy at the moment. Unsure and pretty dim to say the least. I don’t feel like I have accomplished much this last year and writing the thesis is just a terrible bore. Why did it ever become such a terrible drag ? I remember being actually quite good at this. And now its one phrase after the other, I can’t do anything without asking me if it’s even worth it. I somehow fear that it’s a tad bit more than just the usual doubt crisis that comes with the workload (smuggled in somewhere between publication – yay ! – and the title – wow !). It’s like I’ve lost the passion, or developed another one that takes me into another direction completely.
And in a year’s time I’ll be without any pay and still stuck with this project that nobody really seems to care about, least of all any of the responsibles. It used to be my heart blood and still is, but I somehow feel pushed onto the little bench in front of the admissions office: wait, wait, wait… sorry we’re closing.
I can only hope that nobody from work reads this, but since I’ve been quiet quite a while, nobody will think of checking in here anymore. So I guess I’ll be OK. I’ve always said that my studies and the profession I chose was rather out of curiosity than anything else. That combined with the urge to see how far I could go, I start to think that maybe this is it. This is how far I was able to go. Not another step further. Who knows.
Another day tomorrow and another cup maybe.
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