Friendship
   What is it that makes friendship both the best and worst thing in the world? On one hand, it provides the companionship, camaraderie and company that can make our lives worth living, but on the other hand, it sets us up for so many failures. Y'know what, I'm watching Ed right this instant, and there was an interesting anti-existentialist quote some fat kid just said "You don't solve life, you live it." Let's just think about that for a second. What is living aside from solving problems? Life itself is just one oversized, big, big problem, no matter what your belief is, you have to admit that your life will be filled, taken up, with solving problems. Whether the problems are things like understanding life, sin, the HSC, existence, sustenance.. . political and social ideologies that clash with yours... unless you are a shallow, shallow person, your life will be filled with problems, and whether you will solve them, even if it is by ignoring other problems. You never stop learning in life, you never stop realizing new things, and every time you learn something new, that's another problem, maybe a future problem, solved. This has a lot to do with friendship, as you no doubt guessed. Friendship is another one of those problems in life that you've got to solve. Who are your friends? What are your friends? ... Why are they your friends? Why do they treat you like crap? Why do you treat them like crap? Friendships have had me hung up for the past week or so. I mean, if someone says "let's be friends" it's amazing how it can make you or crush you. "Let's Be Friends" is up there with "I Love You" as my all time-earth shattering phrases of good and bad. It's a fairly shoddy existence we leave when everything is so ambiguous.

   Why do we find it so hard to trust people? What are we afraid of? That's a stupid question. ... I can't even trust my friends. There's the story of a young boy, up in a tree his father below him. The boy reaches out to the father for him to carry him down, but the father shakes his head. He yells out to his son "Stand up on that branch and jump down, I'll catch you"... So the boy stands, and jumps, and the father takes two steps back. The son hits the ground, and begins to cry. The father looks down at him "let this be a lesson, don't trust anyone". ... There's a saying, if you want something done, you've got to do it yourself.. It's a fairly bleak outlook of the world. Apparently being trusting is pathetic. Our world adores cynicism. It puts it up on a pedestal in full view of society saying "this is what you need to be happy"...  If anything, it stops you from being sad, but at the same time, it limits your happiness. If you cannot trust, you cannot love, and if you cannot love.. .. oh, who knows..

   Some say it is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. The Buddhists would that to never have loved would've been better. I guess to love requires courage. Are Buddhists afraid of pain? Maybe it's just unnecessary for them. It's something weird in The Bible. It presents Heaven, the perfect world without suffering, and yet tells us to rejoice in suffering at the same time. Stoic, in a way.

My name is whoever you say I am.

Y'asian ---> Out... .. ...