near impossible.

So the day, that day being yesterday, that I planned on doing my Emersonian friend experiment... my situatioon was accidentally, or perhaps coincidentally, perfect. I drove off in the morning from my house with my phone on top of my car. I was, therefore, completely released from all technological pressures. No phone! Not even to recieve phone calls from my mother. I was forced to plan ahead and to speak with my friends face to face. I also had an incredible workload, so I spent a lot of my time by myself. Okay... so maybe that's not exactly considered reflection, but it was kinda close. Without these accidents... coincidences... you decide, I'm not sure how I would have done but I can't imagine it would be too easy.

During milkbreak, when I did allow myself time with my friends, I had a conversation, actually, about all things Emerson. Well not all things, but one thing. The idea of reflecting upon relationship, which is important to him as a means of solidifying that bond. I completely disagree. I guess I'm a romanticist when it comes to relationships rather than a realist. I think that dwelling on the "Why" of a relationship you have with another person is so silly. In my opinion, that would only lead to discontent, as it paves a smooth road to the uncovering of another's faults and the faultiness of your companionship with them. Now, this is not to say that all issues should be ignored and overlooked- that just causes a build up of tension and/or annoyance- but to spend more time reflecting upon these problems than enjoying the friendship as it is seems... a bit oxymoronic. I suppose an arguement for this could be something along the lines of, "Well, if they are a real friend, you won't find faults to dwell upon." That's crazy. Every single person has faults. A friendship is based on being able to accept these faults as part of the person, as they are, and to love them anyway.

I have had friends who asked me to change for them. At first, I was offended and thought that if they couldn't accept me as I was, I didn't want their acceptance at all. But as I looked into myself a little more, I realized that they were seeing a part of me that I was unable to see. They had objective opinions and were unbiased; they were trying to help make me a better person. The faults that I was expressing were overtaking the personality that they grew to love me for and so I learned to appreciate criticism. That may sound like a contradiction to my previous claim regarding the stupidity of reflecting on other people's issues. However, there is a difference, in my mind, between searching for friends' faults and recognizing a fault that has taken that person over. When someone beings to change (for the worse), I think that it is fair for someone close to that person to make these things known. "A friend is a person with whom a may be sincere," right?"A friend is a person with whom a may be sincere," right? The strength of a good friendship, one that is stronger than "glass-threads" or "frost-work", is strong enough to allow for that criticism to lead to growth, rather than to inhibit it. When this critisism is ignored or denied, it leads people close to you to distance themselves- what they have to say is deemed unimportant and they stop trying to "help" and they caring. Going back to my self-reliance post, I do believe that standing by your own beliefs is really important. But the thing is that beliefs can change; if everyone is your life is hinting that you are taking a turn for the worse, maybe a self analysis is in order.

Anyway. I have gone on a long, tiresome tangent. Back to my day as a "perfect Emersonian friend". I was surprised at how many of my friends thought that "something was wrong" or that "I was mad at them". It's such a weird society that we live in that requires us to be friendly and sociable all the time. Emerson believes that we should not focus all of our attention on being friends with everyone, that "It makes no difference how many friends I have." He says we should direct our energy to a select few, the few who have come to us "unsought", the few who are "self elected." I agree with this, but only to an extent. I see no reason why one person cannot choose to be friendly to those who surround them. Now, I don't think that it is wise to befriend all of them on a really seriously level. (note: the difference between "befriend" and "be friendly" is up for interpretation. for the sake of my blog, think of it as having the ability to, say, travel with the person for an extended period of time versus having a casual lunch together, respectively.) I can't say that I have one particular best friend, which I do think Emerson would frown upon. But this is because I have found a handful of people with whom I have formed "an alliance of two large, formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep identity which beneath these disparities unites them." Yesterday, when I gave this experiment a try, I could tell easily who those people were. I already knew and so this wasn't an explosive discovery but it was definitely a solification of the people who I know would... put a big fluffy matress underneath me the day that I decide to try walking across a tightrope. (woot, metaphors.) When I was sick, I got a number of phone calls and texts asking if I was "still alive" or demanding that i "Feel better. That's an order." One of my friends, though, came to my house and sat on my bed with me while I lay there coughing and croaking out a couple words. Still sat there while I slept. Example 1: big, fluffy matress.

My aunt (no, not my dog) died this past September. It really shook me up and turned my whole world upside down. That sounds dramatic, but go with me on this one. I, weirdly enough, lost friends over it. Well, one anyway. And it loosened ties with another few. However, I don't regret that. The support that I recieved from a few of my friends, even though I didn't want to talk about it and it took, I can imagine, an immense amount of effort to not just leave me to wallow on my own, was... pretty unbelievable. Someone, durng this time, after I said that it wasn't something I was ready to discuss, told me that it was fine that I didn't want to talk about it but that I shouldn't expect them to be there if I needed to talk later. So I didn't. I relied on the people who were holding me up, as few of them as there were, and it proved just fine for me. This support was a "spiritual gift worthy of [them] to give, and of me to recieve." This experiment reminded me of that because those people still gave me a hug goodbye at the end of the school day or sent me a message to ask "what's up" later that night, even though we hadn't really conversed the entire length of the day. They didn't need reassurance of our friendship. They allowed me, for a moment, to "even bid [my] dearest friends farewell." A friendship that requires reassurance is a friendship lost, a doomed enterprise, if you will.

All right. This is long enough, I think. Basically, I think that being an Emersonian friend is a very internal way of coexisting with other people and may work for authors in the 1840's but is not such a hit with me. I know who my "real" (whatever that means) friends are and I don't need to construct a day of solitude for myself to figure that out.

ps. sorry if this got kind of personal or... too intense at any time. i'm just rather opinionated, i guess, when it comes to this sort of stuff. :-) it's also so long that i don't really feel like reading over it so i apologize for any errors, be they spelling, grammatical, or moral.

the end. really.