I remember a conversation a couple of years ago with a friend who believed that friendships were formed out of a mixture of circumstance, proximity and character, with a different level of each in each relationship. 

It’s a slightly simplistic, but I think relatively accurate Venn diagram relationship between the three. I’ve had friends that fall into some categories entirely, people who I was nominally good friends with by virtue of being in the same social circle but have had basically zero one on one interaction with, the proximity friends. Friends with whom I get along well, but am unable to regularly meet due to geographical separation or completely distinct social circles. Friendships that just slowly dissolved from thick bonds into wisps after the removal of a commonality. 

The wonderful and painful thing about it is that what constitutes this mixture can change. Wonderful in the joy you feel when you realise the strengthening of a friendship, as if two lines that met at a point now run along the same path. Painful as you see the slow dissipation of a connection you once considered one of your strongest. 

I was lucky enough to experience the former this summer, with pleasant surprise that I hadn’t drifted from some of my closest friends this year or so we’d spent dispersed across various continent, but somehow we’d grown even closer. Some friendships turn stale and emptily silent with age but we rambled on headily about books and movies and music and relationships and society. We lay on couches and just talked through the night, danced like idiots and held each other crying and laughing in a backseat. We ran down roads at midnight, finished ungodly amounts of food, propped each other up and acted as each other’s pillows, climbed up hills into vacant restaurants to stare down at the city lights. 

The beauty of it all isn’t just the fun of each experience no matter how big or small but in the company and knowing that this almost tangible bond exists. Part of that little bubble of giddy euphoria that comes with something even as simple as climbing around a playground together like kindergarten kids is from this whole feeling of being understood and the support that this understanding provides to all the feelings of possibility in our lives. 

And we’re not identical people. Hardly. I’ll be off learning how to sell my soul while some friends learn how to run the country and others go into academia or social work. We essentially cover all the areas of a classic three-sector model. And we didn’t necessarily evolve in the same way either; it’s like we all took steps in different trajectories but faced similar directions. Still, these are people who I can talk to for hours on end. People who are terrible influences but have my best interests at heart. Who I know will back me up, who I can come back too, who can make me feel a little happy warmth even when we’re talking across hundreds and thousands of miles. And in that vein they’ve opened me up to sharing moments with new people because I have this anchor and this security, and a feeling of a steady foundation from which I can build myself and appreciate and enjoy the rest of the life and people happening around me. 

I suppose I might be more of a glass-half-empty person than I’d thought because as summer starts drawing towards its close I feel loath to leave this behind. There’s a tiny fear that the little change that brought this wonder about previously could shift its direction towards pain. But then again it’s not like we’re leaving this friendship behind like an ugly t-shirt left to rot in a cupboard corner, and this would hardly be security if it could be so easily taken away. So our summer night expeditions might be on a pause for now but I’m sure our conversations won’t be (I’m sorry if it takes me forever to reply your whatsapps I still love you all) and we can resume them wherever in the world we see each other again. Just know that there’s no way I can fully communicate how much I appreciate having you guys in my life. 

Might be out of the camera’s focus but hey, not out of each other’s

good friends increase my exposure. heh.

Let me preface this by saying that I know I’m not the most open minded person on the planet. I think I’m relatively progressive, especially within the largely conservative society that I’ve grown up in, but at the same time I recognise that there are certain deep seated biases within me that engender discomfort in reaction to certain situations, and that these are going to take a while for me to get over.

But I’m trying. I think that the least I can do, that we can do, is to be open to the idea that we’re fallible and that these judgments we sometimes pass are built on foundations of sand that can be eroded away with time and effort if we’re willing to open the dam, to look at it from another perspective and reflect a little before slamming down a mental block like Gandalf going “You shall not pass!!” to any new concept or viewpoint. And even if it’s difficult to pry away from the thoughts you’ve cherished your whole life, any concession you make to this is progress in itself. It’s the definition of being considerate, you don’t have to behave in the same exact way to be able to try to sympathise. 

In the effort of consideration, I understand that the society I’ve been brought up in has  succeeded so far on largely conservative, paternalistic values, which perpetuates the retention of such values. I understand that while I myself have been raised in a largely liberal environment, that others have not been, and that it takes time to get used to new concepts. But even with these concessions, there are things that I still don’t quite understand. 

Like why it’s considered terrible for a girl to be hooking up with guys when a guy hooking up with girls is considered “fulfilling urges”. 

Like why for a girl to be doing so, her main motivations must be that she is either mentally or emotionally damaged or lacking. 

Like why it’s considered wilder (or at all so) for a girl to be hooking up with a girl than for a girl to be hooking up with a guy. 

Like how people can hear that a girl was attacked and ask about what she was wearing without asking if she’s okay.

Like how people can say that it was a person’s fault that someone else inflicted unprovoked pain and harm to him/her. 

Like how misunderstandings and the inability to grasp a concept in a certain way can transform itself into malice and spite, into insults and defamation, into hurt and disbelief. 

Like how a bias can turn something meaningless or cherished into something offensive. 

Like how people exploit this bias to turn a personal vendetta into a societal, almost systemic persecution. 

In all honesty, this list could go on for a long while, and I’ve had many discussions over the past few months with friends over this. This probably won’t be the last time I find the urge to write about this, because sadly a similar discussion could be applied to anything from gender to religion or sexuality, and I wish I had the literary skill to combine that discussion into concise prose but this is all I have for now.  

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that open-mindedness negates stupidity. Nor do I think that enlightened ideology necessarily validates every action done in its name. 

All I’m saying is, think a little. Think about why you’re condemning what you are. Then think about how you’ve come to the basis of that judgment. Think about the biases you’ve internalised. Think about whether you’d apply the same judgment to others in the same situation. About whether you could understand the motivations of others in the same situation. And as objectively as possible, about whether those actions are worth the weight of the judgment you’ve passed. Because even if ultimately open-mindedness doesn’t negate stupidity, at the very least it minimises the potential for it. 

On a rather unrelated note, this is me playing with light, blinds and the self-timer function.