Friends 2.0

I read this on Chen's blog and thought that I should 'immortalize' this lest she would post another entry soon and her non-cumulative layout would just erase this:

I read on the papers that PH is having a reality show to look for a best friend. HA, I got to admit she is just so cool. She might be stupid and such, it is undeniable that she indeed has power, alot of power. Who is able to have her own reality show to look for a best friend? Retarded but new.

I want to get to know new friends too. I like the process of getting to know someone. When two complete strangers becomes friends, from barely saying hello along the corridors to talking online, then msging once every few days, then talking on the phone and slowly, starting to go out or meet up after school. Its quite cool.

But what happens after that?

When new things get old, when expectations build up, when watching movie or meeting for dinner gets kinda normal and usual, when all the jokes are used up, when there is nothing left to say.

What should you do when everything starts to get boring?

HMM. That is when things get messy and complicated.

When we were still naive and ignorant, thinking that things are meant to last forever, MOE gives us 6 years to feel the eternity and get the hang of things.

When we start seeing bits and pieces of reality, MOE cut down to 4 years. In which we will still feel the promising 'forever' but just more aware that its lifespan has certainly shorten.

Then we saw the light, the truth and the way to how things really work, that inverse relationship between maturity and patience. Everything is just for fun now, 10 years of stupidity is long enough for us to learn an important lesson. No wonder MOE only gave us 2 years, as to make sure it is not too short for us to not experience anything but not too long to make us bored and start eating each other.

ME, an eighteen year old who is still troubled by friendship problems and always blaming the MOE for not giving us enough time to enjoy.
Where do I get all these patience from man?

HA. Now I think 2 years in JC is quite enough.


Then, read the comments posted for that particular entry (pardon my Photoshop skills that the panorama print screen isn't that smooth):



***

Hmm, interesting entry, I must say. I know this isn't exactly the best time to reflect about friendship but she just happened to post it when coincidentally, I was about to publish a related entry, which I have saved as a draft quite some time ago.

You know, I admit that at times, it is tough to forgive the mistake that your friend has done to you. In fact, it is psychologically improbable that recovering from all these past 'crimes' committed by someone you call 'friend' is a simple case of forgetting.

No, of course I am not that naive.

However, at certain points in our lives, when we think about the people who have made us who we are, then it dawns on us, that all these 'crimes' are but a mere mark of our innate propensity to do wrong and to sin. But like what Alexander Pope writes, "To err is human, to forgive divine."

Whenever you can, why don't you try to put the unpleasant past behind you? I know at least I have tried to do so (albeit sometimes in futility). After all, in the whole scheme of things, our friends are indeed fallible but so are we, for no one is perfect. It is meaningless, at best, if not absurd, to keep records of every mistake done unto us, because the list will just go pointlessly long.

In the end, we have to admit that at some point, the best thing to do is to forget and to move on. Besides, remembering may not necessarily even bring about the compensation we think we deserve.

B recommended me this DVD, Memento, and it so happened that the movie is about revenge. An ex-insurance investigator goes after his wife's murderer, and due to the memory loss he suffers from, he tattoos important clues on his body and keeps an endless list of Polaroid photos to remind himself about what he had set out to do. The movie explores the major moral problem with revenge, that is, by the time the act of vengeance itself is accomplished, neither the victim nor the 'villain' remains the same two individuals they used to be before the initial crime took place. In other words, seeking revenge does not only hurt others (as much as you think it is justified), it is also self-dehumanizing. Furthermore, the status quo ante is also altered.

Thus, it is important to realize that sometimes, true forgiveness requires us to remember to forget, and forgivingness is a sine qua non of every great person - at least in my terms (:




Your Disposed-to-forgive Blogger,



Perd.

P.S.: Thank you to those who left such encouraging tags as I prepare for my Prelims - from the constant reminder to take care of my health to the message to turn to God - you all made Prelims at least, bearable :D Thank you!