ON TRUST
November 19th, 2007I was talking with Sparki the other day or more correctly, she was on my butt to finally blog something, when I blurted out ” The end of friendship”.
This is really strange since I am a hardcore facts and figures man. W.B. is the sensitive one. But, it occurred to me that the classic 1950’s vintage friend has become a thing of the past, literally. Why? Well, here we go.
Friend… a person who accepts you for what you are now, past or future: has similar life experience and beliefs and is reliable for companionship and support any time and for all time.
If they found out that you were a mass murderer, they would want to know what visiting hours were at the jail.
Now instead, we have gangs, posse, a stranger who you want to manipulate and the most curious of all, the manufactured identity used either for public consumption (the Clintons) or for the electronic world (e-mail, internet sites).
I call these “Smart People”: not because of intellect but, from “Get Smart” as in “would you believe” I’m this person?
Exercise: define your purpose (a job is not a purpose but a means).
Today friendship is more a political association than someone you can just hang out with, no dire or hidden agendas, maybe go to the soda shop and just be. A person you can sit silent with for periods of time without going paranoid and wondering how they are plotting to get you.
Ah, Yes! The Happy Days scenario.
Everyone knew their roles and were trusted to perform competently.
Friendship is a function of time, similar interests and trust development. And that is how it died. In the frantic plunge toward competitiveness we no longer enjoy traditional lifestyles and schedules so, instead of friends for life, people become friends for a day, a week, a minute. Becoming the purpose-built friend with a life span of until that task is completed, or no longer interesting anymore (salespeople).
We were best friends for three minutes, but haven’t see each other since.
Don’t try to blame the video game. I was one of the first in line for an Atari. It rapidly replaced all of the board games I couldn’t find enough people to play with, almost as fast as it emptied my wallet. However, now I had independence. I could play anytime, naked if I felt like it, didn’t have a smelly friend to ridicule me who and eat all my food and beer. The Atari could be intellectually challenging for a while, if you got bored you could always play blindfolded, but more importantly it never ran to my friends bragging how it kicked my butt.
Electronic games = friends.
So, here we are about 1970. Most people worked 40 hours on day shift with plenty of overtime, for some of the highest wages in history (peak in 1973). Man had just walked on the moon and muscle cars were burning rubber everywhere (cost $4000 loaded). But, in this virtual paradise a malaise was about to change the nature of friendship forever. Trust was under attack and had been since 1963 with the assassination then the conspiracy theories, the Vietnam war conspiracies, racism, wars (cold, drug, poverty) ….conflict was everywhere and there were no concrete standards anyone was willing to stand up and be measured against (including the gold standard).
Throw in a dash of Arab greed in 1973 which, in a strange coincidence, was the beginning of both the income, and currency, declines which continue today. Simmer for about 30 years, season with the Nixon pardon, inflation and financial frauds such as the S & L crisis and today’s sub-prime mortgage crisis, immigration and 9/11 and Iraq as the final straws of governmental credibility.
Authority figures/people in suits = Not friends.
The other day I saw a news item where some geeks are trying to start a virtual world where everyone is an avatar (Never trust a naked avatar). Combine this with the new emphasis on the reoccurring lie that everyone has to get a lot of expensive education and become geeks to succeed, and I guess the real world has been written off and we are supposed to migrate to hyperspace.
I hope that somewhere in a basement, a brilliant team of inventors is coming up with the universal sex interface (U.S.I.), or the human race might just die out.
Who do you trust, friend?
Pod bless you!