Are people expecting a pine post today? I hope it doesn’t become a habit. With blogging, as with most things actually, the beginning is exciting, but it eventually ceases to be something important. But for now, I am super free (though I wish I weren’t), I shall opine more, but just for now. Today, I’m really exhausted. I won’t say why, but it’s been a day of running. Running can be good and useful, but fearful running isn’t. Fearful running is simply running for your life. Yes, I did plenty of that today, and for this reason, I’m exhausted. Oh yes, and for those nosy ones, if you’re really interested in blasts from the past, and didn’t get my hint to go dig up old history from my very first post, do go and take a look; you’ll find links to blogs of people you never knew actually had blogs. It’s interesting to see what life was like then. As I write, it feels like I’m a survivor of an apocalypse, it almost feels as if those people don’t exist anymore.
Today I’m writing about pineship. By pineship, I mean friendship. This is a topic that I have written extensively on in my previous journals. Why so? I guess for a long long period of my life, pineship meant the world to me. I had a very extreme view of pines. Before I share this view of pineship, I shall simply use the word friendship so you don’t have to translate it in your head. To a large extent, I still do have a pretty extreme view of friendship today. I still divide my friends according to categories and never mix them in the same group. I can hardly allow myself to see two different groups of friends in one day. I still trim my facebook friends occasionally by weeding out acquaintances, and take true friendship seriously. For people that take friendship too seriously, it can be a terrible thing. Friends that are overly zealous become first a frequent visitor, then a bother, to an annoyance, and eventually a pest. At last, an over zealous “friend” might become an object of hatred. For young people, friends mean the world to them, and breaking the ‘friendship pact’ often results in deep unrepairable hurt and tearful nights and feelings of loss. When I was much younger, life was about sincerity. If one wanted to do something, one had to be sincere. If someone wanted to be a friend, he/she had better be sincere. Let’s not ‘be friends’ because I’m a quiet person, and you want to make me feel comfortable. Let’s not ‘be friends’ because you think I’m a poor thing that needs help. Let’s be friends because you want to be my friend. People that were not ready for that kind of commitment were immediately crossed off my list. I’d rather have 1 person write a long and sincere Christmas card than have 50 people write meaningless greetings. But eventually, I found it hard to live this life. Because it becomes such a huge burden for my friends, and I realised it would make me a sad grouchy kind of pine, not to mention, a fat, sad, grouchy pine.
Friendship, as C.S Lewis said, is a kind of love. Lovers love to look into each other’s eyes, but friends walk side by side and walk toward a certain path. Go check out The Four Loves if you think I made this up. If you really want to give your friends the respect and freedom they deserve, simply love them. Don’t think about owning them. Don’t count the cost. Now, I don’t mean don’t count the cost in the is-he/she-worth-being-my-friend sense. I mean it in a this-is-the-third-time-I’ve-bailed-him/her-out sense. By all means, we should count the cost in the former sense, this is because not all friends are worth making. And many times, we simply cannot commit to being a friend to another. What I really mean is that don’t keep tabs on your friendship.
Many people see friendship as something that is really self-serving. They want their friends to fulfil their inner needs. They need a friend that will never go away and will always be there. In return, they can do many things for this friend too. But life often isn’t like that. And I’ve come to find that that’s a really crazy way to control another person’s life! I’ve come to a season of my life where my motto is: it’s better to love than to be loved. Many young people are craving to be accepted and to be loved and to be adored. What does counting the cost mean? Or what does keeping tabs mean? What does it mean that we are using friends to feel loved?
For some, friends are like trophies: we like to parade them out for the world to see. This is especially so when with a click of a button, the world can see with whom we had dinner with. As a result, for some, it’s customary to take pictures with people ‘we are close with’ to show the world whom we hang out with, or that we have an awesome social life. Of course, I don’t mean that everyone who does that thinks so, but trust me when I say some people do so for this reason. For others, friends are possessions, and we often limit their choices, hoping that they are truly and completely ours. I had times in the past when I felt pangs of jealousy when my friend was being ‘shared’ with others, or when my favourite person invited someone else to our one-to-one outing. We want to feel exclusive, we want to feel loved, we want people to know that we are special. Then there are others that are always remembering what great acts that did for their friends, and are never satisfied because they constantly feel that the mutual commitment is not proportionate. The answer? To me, just strive to love than to be loved. The moment you can free yourself of all the thoughts of fulfilling your inner desires, friendship becomes casual, natural, and a source of joy. Here is where I talk about ghost friends.
To be honest, one reason why I’m so exhausted today is because I had a late chat last night with my ghost friend. My ghost friend was also amused with the fact that I suddenly decided to create a blog. We then talked a bit about the really old days. We even went back to one of my ghost friend’s blogposts where my ghost friend wished me happy birthday and it was so hilarious we spent so much time typing “hahahah”. Our conversations were just so adorable. Oh no, there’s nothing ghastly about this ghost friend. My ghost friend is simply a friend that hardly appears as a reality in my daily life. We lead different lives, and even acknowledge different people more often we do each other; but we are still deeply and truly friends. In the past, I used to call this particular ghost friend my “fair-weather friend”. This meant this friend often turned up only on good days. That made me think. To be honest, most of my favourite friends are really ghost friends. They are not the ones who accompany me all day, nor are they the first ones I tell exciting things to (although sometimes, they are). Heck, I have never even taken a picture with one of my ghost friends! At the end of the day, I can always count on them, and they are the people I eventually turn to when I’m the most broken. This is because I know they tell me the truest thoughts, they don’t feel awkward seeing my broken and lost, and they know how to turn me to the right direction. Ghosts are… ghosts. They need to be free-spirited because they are… spirits. I wouldn’t want to tie my ghost friends down. I wouldn’t want to expect them to appear at my birthday parties with huge surprises or gifts, often, we forget each other’s birthdays. If you tie down ghost friends, you risk choking them, and the relationship can go really bad. Save that for your spouse 😉
Well anyway, the Bible has a wonderful story of two friends, as most of you are sure. The story of David and Jonathan! Well all I want to say is that their relationship is pretty similar to that of two ghost friends. Their story begins from 1 Samuel 18, when David and Jonathan became best buds. If you read on, you’d probably see that they spent a lot of time apart. Saul was very worried about David’s growing stature, and sent him out to fight battles. So David was probably often out, as you would see later, he was sent to fight the Philistines. While Jonathan spent time near his father, where he eventually learnt of Saul’s plan to kill him. Eventually, Jonathan sent David away, and they lived apart. Yet, their friendship was as real as anything, and it endured. More importantly, Jonathan gave up so many things to David, and never kept tabs. He didn’t seem like an insecure person desiring for David to fulfil his needs. Rather, he used what he knew to bless and love David.
Any thoughts? In ending, I would just like to encourage my readers to count less, the cost of one’s sacrifice to a person we are already committed to, stop keeping tabs. Just love them, and give your best to them. And then one day, you might be surprised to realize that the people you spend the least time with are truly those that are worth dying for.
Signing off,
Fatpine.
fatpine 