>> What is a close friend? Before we can start asking people if they have any we should probably agree on a definition. If you use the Hollywood standard, then probably none of us have close friends.
I've come to this same conclusion, but rarely express it because it's possible I'm just different. And I'd even go one step further, I think what a lot of people say friendship is, isn't actually what human friendship is in practice. I think these unrealistic expectations undermine real-world friendships because they always fall short.
Theoretical friendship:
- Completely perfect and devoid of all realities of life
- No jealousy, no competition, no negative feelings
- Timeless and immortal
- No effort involved
- Completely balanced and healthy for everybody at all times
- Able to talk about every topic
Realistic friendship:
- Temporary at first, may or may not build into something more
- Often starts with a simple exchange of banter on common interests
- Multiple opinions/topics that are mutually avoided
- One person often tries harder, one person often values the relationship more
- The relationship may or may not even be mutually healthy
- Many will hit a point where they become more effort than they're worth and end (e.g. moving)
- Some will never grow out of one or two common things to bitch about
These don't represent real or Hollywood friendships at all.
> - Completely perfect and devoid of all realities of life
Friendships are relationships that stand the test of time and hardship. You work through problems, illnesses including mental health struggles, deaths, employment and money problems, family and relationship problems, legal problems, all sorts.
> - No jealousy, no competition, no negative feelings
There are obviously always mixed emotions, but generally you won't harbour serious ill will towards your friends. This is something you can work on, though, as jealousy and envy are personality traits that can be controlled. Healthy competition is a positive, though.
> - Timeless and immortal
Friendships change and sometimes have to be ended, even when you like the other person. I think this is quite common and almost a trope of Hollywood movies.
> - No effort involved
Short of family and maybe employment, friendships require the most work in life. This one is particularly baffling from a Hollywood perspective, as going a friend in need is like the all-time Hollywood trope.
> - Completely balanced and healthy for everybody at all times
Obviously this isn't true, but this isn't portrayed either. Flawed characters are the only compelling characters in Hollywood.
> - Able to talk about every topic
Again, changing the uncomfortable topic trope is an ultra-trope.
Your "realistic friendship" section fits acquaintances rather than friends.
>I think these unrealistic expectations undermine real-world friendships because they always fall short.
I think some self-reflection is in order here, as this is projection.
The comment you replied to isn't about whether friendships are transactional. They detailed a long list of ways that your theoretical and "realistic" friendships are bad and unrealistic definitions. If you didn't have friends closer to your first definition in most ways than your second, you haven't had a close friend, which isn't something to be shamed over but is something to consider.
> Is the idea that friendship might be transactional too scary a thought to consider head on?
Rather than be defensive, it was designed to shock you out of your current thought patterns on friendship, because they are almost delusional. Neither movie idealised friends nor real-life friendships have any of the characteristics you describe, and that is distorting your view of the world.
Pretending real friendship is a Hollywood myth is self-selecting yourself out of one of the most rewarding aspects of life. Don't do it to yourself.
> The study authors gave a survey to 84 college students in the same class,
Come on, time to get offline and go make some friends.
No, you're misreading the tone here. It's more gentle paternal nudging.
Don't let confirmation bias mislead you into a lonely life, especially not based on a study on somecollege students.
I know it's more comforting to believe real friendships exist only in fiction rather than admit you haven't experienced it, but in the long run, this belief only hurts you.
>The relationship may or may not even be mutually healthy
My best friend of 30 years now met me because I distributed warez in Junior High. He hung around because I had something useful and wanted to maintain a relationship with me. This grew into something more meaningful
I don't know... I bought an expensive mic with a budget at a prior role, but it kept picking up background noise more than my mac would, and ultimately it's sitting in the garage.
The difficulty of testing, getting feedback, setting audio devices reliably, muting, adjusting settings (my mic had literally 5 different audio forms, all of which picked up too much background noise), etc made it seem like a huge nightmare for potentially inferior results.
Kinda feels like a nothing article. Seems to suggest epigenetic changes without establishing causation or even whether they are are good or bad changes.
This is important because what I've heard (and checked via chatgpt) is that non-smoking consumption of cannabis is protective against certain cancers. Though again many substances (e.g. coffee) are protective against a dozen cancers and but increase risk of a dozen other cancers.
I feel like there are two approaches that are never gonna work: self-control and asking companies to change.
I think there is an obvious answer though: taking control of the algorithm via AI. I don't think we're there yet, but it's gotta be a matter of time until somebody makes a local AI agent that browses all these feeds and then filters them to your satisfaction (x% about politics, y% upbeat, z% violence, z% about video games).
I was thinking that, that what I'd like is an AI that knows me and I can ask what's out there I'd like to see and I can give it instructions. Not really just percentages but what's interesting for me which I guess requires quite a lot of knowledge of me.
This is such an interesting idea! - Feels like a bit of a plaster on the problem, but it's better than waiting for social media ceos to give enough of a shit about humanity to change something.
Well you normally don't have perfect information. Imagine you're woken up in the middle of the night by a window breaking, you hear somebody coming down the hall, and there's a strange figure in your doorway. In the worst cases you could be moments from death or sexual assault, or perhaps there's no violent intent at all.
Are you obligated to wait until you have evidence of violent intent to use a gun?
Well a few thoughts. I feel like your question is trying to excuse reckless disregard (at best) as mere incompetence.
I don't think if you sum up all the value on all the leases of wasted buildings it would be a drop in the bucket against the psychological damage (e.g. distrust in the system) being caused by this administration. Like unless it's more than 1% of the national budget (i.e. > 67 billion a year) then it isn't worth the chaos.
And a competent administration that wanted to end leases really shouldn't have started RTO, so let's try not to fabricate plausible deniability here.
Wow, I think you've just become iconic to dozens of us (self included). Congrats on taking life's lemons and turning them into sweet victory.
I saw in another comment you were able to make yourself work with complete focus (8 hour+ days 7 days a week). I have two questions --
In hindsight, if you had only worked 5 hour days for twice as many months do you think the project still could have succeeded? Or do you feel that there's some momentum or other factor at play here?
Nextly, are there any discords or other networking resources that you found crucial to the process? I saw you mentioned a publisher. Personally I'm more motivated when I have people depending on me (or eager to see what I'm making for example).
There is indoor lettuce I can buy at my supermarkets that is "zero pesticide" (you can just google it and find several, don't want to post any sort of links to products here).
It's axiomatically-speaking the one of the only few ways to make it happen.
"zero pesticides" implies no bugs/insects around to need spraying it in the first place, and doing that requires (A) a clean environment + (B) no regular soil (regular soil may have insect eggs / fungi in them).
The only things that come to mind are hydroponics & hydrogel agriculture.
I've come to this same conclusion, but rarely express it because it's possible I'm just different. And I'd even go one step further, I think what a lot of people say friendship is, isn't actually what human friendship is in practice. I think these unrealistic expectations undermine real-world friendships because they always fall short.
Theoretical friendship:
- Completely perfect and devoid of all realities of life
- No jealousy, no competition, no negative feelings
- Timeless and immortal
- No effort involved
- Completely balanced and healthy for everybody at all times
- Able to talk about every topic
Realistic friendship:
- Temporary at first, may or may not build into something more
- Often starts with a simple exchange of banter on common interests
- Multiple opinions/topics that are mutually avoided
- One person often tries harder, one person often values the relationship more
- The relationship may or may not even be mutually healthy
- Many will hit a point where they become more effort than they're worth and end (e.g. moving)
- Some will never grow out of one or two common things to bitch about
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