Friendly Wisdom

A friend of mine said to me in an email: “Isn’t the cooperative consciousness of friends outstanding?”

Two of my girlfriends from college came to visit for 5 days, and it’s pretty amazing. While the world may not be sunny, it is filled with bunnies and laughs. It’s amazing how much just having your girlfriends near you can turn the world right-side up.

Of course, it makes me concerned about being abroad, but I won’t take myself away from this moment.

Now off to visit some gay-friendly coffeeshops, bookstores, and Babeland!

I can haz friend?

“Remember we’re all in this alone”

Lily Tomlin

I often return to the idea of loneliness when thinking about modern technology. I am still amazed that no matter how invasively we are “connected” to one another, how well we update one another on every mundane experience during our day, or how keen our collective paranoid stalking abilities have been honed through spy-a-predator websites and GoogleEarth…that we still feel so unbearably lonely. That we have hundreds of friends…but we are barely aquaintences with them. Even with the people in close proximity…we’re so far away from one another. I can’t even have a conversation with most people without a cellphone going off, or some text message that needs to be sent. Too many of us prefer the quick 160 character messages to actually calling the person. I’m not even talking about the habit of going to parties, every weekend, and being inebrieted every weekend, only to make up with some strangers every weekend…just so we wouldn’t be alone, but also so we wouldn’t quite be with anyone else.

I wonder if we are becoming lonelier even as we are surrounded by people, both physically and cybernetically. Are our networks really keeping us company?

I think the hope of digital media was to connect to actually communicate. To get to know one another in a way that we could only do face-to-face, except now without geographical boundaries. I don’t know if the idealistic dream just could not stand up to the reality, or that it has been co-opted. By reality, I mean that the dream of connection was just drowned in torrents of voices, videos, tears, hands reaching out, that there was too many to connect to…and so any real connection was impossible. Or, this is just pessimism that such a dream isn’t viable. Again, just because we haven’t had the theory become practice properly, does that discount the theory completely?

As for the co-option, I’m wondering along the lines of Adorno and Horkheimer again. The capitalism framework basically absorbs any type of resistance, or threat, and then makes it marketable, therefore pacifying the threat. Blogs are no longer alternative. In a way, blogs are so easy to create that everything is drowned out in the cacophony, so any real news, or fascinating blogs are completely hidden. To spend money on expensive technology, that’s no longer some alternative nerd hacker thing…everyone has something now and cares about getting the latest model…whether or not they know how to use it. Perhaps this is my pet peeve. People buying expensive digital SLR cameras and only using the “auto” setting.

I do make the distinction between lonely and alone. One can be alone, and not be lonely. I would call that solitude.

“Language… has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone.” Paul Tillich

Yet, one can also be incredibly lonely without ever being alone.

This was sparked by a discussion with my significant other. We weren’t expressly talking about the topic of loneliness. I just began thinking about it as we acknowledged our respective needs to have enough time by ourselves. I think it’s incredibly healthy that we are not sutured to one another. We respect and trust one another to give each other the space we need. But neither of us feels lonely when we’re alone or apart. I am rather comfortable by myself, which only heightens my delight in being around people. I give myself fully to each time, enjoying whichever experience completely.

So I’m wondering, does technology bring us together? Or does it merely distract us from actually forming connections with people and opening ourselves to the potential of being hurt? If everyone is just an acquaintance, it’s easy, and you will never be hurt.

So what is technology doing for relationships?

I don’t think we have explored this question enough in our class. Professor Dean attempted to explain the vicious cycle of surveillance/paranoia and mistrust, but no one bought it. Perhaps we should revisit this again.

For Free

When do we stop thinking about resources? What cannot be made in capital? Is anything outside the grasp of consumerism? What has not yet been comodified?

save your life

Originally uploaded by robotson

Last night a friend of mine and I were discussing how friendship is rather strange in America. We understood each other because with my Russian background and the importance of hospitality, and with his close-knit bonds based on history in India, friendship means something different for our cultures. I grew up knowing that when guests come they are treated like royalty. They are given the best piece of everything. My birthday parties were all about the guests, not about me. I spent all day making sure people would have fun. I’d make gift bags for them to take home later. My American friends didn’t understand why I wasn’t more selfish. Why I kept insisting that my birthday isn’t about me.

We make friends for life. That come running no matter what. It was hard for both of us to confront the American habit of transient friends. Of short-term relationships. Of fairweather friends. In our cultures, it’s a lot more close. They become like family. Like blood. The honesty that exists between friends is different than it is here. It’s more than sharing secrets or gossip. It’s about opening up to one another about who we are. To feeling vulnerable. Friendship, like any relationship, should involve some risk. Some risk of pain, because that is how you know that you are truly connected to a person. What makes you a good friend is the ability to hurt, but choosing not to. It is accepting the power that your friend gives you, and not abusing it. That is something I don’t feel most Americans understand. He understood when I said, “She broke my heart,” when I was referring to a friend that hurt me deeply. It truly was heartbreak. I cried. The love I felt for her was not reciprocated, and she did truly terrible things to me. She did not want to be a good friend to me anymore. It was a hard lesson to learn. I make friendships for life. My friend understood, nodded, and said that it was similar for him in India.

Can this idea of friendship be taken away from me?

Can this be marketed? Can I send a customized request for a friend to Nike?

Sort of, I can already customize my future partner. Dating websites allow you to pick physical characteristics, activities, personalities, religion, weight, and salaries sometimes…You’re basically shopping for a friend/significant other. No chance. No risk. No unknown.

In an era where face-to-face communication is shrinking…what does it do to friendship? Does friendship become “social networking”?