| Starfish |
| What i am. |
| Think about Being.. |
| a wabbit ☺ unskilled and unaware of it ☺ humble ☺ louder than life ☺ passionate ☺ full of empathy ☺ irritated |
| SaY SomEthIng!! |
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| Su’s Musing : Loneliness |
| 17.12.07 |
These are the basic needs of mankind: food, water & shelter. Once these basic necessities are met, as theorized by Maslow, we move up the hierarchy of needs to the next level: social needs.
Watching ‘I Am Legend’, which turned out to be somewhat of a horror show, last night, I was struck by one scene in the movie in which Will Smith, having lost his only companion –his dog, talks to a mannequin pleading her to respond back to him. The desperation that arises in wanting to have someone else when you realize that you are all alone is something we all recognize innately, despite the strong independent fronts some of us put up. I don’t mean having some alone time where you can reflect on things you’ve done, plan what to do next or just lie down to read a book, I’m talking about being absolutely abandoned where you have no one to talk to, no one around you and no one to come for you. Truly, what is there to do once we are by ourselves?
And so, this longing drives us to find a social group where we find support emotionally and physically. Some need only a single person to be there at the end of the day- a husband, some need many to float to and from like a butterfly and some opt for the constantly changing partners – slu.. g. (ha, no not in that manner, but more of having different close friends of the moment). Stepping out of doomsday movies into reality, we are face with many choices on socializing; the depth, the frequency, the duration and so much more.
It is at this point that I look at my own life and identify the friends I’ve had: the ones kept, the ones lost, the new ones made, the ones in the outer circle. I realize that the ones I consider my closest friends are actually the ones who’ve conveniently been around me for a long time. I’m not reducing the friendship to something less, but the main reason it happened was because it was convenient. Let’s face it, would we have any of our friends unless it was convenient? Except for one or two, it was a matter of same time, same place. The ones that still remain despite long dormant periods have their foundations from a moment when a connection was felt during the time of acquaintance. This of course requires mutual yearning to have the link continue. If not it is futile. You’d just be talking to very uninterested wall of a person. And I don’t think you should quite reduce yourself to beg for a response- no we’re not quite at Will’s situation yet, no thank you.
For most of my friends, I can identify why or when we (or maybe just me) decided – yes, this person is going to be a good friend of mine. It all seems so superficial when you break it down to that.
If we really had all the time in the world to know heaps more people… would we still be friends with the people we are? Given more options, given more time. Would TheY still want to be friends with us? What are we missing out on? Would they really help me out if I was in trouble? Yeah. I don’t know. |
| posted by su @ 9:03 AM |
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| 1 Comments: |
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The date of this blog post of yours really baffles me. 17.12.08? 17 December 2008? But wait, aren't we only in May 08? Is this post from the future? What's going on?!
Time traveling issues aside, your post speaks on an issue I've been dealing with for some time now. Let me tell you, work screws with ones social life, leaving you with little choice but to make work your social life. Chose not to do this, and you'd better be prepared to put in some effort, as apposed to friendships of convenience like you speak of.
Obviously, this is because work makes friendships inconvenient. Seriously. You're tired. They're tired. All you wanna do is get home, eat shower and maybe chill out a bit. Go to mamak? Ugh, dirty and kinda smelly (if there is a smoker nearby) gotta drive someplace far, might not like the food. Being tired reduces your tolerance to little dislikes.
And another thing, one of my closest (and by that extension, most convenient) friends recently got married. You can guess where I'm going with this. Not that I don't see him much, but certainly not at the frequency and length that I used to see him.
So yeah, there you go. Issue becomes very real when work is put into the equation. Not that I'm crushingly lonely, but I definitely get hit by bouts of loneliness. Meh, its rough being a grown-up.
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Name: su
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About Me: Origin: Malaysia
carried out life in Singapore.. 2 years exactly.
Currently: Melbourne
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The date of this blog post of yours really baffles me. 17.12.08? 17 December 2008? But wait, aren't we only in May 08? Is this post from the future? What's going on?!
Time traveling issues aside, your post speaks on an issue I've been dealing with for some time now. Let me tell you, work screws with ones social life, leaving you with little choice but to make work your social life. Chose not to do this, and you'd better be prepared to put in some effort, as apposed to friendships of convenience like you speak of.
Obviously, this is because work makes friendships inconvenient. Seriously. You're tired. They're tired. All you wanna do is get home, eat shower and maybe chill out a bit. Go to mamak? Ugh, dirty and kinda smelly (if there is a smoker nearby) gotta drive someplace far, might not like the food. Being tired reduces your tolerance to little dislikes.
And another thing, one of my closest (and by that extension, most convenient) friends recently got married. You can guess where I'm going with this. Not that I don't see him much, but certainly not at the frequency and length that I used to see him.
So yeah, there you go. Issue becomes very real when work is put into the equation. Not that I'm crushingly lonely, but I definitely get hit by bouts of loneliness. Meh, its rough being a grown-up.