Before you start reading this; I already know that whatever's about to come out of this entry would be sheer understatement since my words are never enough. Was just contemplating the phrase "best friend". What does it mean to call someone your best friend? What makes a normal friend a best friend?

Just somehow considering the way things are. Shopping, movies, partying. Hanging around. So do we judge who's best by who hangs around more often, or who stays with you the longest as "best"? The term best in itself implies a comparison between others and the single individual whether a concious judgement or not. Raising this up because I feel that most of the time the entertainment industry and the books (chick lit, more rather) have understated what it means to be best friends.

Its amazing that despite the story plot, most of the time the theme of best friends is being depicted as this; girls hang around, girls are best friends, quarrel over some guy/ some thing, girls are no longer best friends. Best friends are being portrayed as an on-and-off relationship on superficial grounds of materialistic conflicts and emotional tension. So following what we believe best friends are, we then base our relationships on the simple assumption that what we see and what we understand of best friends through our society is true.

I'm not quite sure whether I'm coming from an objective point of view, but I think we have to realise that best friends are more than that. The facts about understanding, about trust and love play a much bigger role in the relationship in itself. To me there's just a strange contrast like how with normal friends you can go out, play around, get high and excited; but with your best friend (or my best friend) we can go out not have anything in mind, sit down for a quiet conversation and for some reason or the other in that space of time, everything feels alright. In fact, I come out feeling even happier than how I would be doing all sorts of weird antics with other friends. Normal friends make you happy while you're with them, but a best friend makes you happy simply because he/she's always there.

Thinking entirely about obstacles and problems, we often say a friend's the one that will stick it with you through the bad times and the good times. But somehow when it comes to a best friend, its wanting to protect them, yet being scared you'll affect them because when you're unhappy they're unhappy and likewise. And most importantly, the fact that you'd eventually share your sorrows because it'd hurt more for them not to know your problems. Simply because being there for one another makes oneself happier than not being able to be there in the first place, and that there're no regrets of every minute spent with each other because every minute's making your life more worth living.

Eventually I think it just boils down to one thing - love. We all have varying degrees upon which we decide and define what is/ who is good enough to be declare as our best friends. Yet again to question, what decides that person to be the one we spend the most time with, the one that we share our deepest secrets with? One thing I've definitely realised is that no matter how much you hate yourself for certain things you are, your best friend sees it all and would still love you despite it all. This's simply because despite your imperfections, a best friend loves you not for who you will be or who you have been, but instead as who you are.

"Friendships are different from all other relationships. Unlike acquaintanceship, friendship is based on love. Unlike lovers and married couples, it is free of jealousy. Unlike children and parents, it knows neither criticism nor resentment. Friendship has no status in law. Business partnerships are based on a contract. So is marriage. Parents are bound by law. But friendships are freely entered into, freely given, and freely exercised."

We often talk about marriage as a kindof once-in-a-lifetime thing, but marriages and friendships alike, I think it all boils down to the fact that when you find someone that cares, treasure them. Partner for life or a companion, its all about that someone who will wipe away your tears when you're confused, someone who'll hold your hand when it gets cold, someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words. Its not so much the dependency but the fact that no matter what, best friends are always with you. Guess that's what makes him/ her all so precious.

Realised I'm eventually coming to the simple fact that a best friend is hardest thing to find so do treasure the times spent together. "Sometimes in life, you find a special friend. Someone who changes your life just by being a part of it. Someone who makes you laugh until you can't stop. Someone who makes you believe that there really is good in the world. Someone who convinces you that there really is an unlocked door just waiting for you to open it. This is forever friendship.

"When you're down and the world seems dark and empty, your forever friend lifts you up in spirit and makes that dark and empty world suddenly seem bright and full. Your forever friend gets you through the hard times, the sad times and the confused times. If you turn and walk away, your forever friend follows. If you lose your way, your forever friend guides you and cheers you on. Your forever friend holds your hand and tells you that everything is going to be okay. And if you find such a friend, you feel happy and complete because you need not worry. You have a forever friend, and forever has no end."

(And just so if you see this, I have a forever friend in you.)

Labels: Journal Entry, Thoughts

In a bid not to focus my entry today on the fact that I'm doing a discussion on the quote of failure and perseverance (for english homework), once again just thinking.

What makes people happy? The answer many would give's that happiness in itself gets compounded from various factors (that will then determine the range in which euphorism is experienced). Most people would then go on to talk about doing the things they enjoy doing. Be it freedom from the mundane, hobbies, love and associates, these things that make them want to forget the world and just focus on what they're doing.

Its pretty much a peculiar fixation, this bizarre craving for something that you know wouldn't last. But you just want to have it, to be happy because you'd know for that few minutes that it lasts, it would be priceless. Don't know why it works that way but does happiness last? Somehow the same difference between being happy, not being happy and then upset, if one's happy all his life therein lies the contradiction in his/her definition in happy. I guess my demoralizing point of view's may be contested by the idealistic afficionados of optimism, but very well my thoughts.

Its just pretty amusing how my favourite book in childhood was Pollyanna. Not because she lived in a utopic world, but from the unnerving irony that her cynic perspective of everything caused her to look at everything from a depreciatory view that enables others to think "things aren't so bad after all". So much so the way we think in life, like part of the happy claim evolves from the reasoning that it would be worse off. Perhaps some'll finally see the contradiction now, but to insist that one is happy, I suppose a single piece of advice would work: smile, and the world smiles with you.

Something to think about, from the transcript of Heroes.
Linderman: You see, I think there comes a time when a man has to ask himself whether he wants a life of happiness or a life of meaning.
Nathan: I'd like to have both.
Linderman: Can't be done. Two very different paths. I mean, to be truly happy, a man must live absolutely in the present and with no thought with what's gone on before, and no thought of what lies ahead. But a life of meaning, a man is condemned to wallow in the past and obsess about the future.

Labels: Thoughts

Have you ever wondered what marks our time here? If one life can really make an impact on the world...or if the choices we make matter? I believe they do. And I believe that one man can change many lives. For better...or worse. One Tree Hill, and very much worth thinking about. Somehow just makes me believe that we're out there with a million possibilities and the culmination of where life takes us and what we decide eventaully leading to that one path we call our lives.

Sometimes gets me thinking how as students we're told that we must study, grow up to be self-sufficient people who can depend on themselves for survival (or coming from a completely alturistic perspective, to serve and repay society through all the scholarship money coming from income tax) but ultimately what do we really want out of this education?

Remembered the day where we had the talk about engineering students getting high pay. I do suppose each occupation has a specific income designated but what if there is a conflict between the need to survive and living for a purpose? Somehow just feel there's more to it than that.

Guess its because of a year of SMP I haven't exactly been able to commit myself to community service or otherwise, but for an ironic reason, recieving doesn't give quite the same pleasure of giving to others. Before we continue mulling over details and watch the time fly by, perhaps its time to stop and stare, take a good look at where we're heading before its too late.

Labels: Studies, Thoughts