The Friend of my Friend is my Enemy

Say what????

I know, kinda strange there. But this is what has happened, at least as far as I know from the outside.

One of my 360 friends here has had some issues with some people, and having a pretty tough time of things of late had decided to pack up her 360 blog and make a new one. All well and good, but it did not even last 2 days before that blog was closed down because of the few friends that she did take from the last blog, two of them apparently could not stand the other and made a demand of her that she make the choice of one or the other.

Now, what the hell is that all about?? How selfish and childish can you be? If you TRULY are concerned about your friend and her friendship, it should only be a matter of what is between you and her, NOT her and someone else. Friends do not make demands upon REAL friends to cease their friendship with someone else, just to make you feel better. All that does is make the 1st person feel absolutely horrible and under pressure to drop BOTH parties, because of their selfish and unrealistic demands, because such demands show that they are not true friends, because TRUE friends would not make such demands in the first place.

People always seem to wonder what is wrong with the world today and the people upon it. Here is a good demonstration of one of those things, which is selfish immaturity. It is always about ME! It doesnt matter what is right or proper or correct, as long as I get what I want, when I want it, and how I want it. And, if it means that someone else gets hurt, so what? Too bad, so sad! I am the most important person in the world, and if I am not the most important person to others, to you, then there is not something wrong with me, there is something wrong with YOU!

There can be no sharing, there can be no compromise. We cannot think about the big picture and look at those people around us, to see how they live their lives, unless (and only if) it is to see how it would directly affect us. If it is for our betterment, then all is good with the world. If it is not, if what they are doing does not affect us, then we dont care at all about them. But, if what they are doing seems to be against what we want or stand for, then they are THE ENEMY, and must be shunned, and/or destroyed (if not physically, certainly personally and/or professionally) and their reputation and standing within their community irreparably tarnished.

We are too often of two camps nowadays. Those for us, and those against us. Patriots or traitors. Black or white. Good or evil. There is no longer any views of grey or of looking at things as a matter of degrees. It is all or none. You are either my friend, or my enemy. And, if you are a friend of my enemy, then you are no longer my friend.

Unfortunately, this is not something that just happens in school grounds or in the blogosphere, but also with international politics. Look at President Bush and what he has done with our international relations by saying that you are either for us or against us. You either approve of ALL of our activities, or you are no longer our friend. If you state any disapproval for anything that we do, you are our enemy. Any dissent from within, will mark you as a traitor. Only full and unwavering (and unthinking) support for the United States and its policies (and its wars, etc) will mark you as a true patriot. Any wavering, any questioning, any thing that shows that you may not be 100% behind these policies, be they legal or unconstitutional, right or wrong, and you are marked and remarked as an enemy of the state.

Kinda harsh, isnt it? No room for error, no room for compromise. Indeed, one may think that I am going a bit overboard with this, and making a mountain of a mole hill. But, too often, that is not the case. I wish it was. But, with seeing friends of my friends telling her that she has to make a choice of one or the other, or that a leader of one of the most powerful countries of the world (I no longer can say that we are the most powerful, because of the squandering of our political goodwill from other countries, not to mention our financial servitude by countries such as China) acts like a junior high school bully and demands that people like him or else!

Where is the respect in that? You can not demand respect, you have to earn it. And, if you cannot show respect to others, then you will never ever earn that respect. You may get others to fear you, but that is a far cry from true respect. And, with no respect, there can be no true friendship.

And friends respect their friends to make their own decisions about their relationships. They do not make demands upon them to only be friends with the people that they approve of themselves.

That is just not right!

(Originally posted February 17th, 2008 on Yahoo 360)

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