Friendship

Before jumping into the blog, this may have references to facebook which is where I started writing this, sorry for not editing them out if they exist.

Looking Back On High School Blog 1: Friendship

If you saw my previous status about this blog series that I’m going to be writing, I intend to take a subject and then write my thoughts about it as I look back through high school, as hindsight is 20/20 I hope I can give some good ideas on life and the different subjects I run over. Additionally, this will have very little in the way of editing, I’m almost completely doing this in one shot, if it’s incredibly long, so be it, just don’t read it if you don’t want to, no flak from me about it. Without further preamble I present part 1: Friendship.

So, the introduction actually lied, this is my second thought because to say I thought the first attempt was terrible… would be completely accurate, so this a first shot at a second attempt.

I think friendship is a powerful force that can be one of the greatest benefits to a human being. I headed into high school with a number of good friends that I had from middle school. These friends became a kind of inner circle who I felt comfortable with and trusted.  Long friendships like this, at least for me hold more weight than a short, even if wonderful, friendship; my rational behind this is that a trust and strong bond can only ever truly come from time. Thus a majority of the people who I most closely associate with, I have known for more than the four years of my high school career.

Strong friendships that we carry with us for a long time are brilliant in their benefit to everybody. In one case these people provide a sanctum of sorts, a place where you feel safe and accepted, but one of the biggest personal benefits for me was being a sanctum, there is something in human nature, a trait that God wants us to keep going strong, where we want nothing more than to know that somebody depends on us and we know we can provide that place for them, a true friend has this desire towards protection, it’s one of the fundamental pillars of friendship: having each other’s back. One of the awful problems is that sometimes friends may not always be there for each other and I think this can be dangerous for the friend who’s vested interest in the relationship is unreciprocated, I’ll touch further on this in a later edition.

Along with these strong pre-high school friendships I also developed some of the best, honest friendships of my life with people who I’ve met as I’ve entered into high school my freshman and sophomore years. This led me to wonder some interesting questions. One to which I have not reached the root of is, “when did this go from being friendly to having a wonderful friendship?” As far as I can tell you never really see it but at some point something becomes a true friendship, it’s odd, but beautiful. Another question, which is much harder to answer, yet simultaneously so much simple to answer, was, “who are my true friends?” That probably sounds like a question that can only be answered by deep introspection and analysis, here’s the thing, my friends have shown me the difference between who you want and don’t want to be around.

You want to be around the people who are you can be absolutely comfortable around, who will listen to and consider your words seriously, and who will end up laughing until they cry with you at the dumbest thing. That sounds cheesy and cliché, right? That’s because it is, but those are positive aspects in a good friendship, it’s about being comfortable and positive. You don’t want to be around people who are cancerous, all they do is sap you of energy and bring you down for whatever reason. When you have a person who is only a negative, then cut them out of the equation, you don’t need that kind of person around all the time, and enablers of this attitude that brings you down are also cancer cells. Now obviously you shouldn’t shut these people out, they may reach a time where they need you, and everybody should try and be the kind of person who is willing to help other people out. I’m also going to touch largely on this idea in a future part.

This section, I’m actually going to dedicate to family. Family is the number one place to find friends, in most families; the qualities needed for a strong friendship have existed, for years. I think that if one doesn’t see what amazing friends family member make, they need to try to develop these bonds. I'm thankful for all my family, immediate and extende, you guys are boss.

I want to touch on new friends; I’ve become pretty solid friends with a number of people who I’ve met this last school year. Now my bonds with these people I feel may not be as strong as with older friends, I’m still learning about these people so it’s to be expected honestly. I’ve been seeing some of what I’ve learned over the earlier years to make decisions, I avoid friction and frustration, and neither is good for any party involved. But I’ve also become more willing to try and find middle grounds with people while being unmoving from my moral ground and personal ideas, I feel I’ve become a much more accommodating good friend style person. This could be a result of my junior year in Ohio, I will touch on what I mean by this in greater detail in a number of other sections, but to touch on it briefly, it was a year with very little in the way of social contact outside of school, and I now value greatly friendship and what it means to give a little.

A shout out also needs to be given to friendships that have survived separation, this is impressive and I know that as we all head into college we will find that many friendships will disappear with time, I would even dare say it will be a short span of time, but to have friendships that last years without seeing each other, that’s something true and amazing and I only hope I am good enough to be worth having these great friendships with more people.

If you made it to the end I thank you, it’s awesome to just throw some thoughts down. I’m just going to run down a few of the parts I will be doing in the future and I have no clue how long any of these may be cause this is all about winging it, please feel free to respond and leave constructive criticism if you want to talk about anything I’m always available, whether you consider me friend or not.

Future Topics (in a likely but not guaranteed order):

Music

Depression

Faith and God, Something Beautiful

Friendship Part 2 (maybe)

Being Relentlessly Positive

Looking Forward Onto the Future

  I hope you notice that I’ve mentioned things that could relate to these topics, that’s because I’m trying to keep all these things all intertwined. And I want to say that my first attempt at writing this was trash and nothing like this and I’m still not sure I even said what I initially set out to say, oh well. I think I presented a positive idea and hopefully didn't completly misrepresent myself and what I stand for and believe, but that'd be silly an awesome in a terrible ironic way, now to the next section.