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What’s something on your mind lately that nobody else would understand?
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this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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Something I've been thinking about is... I often mention that I've been trying to look for more friends for a while, because I don't have any that my mind would qualify as any that I have access to, and I often get two questions, 1) how do I define a friend, and 2) how do I know friends would make me happy.
The first question is a rabbit hole in disguise. Most people, when asked, would list a bunch of benefits, right? Things like "someone I can trust" and "someone who puts me first". But that's the thing. Take the first question for example. Do you not have any enemies you might consider at least honest people? And do you not have friends whom might inspire some skepticism? They're not absolute. So that begs the question, what do I answer to the question of what a friend is? I do in fact have an answer, but it's goes deeper than words, the same words used to answer the question. It defeats itself in ways that swell the question rather than remedy it.
As for the second question, that's where it becomes like anhedonia embodied by words.
A friend is someone who reciprocates tolerable presence.
You don't know friends would make you happy, but they can help you pass the time in less pain.
I sure hope friends are better than just tolerable.
Let's go with enjoyable. Tolerable is like the bare minimum for how to behave around other people. Friends are more than the bare minimum.
A friend is someone who reciprocates enjoyable presence.
We're establishing a baseline minimum here.
I thought about that too. Though it hadn't made me wonder less. I have people I thought to myself may be considered my friends, but who I've discovered have occasional demons that make them unenjoyable to be around. To use an example even though I was never particular close to them, one came back from the military and it shows.
Though also this isn't to say I disagree with whether they should be considered friends, I mentioned once that the point of being friendship is prioritization. Just the other side of things doesn't sit well either.
I mean, my circumstances do make me keep my friends close and my enemies closer. Are my enemies secretly my friends?
No, you can be close with someone but not tolerate their presence. I've had this manifest as high maintenance friends that I knew a lot about and spent a lot of time with, but were ultimately draining to be around and asked too much of me to be sustainable.
I thought about this stuff a lot for years. The thing that broke me out of it was choosing to focus on myself.
No one else can make you happy. Happiness comes from within. So focus on yourself. Develop new skills and hobbies, spend your time doing what you enjoy. If you find other people who enjoy the same things, that's great, if not, also great because there's nothing wrong with enjoying life on your own.
I've heard that many times before, that happiness comes from within. I think about it though, and it gives me a little doubt because, if I was my own source of happiness, why do anything? I could starve to death and be happy because it's within me.
I swear some people legitimately could do that. Some people really are high on life. But most of us aren't.
The happiness from within thing is just a cheesy way of saying you have to make yourself happy. If the phrase isn't useful to you, you don't have to use it. It would be a lot more realistic to say "Happiness comes from putting in the effort and work to make yourself happy, primarily through delayed gratification."
You can definitely count on me to keep negotiating with the universe on achieving happiness, but don't count on me succeeding. That much I learned by now.