I don’t know why I didn’t figure this out before, but I guess the good thing is that I know better now. Maybe it was all too simple to see.

Friendship is all or nothing. Friends are the all, the ones I’d give my life for, the ones that I unconditionally accept. Non-friends are the nothing, the ones I couldn’t care less about. The ones that don’t fit in either category, due to insufficient information to make such a decision, are acquaintances (and some remain acquaintances forever).

Unconditional acceptance is the toughest part of friendship, because it’s the biggest commitment. It’s the biggest reason that I consider such few people to be my friends. It’s so easy to walk away when people change, when people grow apart. It’s not so easy to accept and understand, especially for someone as selfish and with as little tolerance as me. A friend is a friend for life.

I love you, Aaron.

I love you, Darren.

I love you, John.

I love you, Pat.

There was this one time I was on the phone with John, when I walked through the basement hallway on Daly, past Jonathan’s drum kit, and paused at the frame of his door.

“You’re so megalomaniACal”, I told him.

“No, no, Jeff, it’s megalomaNIacal”, he curtly responded.

And I knew. And John knew. And I knew that John knew that I had simply thrown more fuel on the fire, I had somehow added to his limitless ego. I could see the smirk on his face through the phone, as if Anderson himself was there with one of his close ups in my brain.

When approaching anything new, as a human, aside from bias, there is always the danger of relating even the furthest idea to the self. Everything is subject to interpretation, of course, and I’ve always strongly believed in the importance of interpretation. However, when interpretation stretches too far, the entire learning process can become perverted, an understanding based on nothing.

An example: after the Nietzsche’s death, his sister secured the rights to his publications. She later married a leader of the german anti-Semitic movement, and made distorted publications of his works. The Nazi’s welcomed his ideas, eventually building a monument for him. Yet Nietzsche himself wrote about his strong opposition to racism, and his contrast with the German Nationalistic movement.

And such is how we, as humans, see ourselves in almost everything. I admit that at times I’m guilty of such a thing myself, when I see my life in the characters of movies, when I read my stories in other peoples books. So I start Thus Spoke Zarathustra with trepidation, with the hopeful awareness that I will be able to be open-minded in what I learn.

It’s ironic that Nietzsche had paresis when he wrote his book, and was most likely suffering from delusions of grandeur at the time, although how much it actually affected him is debatable.

Perhaps the best that one can do is to keep a work in mind as inspiration, and not as an influence.

I went to some Korean BBQ with John and the parents yesterday. I usually try to go at least once every time I come back home, a little ritual I’ve had since first year. Korean BBQ is a unique eating experience; the food one orders is brought for you in little trays, uncooked and marinated, and one cooks it on a round, embedded flame grill in the centre of the table. There are vents all the way around the grill to suck the smoke away from the food. We got the all you can eat deal, where they bring you as many beef strips, spare ribs, salmon strips, pork strips, chicken breasts, cow tongues, cod strips and cow liver as you want for $10.95. Even the all you can drink deal was only $1. I realized that they make their money by bringing smaller portions of the food to slow down one’s eating, letting the food sit in one’s stomach to get fuller faster, along with the fact that they don’t have to pay anyone to cook.

John kept opining on all of his eccentric political ideas, and it was only in the middle of dinner that I really felt I understood Julia’s attraction to him. One of the more interesting ideas was taking cigarettes out of the small business market and selling them exclusively in the LCBO. That eliminates the problem of underage smoking, since the LCBO is much more stringent in asking for identification than the local corner store. The problem would be that people would start going to Quebec for cigarettes, in the same fashion as alcohol, along with the fact that lottery tickets and cigarettes are the main staple of many convenience stores while almost all the other products are there for impulse shopping. If this were to happen, the LCBO would generate an even more income for the government, while reducing the number of kids addicted to smoking.

I also enjoyed his idea of having no summers for school, so that people could graduate from high school years earlier, since North Americans have fallen into the unneccessary habit of having a summer vacation over 150 years ago when the archaic act of harvesting crops was done. Of course, I didn’t completely agree since most people don’t have their brains developed enough for the concepts introduced university until at least their late teens, and such a curriculum would leave many people behind. So he brought up the idea of specialized, instead of standardized, schooling. That way each school would meet the needs of the students attending it, such as schools in farming areas having the flexibility of a summer vacation where it’s actually needed. In my opinion, something like this wouldn’t work too well for the credibility of the Ontario school system, since nothing is being too controlled, but there’s always the independent school “option” if parents can afford it. If the school system of Ontario is effective, however, then it should be able to prove itself and improve it’s own credibility, but an idea as theoretical as this would be extremely risky.

I never thought I’d say this, but John was a born politician, and I’ve never been more proud to be his friend.

I’m thinking about going home for a little while, since I haven’t been in quite a few months. I’ve seen John and Darren through cottage trips and visits nonetheless, but I haven’t actually talked to my parents since the beginning of the summer.

There’s an Old Boys reunion dinner happening at the College some time this month, as well as Association-Day, something I haven’t attended for seven years (Brendan Fraser was in attendance the last time I went). I don’t think I’m quite ready for a reunion yet, although I’m sure if John was there I’d be fine. The focus is on five-year, 10-year, and 15-year Old Boys though, so I’d feel awkward with the abundance of younger five-year guys and the older 10-year guys there.

It would be nice to revisit the old, familiar College grounds with John after so long. I haven’t actually been back since I first started university, when John and I got together and snuck into the newly finished rec centre. My most vivid memory would be walking along the huge fields of emerald grass with John on our lunch breaks, while my least favourite memory would probably have to be the people. If Fitzgerald were to interview me for a sequel to Old Boys, I’m sure I’d have quite a few words to say.

now to calm me
this time won’t you please drive faster
roll the window down
this cool night air is curious
let the whole world look in
who cares who sees anything
I’m your passenger
I’m your passenger

—Deftones, Passenger

A few months ago I took the night bus home. I arrived around midnight, and received some terrible news. I called up John, one-thirty in the morning, and asked if he wanted to do something. John, being the perspicacious genius that he is, could sense that there was something wrong. He took me for a drive, no questions asked and let me take my time in expressing myself in what I wanted. We cruised the highways for hours, the orange glow of the city creating an artificial sunset around us while fleeting white lines joined together in languid blurriness. By the end I was much calmer, even though the situation had yet to be resolved.

I’ll never forget that night, and how good it felt to be driven somewhere, anywhere. That there was no purpose to the trip, that there was no place to be or time to be there.

I took another bus ride yesterday and it all felt the same. I could catch any bus I wanted, didn’t matter where it was going. I wasn’t worried about being late, about having to meet someone, or even about how I was getting back. I could just get on a bus, claim my favourite seat, and sit down. Someone drove me somewhere while I looked out the window, at suburbia, at pedestrians, at relationships, at buildings, at fields, at grass, at poles, at cars, at clouds, at life. I was a passenger. People would get on and off the bus and join me, adventurers on a trip to the undetermined.

It was only on this bus ride, not any other bus ride, that I was able to resolve my situation. Being distracted by anything going on around me helped me take my time in thinking things through.

I had come to the realization that the only person who could help me was myself.

That I was smart enough to avoid this, but not strong enough.

By the time I got home, after transferring three buses, my mind was much clearer. I felt rather stupid, being a person who should have known better, ashamed, being a person too weak to help myself. I had been in this situation before, but still I lost my cerebrality. I made a childish, inexperienced mistake, and paid for it, deserved it even. The only thing to comfort me in this is knowing that I’ve learned a great deal, even if it was the hard way, and that I’ll probably never make the same mistake again.

There’s something cathartic about being a passenger. It’s almost as if the driver is there for you, to take you away, to listen if you need an ear, to be quiet if you need to think.

For sometimes one does not need more than this.