Friends are the most important thing in life for me. Building and
maintaining friendships is such a unique quirk of humans to me, so
much so that it might make the human experience worth it.
All of us are different. – We lead different lives, think different, have
different interests, different perspectives and can be so far from eachother.
Yet, we form bonds, often stronger ones than any other form of bond and decide
to share our lives. No one wants to be lonely and no one needs to be.
It is a little utopian trait inherit to all of us.
We form groups, languages, culture and traditions around that fact. No one
remains untouched by friendship and it shapes who we are. I am a
conglomerat of all of my friends. Their likes, their opinions, their
experiences ... and I'm very proud to be.
In friendships, I usually look for people who might feel the same. I look for
people who worship "found family". I don't think people realise how
important "found family" has been. Not just now, but also historically, to
people who don't fit in with standard society. When talking about found family,
one cannot deny its ties with queerness. Often times in the past, found family was
the only thing keeping queer people alive. But not just queer people,
anyone who couldn't find community and support within their family.
– Nerds, geeks, dropouts, pirates, you name it.
As animals naturally do, so do we also value family a lot. You should be grateful
to your parents for having and raising you, grateful to your grandparents for helping
your parents and grateful to every other member for caring for you and in general
you can be sure that your family will always have your back, no matter what.
Friends on the other hand can betray you, be there for you in one moment and be
gone in another. They can only be your friend for a short time and in the end you
both part ways to go to your family anyway. And if you're unhappy with your family,
you should start your own one and be better. That's what they always sell you in the
movies, that's how the story finds its happy end. We know that picture perfect families
don't exist but we're always encouraged to seek out reconciliation with them and
that we should love them regardless. We're never as encouraged to do that with our
friends. They don't seem to be of as much value as family to regular society.
Don't think that I don't value family or that I'm not grateful, I really am.
But I think that we should value friends just as high, if not higher. There's no
difference between them. Family can just as easily betray you, part and all of
that. Friends just have an added bonus, that family doesn't have, that make them of
higher value to me: You specifically chose your friends and they chose you.
– What an honor! Don't you think?
The valueing of family over friends in society might be a product of capitalism;
Capitalism promises the success of "the best" → if you work hard enough, you can make it.
That's the hope that's kept capitalism living, but we know that already. Capitalism
centers a lot of its marketing around families – appliances, ads, movies, etc. – but why?
We know that humans are social animals and need some group to be a part of. Naturally,
you want your group to succeed so you can succeed as well. Capitalisms marketing shows
you your group (family) succeeding within its system by showing them financially succeeding.
But why could said group in the marketing not be replaced by a bigger, more diverse group
like your friends? Families, in comparison, are a small group because of the requirement of
close (blood) relation to be a part of that group. Friends, technically, do not have
requirements. – You could befriend anyone. And the larger your group is, the harder it would
be for everyone to succeed and you would notice how unfair capitalism really is as soon
as your group is diverse enough. Soon you could also recognize all people on earth as your
friends, since essentially everyone has the same wants and needs as you, so they become
less "strange" to you. You would definetly see, that that system does not work and its promise
is a lie. If the marketing of capitalism centered around a group larger and more diverse as
family, it would be showing the failures of its system and would be marketing against
itself. So it's in capitalisms best interest to have you care
for your family before any other group.
I once read that the saying "blood is thicker than water" is entirely
the other way around. The original – apparently – was "The blood of the
covenant is thicker than the water of the womb". I don't know if that fact's
true but I would surely like it to be.
This webbed site (as D. lovingly calls websites) is meant to highlight
how much of an impact friends really have on your life and on your personality.
A lot of my memories or habits that are the fault of my friends are
collected here and attributed to them. In a sense, it's a shrine to my
(and your) lovely friends.