In the nineteen
fifties, kids collected things. Collecting was popular hobby. Perhaps the most
popular thing boys bought and traded were baseball cards; I collected stamps
and minerals. Matchbox toys, dolls, marbles, commemorative pins, coins, model
cars, photos of movie and singing stars, miniature soldiers — the list of
things kids collected was a long one.
Inside our home
and the homes of many friends was a “party room.” They were large rooms with a
single dominant architectural feature: A bar. In those bars, I saw some things
adults collected: Beer bottles, bottle caps, matchboxes, coasters, etc.
Then television
came into our homes and everything changed. Childhood entertainment went from
active to passive and from a focus on artifacts of pleasure and others to an
obsession with the self.
Worse: Instead
of absorbing information about others and our world, we broadcast digital
avatars as unreal as the Photoshopped images that surround us, driven by
dissatisfaction with our real lives.
Almost every
one of my true friends has ended or begun a sentence in conversation with me
with this phrase: “You have so many
friends.” I would always dispute their impression, always to no avail; they
remained resolute in their impression. What I had, was many acquaintances.
Here’s why: I was constantly changing jobs.
In humans, I
have always felt that the purpose of sex was twofold. One, obviously, is
procreation. The other is to function like glue. It serves to hold our interest
in a potential partner whilst we get to know their personality.
In friendships,
the glue that binds us during the discovery process is not sex it’s something
that we value and have in common – a behavior, an illness, a skill, a location,
etc.—and for someone like me who has lived in other cities and held a lot of
short-term contracts/positions, the acquisition of acquaintances is easy. I had
tons of them. But true friends are rare and I thank God every day for those I
have.
My friends are
now seeing that I was right. I only see one or two friends a week so I am back
to collecting. I seek and collect digital images like these to post on this
blog:
No comments:
Post a Comment