Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Easy Friendships (second-cousin to Fair-Weather Friends)

I've often noted that, of the people who are very well-liked and respected on- and offline, a great number of them tend to be folks who never approach controversial subjects or share harsh truths. While there's value in avoiding drama and favoring diplomacy, I only grant so many cool-points to folks who claims-to-fame are linked to their unwillingness to ask the tough questions and share uncomfortable truths. To me, avoiding controversy at all costs is just as extreme as being overly-controversial. It's the balance between the two that's tough to master, so I applaud those that do so.

Similarly, friendships that began and continued during the good times are great, but their true value remains hidden until they weather the hard times. How we act during the good times isn't nearly as important, in my opinion, as how we behave during the bad.

Those who are brave enough to face challenges head-on get the lion's share of my respect.

I guess that's all I wanted to say about that.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree with you. I've been throught a few disagreements that lasted a months with some of my best friends, but in the end we stuck together and we're better for it.

I try to say how I feel, but at the same time, I try to figure out when to bite my tongue too. I'm better at in person then I am online.

Luke Cage said...

Here, here man. Well said. 2 years ago, a very close friend and I went through something very sensitive and in the end, it crushed the relationship. We'd known eachother nearly 20 years man, without so much as 1 argument. I knew this was bad news. I knew that anything that would've gone down between us would've been cataclysmic. Dammit if I weren't right. Now, I'm one friend down and to top it off, I actually miss her. I'd take her back if she only apologized, but even with a genuine apology, the friendship's been splintered and we've gone too far to go back so all we have are the memories. I'll have to reference this post in the future. Nice job West.

West said...

Thanks.

I guess I've seen so many examples of people who get credit for never having a harsh word against anyone or anything, but I think that's overrated.

People who never step up and address hot topics may sound good, in theory, but this is the same behavior that's allowed and tolerated so many things, from the inconvenient to the downright horrid, to occur.

I'd rather we work on ourselves and grow to the point where we can talk about the tough stuff without throttling each other t'death.