>>If the friendship isn't unconditional than it was never true.
That's a condition.
No, I'm not being funny. To say "IT MUST BE UNCONDITIONAL!" is a far more stringent and onerous (and unreasonable) condition, than most of the ordinary human hopes and bare-minimum expectations people put on. It is a FAR BIGGER CONDITION you lay upon it than I do.
Person A: simple honesty. We owe each other at least that much, especially if we call each other "friend."
Person B: all conditions verboten! None whatsoever allowed! If a single condition is imposed than friendship is void.
Now, I won't criticize anyone for imposing their high standards. But really, which of these is the bigger "condition"?
Be honest.
On the topic of "unconditional" as applied to love, here's a post from last year where I contrast unconditional love with love that is real.
It doesn't matter where honesty flows from - I'm just saying it has to be there. The fact that an obligation exists does not mean THAT IS WHY WE DO IT.
As far as God goes...kiddo, God is indestructible and omniscient. I'm not. Not being indestructible I can be hurt, not being omniscient I can be fooled. Now I don't mind the occasional lapse or lie, coming as it does in a context where a person at least believes it is wrong to deceive me. But if somebody comes up to me and tells me they don't consider they have the slightest moral, ethical, or human obligation to be honest to me, well, I will steer the hell clear of them then.
But first, I'll thank them for their honesty. They didn't have to tip me off they were a borderline sociopath. Quite decent of them really.
>But to love without condition is still the ideal,
Arguably so, but this doesn't invalidate (by which I mean, make "Not True Love") the 98.88888% of love in the world whose participants do have various expectations for each other, which are in effect conditions.
Honesty is the one that keeps us honest about all the others. Absent honesty, no point discussing the others.
It doesn't matter what motivates the honesty, what matters is that if it isn't there, that's not what I call friendship. Slips aside, slips happen, people do tell lies. Performance doesn't have to be absolute, but you can't have one of the people saying "oh, honesty isn't even necessary to friendship."
The other virtues don't spring from honesty and I didn't say they did. I said that without honesty, there's no point talking about them.
Some of your examples seem odd to me. Perjury? Does one often have the opportunity to lie to a friend via the intermediary of a court of law?
Slip? Don't many people slip into dishonesty justified by "not wanting to hurt the person's feelings"? And later come to realize they should have been honest? They thought they were doing the right thing. A slip, a lapse, call it what you will.
Fair enough. I was just pointing out that prison is hardly going to apply in most of the cases where people lie to each other. It doesn't usually rise to fraud or perjury.
To sum up: honesty is something we owe everyone - something we owe to ourselves, even. It's the extreme low-water mark of decent human behavior, just to acknowledge that yes, one should be honest.
So when I say "Honesty is the only debt true friendship can incur," I am not putting an obligation on friendship, so much acknowledging a very basic obligation that exists for all - and then wiping the very idea of all other debts save this most basic one: that we be true to each other.
I never asked you to removed comments. Back when you were pointing out the ones I'd missed I told you I simply lost interest and it wasn't important.
All I asked was for you to please stop submitting any comments, and to stop e-mailing, to stop contacting me. To please leave me alone.
I was aware that your reply: "DONE." - was probably not an agreement. But I'm curious: is this how you avoid seeing yourself as a liar? By implying agreement, without ever actually saying you'll do it? Do you consider such tactics to be honest?
I say that my faith you'd actually leave me alone was sadly misplaced.
I'd also say that this is the last I care to say to you.
>Jamie said... Actually, I'm just selfish enough to have given this to myself for my birthday, Joe. I figured a lobotomy was out of my budget. :)
And Joe? Honesty? Between us? LOL We never trusted each other. I even told you that. I still have the email to prove it. And when I tried to? Well, I got royally screwed for my faith, didn't I???
What say you?
You didn't get screwed from trusting me. You got screwed from trusting yourself, when you decided to convince yourself that I was in love with you, then downgraded to obsessed with you, then downgraded to fucking with you - you trusted yourself that your wild narrative about me was true. If you ONCE trusted me, you might have listened to everything I said to counter your accusations. Which you many times howled in frustration over how persuasive it was - do you know why? Because it was very plain and boring truth! Unfortunately, there was no competing with your elaborate self-constructed fantasy narrative: you as the endlessly-forgiving victim, me as your sadistic torturer except - I'm the one running from you!
You are a self-abusive creep, and you keep trying to prop me up into the person dishing it out. It's been you all along, Jamie - you cannot get enough abuse. Well I can! I'm not like you! I had enough abuse from you in May! I've been begging you for six months to leave me alone.
Shit.
I was wrong to believe you'd leave me alone. Every time I engage you I'm wrong to believe your pained questions are sincere - all you want is to engage.
I wish you would please just leave me alone.
I wanted this to be over. I sincerely believed that maybe it could be over. I began acting as if it was over.
18 comments:
>>If the friendship isn't unconditional than it was never true.
That's a condition.
No, I'm not being funny. To say "IT MUST BE UNCONDITIONAL!" is a far more stringent and onerous (and unreasonable) condition, than most of the ordinary human hopes and bare-minimum expectations people put on. It is a FAR BIGGER CONDITION you lay upon it than I do.
Person A: simple honesty. We owe each other at least that much, especially if we call each other "friend."
Person B: all conditions verboten! None whatsoever allowed! If a single condition is imposed than friendship is void.
Now, I won't criticize anyone for imposing their high standards. But really, which of these is the bigger "condition"?
Be honest.
On the topic of "unconditional" as applied to love, here's a post from last year where I contrast unconditional love with love that is real.
It doesn't matter where honesty flows from - I'm just saying it has to be there. The fact that an obligation exists does not mean THAT IS WHY WE DO IT.
As far as God goes...kiddo, God is indestructible and omniscient. I'm not. Not being indestructible I can be hurt, not being omniscient I can be fooled. Now I don't mind the occasional lapse or lie, coming as it does in a context where a person at least believes it is wrong to deceive me. But if somebody comes up to me and tells me they don't consider they have the slightest moral, ethical, or human obligation to be honest to me, well, I will steer the hell clear of them then.
But first, I'll thank them for their honesty. They didn't have to tip me off they were a borderline sociopath. Quite decent of them really.
>But to love without condition is still the ideal,
Arguably so, but this doesn't invalidate (by which I mean, make "Not True Love") the 98.88888% of love in the world whose participants do have various expectations for each other, which are in effect conditions.
No one has ever imposed this obligation upon me.
There are certain obligations that are not imposed, that are our simple duty to each other as humans. Some flout even these.
So you're saying: that's fine with you?
Prisons for liars?
Honesty is the one that keeps us honest about all the others. Absent honesty, no point discussing the others.
It doesn't matter what motivates the honesty, what matters is that if it isn't there, that's not what I call friendship. Slips aside, slips happen, people do tell lies. Performance doesn't have to be absolute, but you can't have one of the people saying "oh, honesty isn't even necessary to friendship."
The other virtues don't spring from honesty and I didn't say they did. I said that without honesty, there's no point talking about them.
Some of your examples seem odd to me. Perjury? Does one often have the opportunity to lie to a friend via the intermediary of a court of law?
Slip? Don't many people slip into dishonesty justified by "not wanting to hurt the person's feelings"? And later come to realize they should have been honest? They thought they were doing the right thing. A slip, a lapse, call it what you will.
I'll be honest here, this is the second go round we've had on this topic and I don't see much added value.
All the same conclusions.
Fair enough. I was just pointing out that prison is hardly going to apply in most of the cases where people lie to each other. It doesn't usually rise to fraud or perjury.
To sum up: honesty is something we owe everyone - something we owe to ourselves, even. It's the extreme low-water mark of decent human behavior, just to acknowledge that yes, one should be honest.
So when I say "Honesty is the only debt true friendship can incur," I am not putting an obligation on friendship, so much acknowledging a very basic obligation that exists for all - and then wiping the very idea of all other debts save this most basic one: that we be true to each other.
I never asked you to removed comments. Back when you were pointing out the ones I'd missed I told you I simply lost interest and it wasn't important.
All I asked was for you to please stop submitting any comments, and to stop e-mailing, to stop contacting me. To please leave me alone.
I was aware that your reply: "DONE." - was probably not an agreement. But I'm curious: is this how you avoid seeing yourself as a liar? By implying agreement, without ever actually saying you'll do it? Do you consider such tactics to be honest?
I say that my faith you'd actually leave me alone was sadly misplaced.
I'd also say that this is the last I care to say to you.
>Jamie said...
Actually, I'm just selfish enough to have given this to myself for my birthday, Joe. I figured a lobotomy was out of my budget. :)
And Joe? Honesty? Between us? LOL We never trusted each other. I even told you that. I still have the email to prove it. And when I tried to? Well, I got royally screwed for my faith, didn't I???
What say you?
You didn't get screwed from trusting me. You got screwed from trusting yourself, when you decided to convince yourself that I was in love with you, then downgraded to obsessed with you, then downgraded to fucking with you - you trusted yourself that your wild narrative about me was true. If you ONCE trusted me, you might have listened to everything I said to counter your accusations. Which you many times howled in frustration over how persuasive it was - do you know why? Because it was very plain and boring truth! Unfortunately, there was no competing with your elaborate self-constructed fantasy narrative: you as the endlessly-forgiving victim, me as your sadistic torturer except - I'm the one running from you!
You are a self-abusive creep, and you keep trying to prop me up into the person dishing it out. It's been you all along, Jamie - you cannot get enough abuse. Well I can! I'm not like you! I had enough abuse from you in May! I've been begging you for six months to leave me alone.
Shit.
I was wrong to believe you'd leave me alone. Every time I engage you I'm wrong to believe your pained questions are sincere - all you want is to engage.
I wish you would please just leave me alone.
I wanted this to be over. I sincerely believed that maybe it could be over. I began acting as if it was over.
And of course, it is not.
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