Nahiri The Unforgiving

by Evgeny Alekseevsky

I have a piece up somewhere which points out, in the abstract, about how one's personal life can be so grim that they might prefer a non-personal death to the deaths of friends. I'm thinking this is both a selfish and a good statement to make about myself and will weigh heavily as I ponder the fate of my friends.

To me, it suggests, a friend is like the Japanese folk saying "a car." We could trade in cars because of our economic well-being and thereby buy ourselves a feeling of security and wholeness. Or we could just let go of a car and step outside for a few minutes and that would be all we need. A friend is really a reflection. The Japanese folk figure that a friend will last a lifetime. So of course it's important to value our friends in life. The worst sort of friend is someone who is a drain on us. We don't know the cost of missing her or her being ill-tempered and ungenerous. Sometimes people we used to like end friendships without warning. Even my wife, my former partner of many years, has had trouble leaving me and her husband in any appreciable period of time because of work. And how does she manage to find time to see friends? Because she has kids. I know a really good person who tells me she works and he cooks food just because she doesn't have time to be without him. On the flip side she is generous enough in everyday life that I can't fault a day of her time. In many families we think we choose friends for ourselves, but every social event requires a smile.

So I don't really blame my friends because they are like the car. I think it is quite easy to walk away from a car not just economically but basically all the same. I can hear this from myself. I feel I have enough power over other people without pulling all-out and actually listening to what they have to say to me. And talking about work sounds unnatural. Your presence in a conversation about work is, like your presence in other social events, but now it has a face. Suddenly you are one of the people who has spoken to me about work. It doesn't feel like work. I hate it. I used to be happy that my friends were home all the time.