what makes a stranger a friend
and a friend a stranger
this week’s Thought (singular)
recently rediscovered the joy of eating oats with milk and sugar cooked in the microwave. it’s almost as comforting as curd rice
a very warm welcome to all new readers. i love new readers so much that whenever i get an email about a new reader, i manifest that they meet their day’s water consumption quota with minimal struggle. thank you for joining us. may you not realise at 11pm that you’ve only had half a litre throughout the day and rush to gulp down three bottles and get a stomach ache and have to keep waking up in the middle of the night to use the loo.
a very warm welcome to old readers as well. may good sense continue to prevail.
hi
firstly, apologies for not showing up last weekend. i was under the weather, and was very bitter about not being able to breathe through both my nostrils.
secondly thirdly fourthly, the answer to the title/sub-title is care, i am not exclusively referring to human beings as friends/strangers, and what you’re about to read is by no means an exhaustive take on the subject. let’s go step-by-step.
what makes a stranger a friend, and a friend a stranger? care, or the lack thereof. not just in the obvious sense of asking them if they ate, ushering them onto the footpath when a speeding vehicle approaches, or listening to them vent, but also the sub-conscious care. caring about what happens to them, what they’re doing, how they would laugh at a funny video you just saw. when you start feeling this care for a person, that’s when a stranger becomes a friend. if this care stops–this second, more subtle care–that’s when a friend becomes a stranger.
this is just the basis of what i want to talk about, because i realised that this philosophy (?) doesn’t stop here. care is everywhere, not just in interpersonal relationships.
when a song is made with care and attention, i think that’s a good song. i think all other markers of qualification fly out of the window once somebody has made music that they really care about. i extend this to books as well–when a novel is rushed, when the characters seem neglected, when everything seems to fall short and become stale, it’s evident that care hasn’t been put into the work. on the other hand, a novel made with love shines. what is love if not care? care for what you create (this is an extension to all art now), and what you share.1
care does not mean passion. it doesn’t have to be loud. in fact, i think care lies more in the undercurrents. in the same way that care for a friend can manifest itself in simplicity, work done with care can reflect so with subtlety. a paragraph spent on describing the setting of a scene, attention given to the fabric of a dress, how sunlight highlights the shadows of a tree in a garden.2
care is not some serious thing. there’s a playfulness to it. it is becoming increasingly evident to me when somebody doesn’t really enjoy the content that they create. genuineness, earnestness, and fun–care for the creation will only exist when there’s care in the creating.
this is all over the place, and maybe in some distant day in the future, i’ll get a bit deeper into it (check footnotes). for now, i leave you with this tumblr post -
A Picture!
English Recitation Competition
Weathering Hate, Harryette Mullen
The way, exposed to weather, a body is worn. Velvet threads begin to wither, rapid ripened beyond the burst bloom. Vibrant strands, cut short, fray, unweaving faded fabric. Sun-struck, rain-warped, storm-blasted, rough-sanded in whipping wind that whittles rock. Small, torturous fractures opened in stone where water freezes in the pores with grains of salt. Cracks in the surface pried apart by unrelenting pressure. With incessant freezing and thawing, shock and fatigue speed rugged stress to ultimate breakdown. Intemperate weather, abrading edges, gradually disintegrates resolute minerals. A boulder, even a mountain, will wear down. So will bodies, bent and broken under toilsome burdens, caving beneath unbearable weight, in adverse climate, exposed to harsh elements, caustic rains.
I take the sword and walk into the garden. I look up. The sun, the moon, two round teeth rock together and the light of one chews up the other. I stab myself in the belly, wait, then stab myself again. Again. It’s snowing. I’ll turn to ice, but I’ll burn anyone who touches me. I start pulling my guts out, those red silk cords, spiraling skyward, and I’m climbing them past the moon and the sun, past darkness into white. I mean to live.
Chansons Innocentes II, E. E. Cummings
hist whist little ghostthings tip-toe twinkle-toe little twitchy witches and tingling goblins hob-a-nob hob-a-nob little hoppy happy toad in tweeds tweeds little itchy mousies with scuttling eyes rustle and run and hidehidehide whisk whisk look out for the old woman with the wart on her nose what she’ll do to yer nobody knows for she knows the devil ooch the devil ouch the devil ach the great green dancing devil devil devil devil wheeEEE
The Good Side of the Internet
… has been permanently shifted to The Good Side of the Internet. subscribe for many many links at the end of each month, and tell your friends about it :D
this week’s Song
COMPLETE MESS by 5 Seconds of Summer
find all shared songs here.
thank you for reading, and see you next week <3
several potential spin-offs from this. a) is this what makes AI-generated artwork so bad and crude? that there’s no care, which is such a deeply human thing to possess and express? (yes.) and b) i have so much more to say about what makes a book good, what elements of one make it stand out, and which aspects need to be attended to to truly endear a novel to me.
is this why booktok recommendations that are advertised mainly and increasingly through the tropes they contain seem so bad? (yes.) to be explored - tropes were used for fanfiction, where readers already knew the characters and story, already had them in their system, and just wanted more of them. novels can’t use this method because you can’t introduce characters and stories through the single dimensionality of tropes. enemies to lovers is nothing when i don’t even know who the enemies/lovers are. why would i be interested? instant distrust.
Came across something similar -
the opposite of love isn't hate. It's indifference..
Love this!