in love with ideas

I was thinking about this the other day. It seems to be a truth that we are in love with ideas. We love ideas very much. We'll die for this idea. Get married to this idea. Take this idea out to movies and dinners and invite it to meet our families and friends.

At the same time, we avoid realities. The sheer amount of this we do in life is absolutely mind-boggling.

Friendship. For this one, I am going to grab a definition from wikipedia. Let's read:

Friendship is the cooperative and supportive relationship between two or more people. In this sense, the term connotes a relationship which involves mutual knowledge, esteem, affection, and respect along with a degree of rendering service to friends in times of need or crisis. Friends will welcome each other's company and exhibit loyalty towards each other, often to the point of altruism. Their tastes will usually be similar and may converge, and they will share enjoyable activities. They will also engage in mutually helping behavior, such as the exchange of advice and the sharing of hardship. A friend is someone who may often demonstrate reciprocating and reflective behaviors. Yet for some, the practical execution of friendship is little more than the trust that someone will not harm them.

Value that is found in friendships is often the result of a friend demonstrating the following on a consistent basis:

• the tendency to desire what is best for the other
• sympathy and empathy
• honesty, perhaps in situations where it may be difficult for others to speak the truth, especially in terms of pointing out the perceived faults of one's counterpart
• mutual understanding

Having read that, we love this idea; generally speaking, most people want friends... as an idea. The reality of this is too much for most people.

We get someone that desires what is best for us -- which means they ask questions about our dreams and goals and push you toward them and so on. No one wants this. Don't judge me... you can't tell me what to do... stop bugging me about it... or whatever else.

We love the idea of someone being there for someone in a time of need... until someone needs us at a time that it is inconvenient for us to be helpful. We love the idea of someone sacrificing themselves for someone... until we are the ones called upon to sacrifice...

It just goes on and on and on...

However, this is my problem: I love realities. I am one of the few people I know that love realities more than ideas. Mind you, things that seem abstract to most people are very concrete to me, but all the same, I love realities.

If I am your friend and you need or even want something I can get you, you'll have it. If I have a dollar to give you -- even my last one -- I'll give it without thinking. I'll give up time and energy and whatever else I can do be there. If you have a dream, I want to help you make a plan to get there. I'll research and call and email and whatever else I can even if it means I don't get something I want.

I don't understand this flimsy, weak-ass form of friendship or love where people just do whatever works for them when it's convenient to do so and nothing more. That's bullshit. Utter bullshit. Friendship and love aren't self-serving.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Romance. How much more needs to be said here? It should be obvious. At the very least, it has led me to the conclusion I have drawn here. We don't want the reality of things like love; you love people and they turn tail and run. The more genuine the love, the faster the feet fly. It's just the way things work. It's like trying to look into the sun for some people and they'll never understand. Yet people will spend their whole lives going on and on and on about how they wish they had someone to love or to be with and hold and have sex with and be married to and how they want a soulmate and all this other crap, yet walk past a million people fitting that very description everyday because of a million excuses like "well, (s)he's nice, but..." or "they're the most amazing person, but I see them more like a sister/brother/friend and not quite like..."

Not to mention the more shallow people who will ignore someone with a soul that even Heaven itself is envious of because of something like freckles or the wrong hair color or boob/penis size or....

Are you fuckin' nuts?! Ugh... this is so irritating I can't even continue forming the words to express it...

Thoughts are welcome... in the meantime, I am going to cool myself off before I put a hole in my wall.