It's times like these that I rue our evolutionary design. For example, as Clvin and Hobbes so nicely put it, we really got the short end of the stick ("No 2-inch fangs, no opposable toes, no prehensile tail...), especially when it coes to winter.
I mean damn, all I want to do is hiberate. Although that wouldn't be too bad a deal right? All you gotta do is eat about 100,000 calories to fatten up, find a nice little cave for a few months and wake up nice and fit in the spring. Perfect, now why is it instead I get to curse the winter all the way through, in all of its below 0 glory? Beacuse I am just sure that there is some cosmic broker, kinda like a sports agent for new species, bartering for various traits in exchange for others. The mudskipper, for example, has both lung and gills, and moves from place to place by flopping around. Lyrebirds disguise themselves by mimiking the sounds of the forest -- in cluding chainswas and camera. We have rationality (a beta version if you ask me), and we traded it for all the nifty little add-ons that mark other animals: no gills, no hibernation, useless young. I wonder sometimes if we should have fired the cosmic agent and see if we can't renegotiate.
All kidding aside, I can't help but notice the notion of trade-offs. Just as humans 'traded' the ability to be sentient for god knows what (I know we gave up a tail and opposable toes), there appears to be a trade off among humans as well. Take a look at your friends, your aquaintances, your coworkers, whatever. Now exclude all of the useless people: those sad, miserable middle managers and pessimism mongers: what they traded for I have no idea. Now look who is left. Each of the friends you have you have because of things that they inspire in you and things that you are inspired to do together. You like them for the things they know and the content of their character and perhaps even that ineffable something that happends when you two are together (I call this the best case scenario: in real life I've found friends are found more over a bottle or under a joint, or in between the lines on the mirror, my quality to them as a wingman or who they know, but that's too depressing and outside the scope of what I want to say). These are the folks who complete you, who fill in the trade-offs that you have made qua your own life.
Before you go screaming about that there is abuse of the word friend going on here, take a close look. Chances are, except for perhaps an all purpoe buddy that is your equal in every way, you have different friends that are good at different things: some friends you can go to the gym with, only a couple you would like to go into battle with at the bar (another criteria but same priciple), still others you might not have wanted you other friends to meet. I know I've got some friends that I wouldn't have a personal conversation with to save my life: they have traded the ability to be a confidant for something else, some folks even naturally make us feel better about ourselves due to their inability (most of the time they have traded things like social skills and charisma for one ludicrous dream, but that's fun too)
Now after that murky little paragraph, what am I actually trying to say? You'll have to give me a little latitude, any talents I may have with strings of words leaves me at an incredble clip; but I'm saying a few different things. (1) Our little human minds only have so much we can take on (thus, sorry folks, unless you got some sweet genes between the parents, you may have a chance at being that gifted writer, OR a musician who can make a living, OR be an elite athlete but never more than 1). We just aren't good enough at concept aquisition and application. Thus the old adage may be true that we can be anything we want to be, but we gotta choose, NOW. (2) Whether we know it or not, our friends complete who we are: ideally each one carries a character trait or ability at which they exceed our own abilities and conversely, they also carry traits that are less developed as us: they way we need them they need us as well. (3) It is only in this way that we can overcome the little problem of evolution that I brough up earlier.
So where do friends factor into this weird little equation? What is the connection between friends and the trade-off? Well, just because we aren't talented in something doesn't mean that we don't still immensly enjoy it. That's why nerds watch football, groupies exist, and people can and do find a nicely developed mind appealing. So, am I gonna go hang out with Tiki Barber (my hero, and if you don't know, now you know: you've been warned) to chat football? Nah, too much security. But what I can do is find a couple friends. Between us we will all do multiple things: complain about the officiating, consume beer, make biting commments about John Madden and Al Michaels and $&*%%#$(_&^$ (some things are too sacred to be spoken of outside of NFL, especially NY Giants, hours). We will all participate, and while one friend may not be the thickest book in the library, another may not have the years of building anomosity toward color commentary and so on: sum total we have all that we need in the level that we need it.
The conclusions we can draw from just these three claims can range from self-help to sociological with side trips into social psychology and economics (yes, economics), but I will try to let practical wit reign here. Basically, we cannot feel bad about our failings, assuming we are trying: we just aren't capable enough to be the best at all that we are interested in: such is the human condition. But what we do have is friends, which let us glimpse a bit of how we want to be, and remind us of some of the things we are thankful we are not, and you know you have found a friend when you can say that you have found someone who all at once: inspires you, frustrates you, confuses you and clarifies you (the list could go on forever, think about opposing pardigm existing at once). Basically, when you've got good people we need not fire our evolutionary agent: he may not negotiate well, but he/she's got a pretty good eye for talent nonetheless.
Note: Why the friend kick? Well, it's what the holidays do to me I can't help it. Thanks guys, you know who you are and I really appreciate it. Hello again to the old CCHS chums recently refound (thanks MySpace), I'm coming home on the 23rd, we gotta go out for some drinks and general hell raising. Why the Giants theme? WELL, THE GIANTS ARE F^*($&^ 10-4! Besides, Tiki is my hero, and as of this post the NFL's leading rusher. Why the evolution kick? Well, it gets very easy, especially in the winter, to think of everything we DON'T rather than all the neat stuff that we DO. Time to even the score.
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