Observations

Lately I feel like a lot of my friends have been becoming more and more, I'm not sure how to put it, it isn't selfish or self-centered... but at the same time it kind of is. They have become a lot more self-orientated. Maybe they have always been that way and I just never noticed, but I've started seeing it lately. Maybe it is just because of the specific time in our lives where we want to find out what we want to do in our futures, but at the same time I think it might be something a little more. Although Marx believed that human nature is altruistic and not selfish, I don't always believe that. I think that we are all capable of being selfish, and deep down we all care about our own survival a lot. But this isn't a sociology class, so let me get back to my point. I've started noticing that a lot of my friends aren't as unselfish or as open minded as I once believed. Now I'm not saying that they are people walking around with tunnel vision, and I am also not saying that I am the most open minded, unselfish person out there, I'm far from it, but this is just based on observations that I've been making.

I've noticed that I have friends who will only focus on what will get them ahead, whether in education or at work. They get rid of people who they deem to be "useless" to their ultimate goal and they try their hardest to build the right bridges, but are quick to burn them as they built ones that are more useful to their goal.

Some have also become concerned with protecting their little bubble, they will not be bothered with anything that is not within their spectrum and do not seem opened to ideas that are beyond their system of belief. They won't go out of their way to understand something, nor will they go out of their way to see if a close one is dealing with something in their personal life. They are content with sitting in the serenity of their bubble to the point where anything that does not affect them and only them is none of their concern.

I also have friends who believe that everyone is out to get them and to make them fail at their current task. Maybe a form of paranoia, but they go as far as to believe that even close friends and family are setting them up for failure and only want to see them fail and they will automatically hate anyone that they see in this way.

I've also noticed people who refuse to be open to ideas beyond what they deem to be right and wrong and they reject anyone who they see as different from what they believe the way people should act and look. They will not even give people a chance depending on what the person does or who the person is with and automatically deems them as something that is not worth getting to know.

And I've noticed that a lot of my friends don't bother going beyond the surface before they tag someone with a certain tag and not try to get beyond the tag to see if it is true. I'm not saying that I'm not superficial when it comes to tagging people too, but I feel like my friends tag people as "hot", "weird", "freak" but don't want to go deeper than that to see what the person is actually like. They refuse to allow the illusion that they have put on the person be broken by anyone but themselves and even when they are broken, it is broken superficially, without getting to know the person.

Now, I'm not saying all of my friends are this way, nor am I saying that I am not like this. I believe we all have this in us and that we are all capable of selfish acts, but I've noticed these things in a lot of my friends and it has given me a different view of them. It hasn't changed how I feel about my friends, because I still love them in their own weird way. But it has made me question if I am the same way, or why I haven;t noticed it in them previously.

I guess in a way I'm tired of my friends seeming like they think the world only encompasses themselves, and thinking only of themselves or living in imagined worlds. Sometimes it gets painful to see, and I'll admit at times it gets annoying. Especially when my friends tag guys as a title and then lives everyday as if the image that they portrayed on the guy is true, when in fact they know nothing about the guy. I guess I just wish everyone was just a little more open minded, I feel like this way there would be a lot less conflict and there would also be a lot more room for understanding one another.

Sorry about this weird post, it's just something that's been on my mind for a while
-J