Happy Deepavali! (hahz, it rhymes too!) wowz, recent entries have been very long and emotive huh. So I cant possibly crap this entry :/

What a challenge. I shall try my best to write a meaningful follow-up. Especially since the previous entry has left us all with more questions than answers...

It seems appropriate that I came across a somewhat similar question before this: "Do you believe in life-long friendship, outside of marriage, remaining always a source of deep emotion and thought?"

Marraige is a fascinating instituion, but obviously I know nuts to be able to talk meaningfully about it. So maybe the relevant phrase here is life-long friendship. More or less the same as staying close friends right?

I really don't know actually. (not a convincing way to start...) But I guess the question is, what is a close friend to you? Socrates was one of the first to question the definition of a friend, asking his interlocutors a very simple question, "How many friends do you have?". This seems appropriate: a person cannot begin to count a thing, if he does not know what it is he is counting - what "counts" as that thing, and what does not. An even more confusing question is what is a "close friend"?

Time apart is indeed an intriguing test of friendship. Scary is the thought that you may meet years after with absolutely nothing meaningful to talk about save for updating each other about your life. The keyword here is "source of deep emotion and thought". Its just not the same anymore is it? In fact, how can anything feel like times of old? It rarely, if not, never does. In the years preceding this, we're all essentially still have a somewhat consistent lifestyle. We go to school, study, cca... etc. We're lucky. But after this, save the NS and Uni phase, our lives totally go in all sorts of directions. Nothing much in common. Hardly see each other. How?

I think a true friend, and indeed a close one, is one who doesnt forget you and still yearns to keep a certain level of association with you. We long for the intimacy of friendship. We long for someone we can trust and with whom we can be open, someone who will know our faults and fears, and yet still like us! And we long for that peculiar honour of knowing another's secret fears - not for gossip or voyeurism, and not because they want us to do something - simply because they honour us with trust.

Aristotle astutely observed that friendships are bonds of mutual awareness: a friendship can exist only if you are aware that another person wishes good for you unconditionally, for your own sake, and the other is aware that you feel the same way about him. Thus, he concludes that better expressions of friendship will centre, not around battlefield heroics, however glorious someone might take these to be, but rather around intimate and delicate expressions of thought.

So, end of story is that although situations may change, if both parties still want to keep that special close feeling of association. You need to put in the effort to stay in contact! I dont believe in leaving everything to yuan fen. Indeed, there would a higher chance of remaining close friends if you try to.

After all, if you already got to that stage of being close friends. I suppose that there already is a certain level of understanding between the two parties involved. How many people can you find that get to that stage? How much can that understanding disappear or how much can people change in terms of personality? Chances are, if you stay in contact, it wont much.

As for that "feeling"... well, hahaz... I truthfully think that human relationships always evolve. This is simply because of the complexity of the way we communicate. (We assume that relationships between 2 dogs for example dont change much because they dont communicate at that high a level of emotional and intellectual complexity. Little needs to be said of a relationship, if any, between 2 trees.)

This means that I think there are many types of "special feelings". It may not feel the same to be close friends a few years later. But we should not be parochial and insist that the special feeling must be this feeling now. As long as we dont feel awkward, I think that's quite enough :) Indeed, I might find it more awkward if we're still erps-ing and whee-ing at the age of 40.

Faith + effort = success (in this case and for the As too!)

How much time did u spend reading this? Tsk tsk... oh, its started raining! Lian2 shang4 tian1 dou1 bei4 wo3 gan3 dong4 le4.... wo2 jian3 zhi1 shi4 tai4 li4 hai4 le4... Wahaha *throws head back and laughs like a maniac, oscillating both shoulders zhou xing chi style* Ohwell... for now we shall all indulge in our simple and heartwarming relationships.... whee!~

24 days left, until all _____ is unleashed.