This, Together

"We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes."

― Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

 "The human race is just a chemical scum on a moderate-sized planet, orbiting around a very average star in the outer suburb of one among a hundred billion galaxies. We are so insignificant that I can't believe the whole universe exists for our benefit. That would be like saying that you would disappear if I closed my eyes."

—Stephen Hawking

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Dear Kate,

I was talking about friendship without defining it.

Is it necessary?  Do we not know what a friend is?

Deep down I think we do, but mostly we are willing to live with a superficial working definition.  If we start to exclude and narrow down, we might end up with nothing.  And that's the trouble: friends, good friends, true friends, are rare.  If any.

I say friends are those who would say to you, "We are in this together," and truly mean it in how they live their life alongside yours, not a sloganeer of ideals, not only during extraordinary times, with not a goal to refine the relationship but keep defining it together.

"We are in this together."  What is "this"?  And why do we feel like whoever says something like this is trying to demand from us what we would rather not give--or, if the circumstances are better, none of us would need to consider giving to each other at all?

So it is an ideal that is imposed from without, an insistence on a "positive liberty" at the expense of my "personal freedom," not a togetherness that is let grow from within.  That's why we fight, all the time, for our "rights," in both senses of the word.

Let grow.  We can't reap what we didn't sow.  We have nothing of value to withdraw from an empty bank account--or one stuffed with fake notes.

We are told by great scientists, such as the two I quoted above, that we are "survival machine," "chemical scum" that has selfishness in our genes, "insignificance" that is destined to...."disappear."  And, you, my friend, is here to tell me, we are in this together?  You mean in this ruthless, ultimately meaningless game of survival, being "together" is the law of the jungle that we should all observe, honor?

According to such advance scientific understanding, a sensible definition of "friendship" should probably be "I didn't happen to eat you earlier today."  If we are all selfish machines, the last thing we should consider is to get too close to each other.  And don't tell me "working things out" with other selfish machines is good for my survival.  I don't care about anything other than myself, not the past, not things and people around me now, certainly not the monkeys that will come after me.  If I am "insignificant" then nothing is.  If I am only chemical scum then you can't blame me for burning you.  Keep your distance, two light years apart from me.  We are not in anything together.

Life, friends are in this together. Being human.  In its glory and agony, full of them, all of them, together.  A friend is one who says to you, we are in being human together, and live likewise.  She plants a garden, keeps looking for creative ways to expand it, a playground for fairies, for you.  She takes a step back and watches you play, "lets you be," trusting God has His way with you, once and now and always.  She waters the soil with her tears of laughter and sorrow, tears with and for you.

Let go, let grow, let God, that's your friend.

Yours, Alex