Friendship

Sitting in Huntsman, the alleged pantheon of unethical and sketchy business activities. It is 10:17 in the AM, thirteen minutes before class. The course: Sport Business Management. For some reason, I was convinced during the first week that the name of the class was 'Sports Law,' when in reality I was mistaken. But is that not the case with the ordinary human memory? Our minds embellish, distort, augment, diminish, forget, and sometimes plainly hallucinate (dreams, anyone?). Perhaps a cog sci major could speak more accurately, but it is my proposition that memory is an emotional thing. We remember according to the color of the emotion—we do not see the colors, but our minds do.

God, I am imperfect. Dostoevsky had it right: faith is not what we want to believe, but faith is who we are. For what is a life, Charlotte the spider asks. We live, and we die. In the midst of natural realities, there is a concrete: love and friendship. A sample dialogue:

He: We are born and for a little while, we are here.

She: Not so simple, we contribute; we judge; we lose; we win.

He: All those being temporary. For why do we live, exactly?

She: To love, of course, to build relationships and to create. To make children.

He: And what about those who don't want to leave a genetic trace? Those loving others of the same gender or sex? Those into bondage but not into procreation?

She: They too are welcome into the kingdom of God.

He: F*** that. I've felt death; I've witnessed people dying. I've had family members die. You don't know what you're talking about.

She: I... I... can only say that ... death is real, but life after is ...

He: You can't possibly expect me to believe that.

She: It's not a matter of belief—it's what you could choose to consider—what you could choose to accept. It's not like being tied to a sports team—it's a summation of who you are and all you could hope to be.

He: I can't, and I won't. It's too late; she's gone, they're gone, and Charlotte's fucking dead and so is Bambi, they're all dead as doornails, deader than dead, and this is what you would have me believe.

Interesting article:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/09/apple-says-new-iphone-5-feature-gives-life-meaning.html

Technology doesn't give life meaning; life gives technology meaning. In this media-saturated world of 24-hour-news cycles and Twitter and news-on-demand through the Internet, what could possibly serve as a pillar for greater understanding and meaning in our every day lives? And on this day after the eleventh anniversary of 9/11, I would argue it is community. The ethos of American community that I wish to expunge upon you today. Of baseball stadiums and football games that last until overtime, of hero worship of star athletes, of public lit. readings at major universities that get maybe 10, 15 people, tops, of our national politicians promising nothing and everything at the same time, of women who sweat to clean bathrooms and cafeterias that Penn students use, of workers on construction projects made possible by 'capital' raised by an educational institution, of the students studying in lounges and in Huntsman and of those getting wasted before the weekend.

And let's presume: life is fragile. Death is real. Bambi is dead. No disputing or arguing that. But there's much more to say. There's the issue of memory. At the very end of Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky writes:

"Karamazov," cried Kolya, "can it be true what's taught us in religion, that we shall all rise again from the dead and shall live and see each other again, all, Ilusha too?"

"Certainly we shall all rise again, certainly we shall see each other and shall tell each other with joy and gladness all that has happened!" Alyosha answered, half laughing, half enthusiastic.

What else to tell a young boy just beginning to understand his place in the world? Yes, Kolya, we shall rise. The world shall rise, not only in memory, but also in the remembered faces of long-lost loved ones. We shall partake in grandiosity and mirth and no one will be able to deny our enthusiasm. Ecstatic laughter will envelope our bodies from head to toe, and paradise will be ours.