Yesterday I went to Seattle with my buddies Chris and Luke to see a movie about a street artist who tried to make a movie about the street artist Banksy and ended up having a movie made about him, directed by Banksy. I know that’s confusing, but trust me, the movie does a great job of telling the story and kept everyone in the theater quite interested the entire time.
Chris and I live in Bremerton, but Luke lives in Seattle, so after the movie Luke went on his way and Chris and I headed for the ferry.
On the ride home, I decided to talk to Chris about my concerns surrounding The Project. We sat in his car on the ferry, me finishing my McChicken sandwich, and him with his feet up on the dash. I wasn’t sure if I should put my feet up. Sometimes people have funny rules about that sort of thing.
“So here’s what we’re gonna do,” I said. “We need to find the next big, underground cultural movement and get in on the ground floor. We’re too late for this whole street art thing. We need to find something that’s gonna become really popular in about five years and get in on it now so when it blows up we can say, ‘I knew about that before. I’m cool.’”
“OK,” said Chris, “but if it’s anything with fashion, it’s probably not gonna work. I don’t know anything about fashion.”
“No, it won’t be anything to do with fashion,” I said. “Do I look like I know anything about fashion?” And I pointed to my boring t-shirt and jeans.
“It’s just … after seeing that movie, it made me think about whether I want to keep doing this project or start looking for some new ideas,” I went on. “I kind of feel like the whole Facebook and social networking thing is getting played out. I wanna find the ‘next big thing.’ I mean, I won’t be able to finish this project until next spring. And by that time, will people still even care about Facebook? Facebook has been around for a while, and it seems like everybody’s talking about it right now. I feel like I’m tardy to the party.”
“Maybe Facebook will be played out by the time you finish this,” Chris said. “Maybe it’ll hit a lull because everybody will be so used to it and not think about it so much anymore. But maybe you’ll give it new life. You’re coming at it from a different angle, talking to people about what friendship really means and how these sites like Facebook play into that. Maybe that’ll give some new perspective to those types of sites and the idea of friendship. And your experiences will be unique. Who knows? There might be someone else out there doing the same thing you’re doing, and trying to decide if they should keep going. But their project won’t be exactly the same as yours.”
I was starting to feel glad that I’d brought up the topic of The Project.
“You know what?” I said. “That’s a good attitude to have. I like that. So the first question is …”
Chris’s answers were very well thought out and succinct. As I told him, I wish I had been taking notes. But my paraphrasing once again will have to do.
“For me, Facebook is just an extension of my real-life relationships with people,” he said. “I have to have some connection to the person in real life before I become friends with them on Facebook.”
He went on to say that a friend is someone with whom you share some sort of mutually beneficial relationship. There has to be give and take, not just one or the other. And that’s what you gain from a friendship. People have things they need to receive from others, but they also feel a need to give. Each is gratifying in some way. Constantly taking makes you feel empty, while constantly giving makes you feel exhausted.
“If one person is just mooching off the other, they’re not a true friend. Each person has to gain something from the friendship.”
“But that’s friendship,” I said. I went back to Randy’s idea that ‘a friend is someone you genuinely enjoy spending time with.’
“To the mooch, the person he’s mooching off of is his friend, because he’s getting something from that person, and he enjoys spending time with that person” I said. “But the person being mooched off of doesn’t consider the mooch his friend. He doesn’t enjoy the time they spend together.”
Chris conceded that I had a point.
“That’s my favorite question,” I said after we’d hammered out the definition of a friend. “Everybody has such different answers, but they’re all so good.”
“See? That’s the cool thing about all this,” he said. “Everybody’s answers are going to be different. You’re getting a unique perspective from every person.”
The feelings of disenchantment I’d had with the Project started to fall by the wayside as we talked. They still creep up now and then, but I’ll trudge on. It made me wish I'd discussed the Project with all nine of the friends I'd been with the night before. But I'd only asked three of them their definition of the word 'friend.' Dammit.
One final comment about that night is a suggestion Chris made. He noted that Facebook is useful as a communication tool in that it helps him stay visually connected with people in his life who may be far away.
“I can learn more about my acquaintances and friends by looking at their pictures on Facebook. So it’s just another way of communicating with people. It’s another level of communication.”
He went on to say that it would be cool to have a visual representation of each visit with each friend for my Project. I didn’t have a camera at the time, so I couldn’t oblige just then. But I liked the suggestion. And I happened to have had a camera when I visited Aaron, Lacey, Sondra, Tom and Seth, the people I’ll write about next. (Oh, and we ran into Bill Gates during that visit.)
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