Friendship

      The ability to communicate through a complex language is one of the amazing things that separate us humans from all other species on the planet.  Through words, emotions, physical touch; all of these are forms of communication that we use every day to express the way we feel.  However, without someone else to read, listen, or receive our friendly touch or gesture, it would not mean anything more than a teacher in a lecture hall on Unofficial.  Thankfully, there are other people in the world to communicate with and to relate to.  People that you meet every day in almost every situation.  Either through class, at a bar, through work, or even when that special feeling swells up inside of you when you see someone beautiful and you can not help but run over and introduce yourself to that person, but I digress; we socialize.  
      Eventually, these social interactions, if meaningful and impressionable, turn into friendship.  I am not talking about friendly, or the kind of friendship where you add someone on Facebook and someone asks you, "Hey do you know Aunt Jemima?" and you say, "I've heard of the name" or "We are just friends on Facebook" (Whatever the hell that means).  That is not friendship, that is as topical as the powered sugar on [insert anything you sprinkle powered sugar on].  I am talking about the kind of friendship where you see the person on a regular occurrence, you get along well, and hell, you may even hang out daily because you enjoy the person's company so much.  Can you think of many people's names, picture their faces, and maybe even remember a time that you both shared together (with more people or just them) that has made a significant impact on your life; a story you will tell your other friends and future wife and kids?  I hope so!  The question I have always wondered about is why do we have these friends?  Why do we socialize?  Why do we beg the introverted kids to get out of their rooms and go into the world and meet people?
      You could take the scientific approach and say that it is in our nature, that is the whole reason why the human race has language.  You could also take, what I like to call, the "Identity" approach and say that it is a way to be able to find ourselves, see more of who we are by the people we relate to.  The more we relate to someone, the more we see ourselves and the better we are able to define who we are and pinpoint the image of ourselves so that we can answer that great question, "Who am I?".  I like this second approach, but I would like to provide a third perspective.  I believe it is about Harmony.
     That one moment, not longer than the length of one breathe, where your single, individual voice connects to another person's due to the sameness in thought.  It does not matter about the story you are going to be able to tell, or about the social interaction itself, it's about that moment.  That moment that lets us know that all of this is real.  That moment where you wanna just jump out of your seat (if you are sitting down) and hug that person and scream "SOMEONE GETS IT!". The moment that proves this is not some weird fictional life, and that we are not living in the matrix. 
     This is why we continue to socialize and meet new people, and why finding a best friend, a wife, or a soul mate is deemed as so important.  So that you can have those multiple moment of harmony.  That loving bond of friendship that nothing else in the world can offer.