the economics of society

i fancy myself Socrates tonight, so this post shall in part take on dialogue form, though not with the same teaching methods as he employed.


for our first segment; the initial conversation:
mon amie (2:28:06 AM): are you looking forward to going back?
self (2:30:56 AM): sort of
self (2:31:00 AM): i have people i miss
self (2:31:24 AM): but i don't really attach to physical things. Buddhist, after all.
self (2:31:33 AM): life goes on, whereever you are.
self (2:31:48 AM): do you really feel unattached to people?
mon amie (2:32:04 AM): (people as an example?)
self (2:38:14 AM): ...i feel like i have to work myself to exhaustion to incline other people to attach to me.
self (2:38:25 AM): and even then it doesn't always take.
mon amie (2:40:25 AM): wow.
mon amie (2:40:31 AM): my computer is so LAME.
mon amie (2:40:40 AM): i didn't even see your i/m's and now i feel bad.
mon amie (2:40:58 AM): do you feel like you always need to keep in touch and other just don't reciprocate? i get that, really.
self (2:41:53 AM): mhmm.
self (2:42:42 AM): it's more than that, even when first becoming acquainted with someone, i can't turn the person into a friend, unless he or she pursues me.
self (2:43:16 AM): i don't know how, or what's so disenchanting about me, but i am just not someone with whom other people want to associate.
self (2:43:28 AM): unless i have something outside myself to trade.
mon amie (2:43:40 AM): do you think of that of me?
mon amie (2:43:44 AM): wait:
self (2:43:52 AM): so they stay mere acquaintences, because i have nothing of myself to offer that would endear me to them.
mon amie (2:43:49 AM): do you think about that from me?
mon amie (2:44:01 AM): i feel like i can't word that right...
self (2:44:57 AM): i think i understand what you mean...
self (2:45:02 AM): let me explain myself.


the second, the pontification:
self (2:45:32 AM): my view of human interaction is that it's all based on a system of trade. stop me if you've heard this particular rant before...
mon amie (2:45:21 AM): go on.
self (2:47:25 AM): there are levels of association. Acquaintenship: when one meets another, and finds that person has frequent fun parties, or access to movie tickets, or something entirely impersonal, and it's just an informal trade of goods.
mon amie (2:47:02 AM): well put.
self (2:48:25 AM): i knew a guy, i would always get gasoline at his store, and pay in cash. i became recognized by him, and we would engage in hellos and howareyous. that's the Base Acquaintence.
mon amie (2:47:55 AM): i had that, too!
self (2:48:41 AM):
self (2:48:46 AM): see? truth.
self (2:48:49 AM): anyway.
self (2:50:41 AM): the other kind of Acquaintence is when the exchange is of services. someone shares your love of Lost, etc. it's still impersonal enough for the service to be interchangeable; you can get that fandom feeling from all sorts of other people, but this person happens to be closest.
mon amie (2:50:26 AM): what happens to be closest?
mon amie (2:50:31 AM): the tandom feeling?
mon amie (2:50:42 AM): fandom*
self (2:51:49 AM): the person.
self (2:52:19 AM): for example, say you met someone in one of your classes who likes Lost, and you chat about it sometimes.
mon amie (2:51:51 AM): ahh, gotcha.
self (2:52:54 AM): it never occurs outside of those first few minutes of class, and you could chat about Lost with anyone, but she's readily available
self (2:52:56 AM): mhmm
mon amie (2:52:48 AM): yes, i had those quite frequently.
self (2:54:15 AM): of course, those are the most common sorts of interaction.
self (2:54:46 AM): we have venders who sell us our groceries and our gas, and technology has recently put a barrier between we and them.
self (2:55:09 AM): so our forms of interaction come mostly in what cannot be dupilcated (yet) by machines.
mon amie (2:55:35 AM): what do you mean by duplicated?
self (2:57:05 AM): ...synthesized?
self (2:57:25 AM): instead of human to human contact, the internet itself speaking to us?
self (2:57:46 AM): as opposed to the individuality no one has yet been able to replicate in robots.
self (2:57:52 AM): sorry if i get scifi.
mon amie (2:57:39 AM): robots not being able to feel, etc.?
self (2:58:27 AM): mhmm
self (2:58:37 AM): or come up with entirely original respones.
self (2:58:41 AM): responses*
self (2:58:45 AM): they cannot improvise.
self (2:58:52 AM): nor opinionate.
mon amie (2:59:22 AM): and by having non human interaction, we are just leading to more seclusion amongst each other typething?
self (3:04:16 AM): i believe so.
self (3:04:28 AM): that is another ramble, however.
[from there, our conversation derailed, so we shall leave it where it was]


et en fin, the lecture:
as there are Acquaintences, concerned with those goods and services provided externally and impersonally, there are also Friends, whose interest is determined by what a person sells of him/herself.

again, as with Acquaintences, this grouping can be split into two categories, the Status Quo Friend (SQF) and the True Friend. the former is thrown into a relationship with another person by circumstance. one could enjoy another's sense of humor, or feel capable of conversing for hours on any subject, and thereby create a sense of kinship with that person. not only is made an exchange of, perhaps, laughter, but also of the possession most widely prized by mortals: time. the commodity then, is internal, for the good provided is something unique to the vendor. however, though a bond is formed, it can be severed at a moment's notice, with a whithering word or a distasteful deed.

that brings us to the final level of social interaction: True Friends (TF) [it is so-named only because i could not formulate a less clichéd term for it in the little time i alloted for this post].

the final level is categorized when bits of self are included amongst the goods traded. energy, empathy, and
experience are the most commonly offered services, initially. eventually, however, so much is constantly whirring back and forth that the involved parties simply set aside aspects of themselves for the sole use of one another. only amusing anecdotes are traded with a SQF, but every experience is detailed for the benefit of a TF.

further, a branch of the TF category applies to those labelled as Significant Others; persons are given such a title when the aspects reserved for them encompasse the entirety of another.


therefore:
that is why, some people attach easily to others, and create an assembly of aloof admirers, while others have a cadre of close companions. just as in the real world market, people are an assortment of traits and tradeable services; depending on who's looking, and for what, each individual's worth can be reduced to the state of his/her inventory.

"Disturbia," or "An Account Of An Epic Battle Between Man And Nature"

last night, i went to a hookah bar.

not alone, naturally; some friends had bought two hookahs and were passing the hoses around. one actually paid me a dollar to get me to drive out there and join them. :-) drole and unfulfilling as the tobacco has always been, i puffed it down dispassionately and saved my greed for inhaling the pleasure of their company. soon i was lazily soaring amongst the exhaled vapors that spiraled beyond the black of the midnight sky.

until surprised shouts and the splatter of water on pavement attracted my attention.

someone had found a frog relaxing on a cobblestone, possibly enjoying secondhand smoke. the discoverer of said amphibian, in his determination to display his dominance over nature, had been the source of that kerfluffle that distracted we smokers from our socializing.

now, here was a man in his mid-thirties, who had apparently grown weary of the leftist propaganda which declares that we of the species homo sapiens have a derelict duty to defend and even doctor our animalian brethren of earth. from his actions, i deduced that he had long ago uncovered the terrible treachery of our conservationist-leaning citizens - they were spies. they sought to rid Earth of men and their straight-laced family values by discouraging admittedly random but entirely couth acts of discrimination and violence, and replace the good denizens of America with stepfordian hippie robots! this intrepid soldier of humanity about whom i tell these tales immediately rejected the brainwashing of PETA and declared himself a vigilante against all bestial usurpers of Man's Worldly Throne, and that included preventing the hookah-loving frog from undermining mankind by infiltrating America's youth!

i deduced this, because only such a backstory as epic and obviously heroic as that could explain what he did next.

unsheathing water from the plastic bottle-shaped container in which he carried it (by way of cap-twistation) this Knight Of Man reacted to that slimy sight with battle-honed reflexes; he took his flask in his mighty fist, raising it above his shoulder, and tilted it a sweeping 180 degrees! as God had flooded the world to rid it of people-vermin, so our fantastical protagonist flooded the sidewalk.

the frog jolted under the assault, twitching this way and that. our hero was ever-cunning, however, and shook his canteen, in a long, decided motion, and the water scattered on the ground like machine-gun artillery. the frog, that vile, pestilent purveyor of doom, was instantly surrounded. it slipped, crashing sideways into the jagged cement, flailed desperately for a few moments, then was engulfed by the rising tide. peace was once again restored to the universe, and the relieved chatter of satisfied youth drowned out the final keening of that amphibious anathama.