Choose Your Friends Wisely

You're Known By the Company You Keep

Losing a Friend

I had to break up with a friend recently. She was a new friend that I’d only known a few months but she’d been to my house, which means she wasn’t just an acquaintance anymore.

Anyway, she posted something recently on Facebook that raised some questions for me…

While a beautiful sentiment in general, she added how relevant the above statement is, especially now, during the 2024 election. More specifically, her post was a comment on women’s right to abortion.

This post made me wonder how she might have felt back in 2020, during Covid, about everyone’s rights being respected. I wondered whether her sentiments were consistent across the board.

She and I had talked about Covid briefly in person months ago. I made my feelings known at the time, explaining how much John and I had lost when we decided not to go along with the agenda… Our careers, several friends, more than a little money…

I told her how painful it all was and she listened intently. All through the conversation, however, my new friend was pretty quiet on the topic. That’s what made me curious.

Facebook Profile Search Feature

If you don’t know, you can go to a person’s Facebook profile and search for any keyword. Just click on three dots and a dropdown menu will appear.

Type your search and away you go.

So I looked.

My fears confirmed, I found more than a couple of her posts from 2021 that pressured people to go along with the herd. Her posts contained demeaning language like, “Listen up, buttercup…” as she referenced the CDC and other “trusted” mainstream sources.

She was adamant and absolute.

Her language and tone implied that those of us who chose another path must be ignorant or just plain selfish and the content itself was packed with fear and propaganda - very inconsistent for someone now claiming that “Every person has the right to have their beliefs respected.”

I turned the screen off and sank in my chair. Another one bites the dust.

Did it matter that she had typed these words three years ago?

To me, these were not three short years but three life-altering years. Years of loss and clarity. Years spent redefining every aspect of my life. Years cleaning out the debris of false relationships.

To her, it was just some stuff that happened. And I needed to get over it.

Déjà vu

I learned a powerful lesson in 2020 about the friends I had collected through the years. Most of them weren’t my friends.

Being an artist and working in the Arts for most of my life, I spent a lot of time surrounded by other artists. Liberal artists. Most of them just assumed I was liberal, too, because we never discussed it.

I haven’t been a Liberal since I was in my 20’s but I’m also not openly political so I don’t usually discuss politics as part of daily conversation. It’s personal.

Most people won’t get into the weeds of any issues anyway - they just brand themselves Red or Blue and move on. Like joining a club or cheering for a sports team, they buy the jersey and they’re done.

I’ve been looking behind the curtain for too long to identify with either party. They seem to take turns pushing us closer to the cliff. Whichever side you’re on, we’re still heading for the cliff.

"They that give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

Benjamin Franklin

In 2020 when my friends began to allow fear to make choices for them, expressing support for lockdowns and mandates, I felt heartsick to learn how little they cared for Personal Liberty.

It became impossible to have discussions about the smallest events in life without touching on Covid; therefore, it just became impossible to have simple conversations. From a trip to the grocery store to working from home, every moment was impacted by Covid.

Depending on your point of view, Covid was either an inconvenience or a highly traumatic gaslighting experience.

Meanwhile, none of my friends were interested in having an open debate. They’d parrot the mainstream media but none of them was willing to look at my information and research. When the subject came up, they shut down.

One by one, I just let them go and swore I’d be more careful about choosing friends in the future.

Well, I tried.

Breaking Up

For weeks, I didn’t respond to my new friend. She texted me a few pictures of her dog and said Hi but I just didn’t have anything to say. I felt weird. I didn’t know what to say or how to say it.

Meanwhile, I don’t want to ghost anyone if I think my words will be heard so, finally, I emailed her.

Like I do, I was honest and got right to the point.

I referenced her recent Facebook post and pointed out the obvious contradiction. I said, “I agree with this statement about Dignity, but I also noticed that during Covid you posted statements that were pressuring, and even demeaning, to those of us who didn't want that particular injection in our bodies. The two expressions are incongruent.”  

I spoke plainly.

“It's hypocritical when folks insist on their right NOT have something in their body (a child), yet they insist that I have something in MY body that I don't want.”

I stood up for myself.

“I have no interest in being friends or even being around anyone who had so little respect for MY BODY when it mattered.”

I said more than this but I was kind about it… I was respectful and I asked her to think about it.

Well, she didn’t think long.

In rapid fire succession, I received three responses - all written quickly and with fervor, each one confirming my decision to part ways.

I did not respond. No need.

Lesson Learned

For too many years, I’ve collected friends with whom I’ve had little, if anything, in common because I’ve demonstrated silent compliance when I probably should have said something.

I bit my tongue when I should have left the room.

I don’t know if it’s age, wisdom or exhaustion that’s caused me to develop a thicker skin now but I’ve begun to call out people’s BS and I genuinely don’t care if it upsets them.

I’m more interested in having Peace, Truth and Consistency than a high friend count.

I don’t need to agree with people on every topic - that’s extreme - but I do value open conversation and people who are willing to look beyond their first impulse.

In short, people who are curious.

The German philosopher Schopenhauer had this to say about most people:

Ordinary society is, in this respect, very like the kind of music to be obtained from an orchestra composed of Russian horns. Each horn has only one note; and the music is produced by each note coming in just at the right moment. In the monotonous sound of a single horn, you have a precise illustration of the effect of most people's minds. How often there seems to be only one thought there! and no room for any other. It is easy to see why people are so bored; and also why they are sociable, why they like to go about in crowds—why mankind is so gregarious. It is the monotony of his own nature that makes a man find solitude intolerable.

These one note people are fine with inconsistency and they’ll defend it venomously if you dare to point it out. They lack a moral core from which to steer their path because they cannot integrate their belief system, such as it is, into a cohesive whole.

That’s my theory anyway.

Some may say you can befriend these kinds of people, but I disagree. You can be acquaintances, at best. When SHTF, they’ll never have your back. In fact, they may even begin spewing their venom in your direction.

When these people were out there saying things like this, I avoided them. There seemed to be too many of them and too few of us. Maybe I was just a big chicken.

I think too many of us have gone along with too much for too long in silence and, as a result, our country is unrecognizable.

I blame myself as much as anyone. In fact, I’m more upset with myself than I am with anyone else because when I didn’t speak up, I let myself down. I abandoned myself and let myself become invisible.

I let others speak in my place, as if my own opinions were worth less.

Worthless.

There it is.

Why do we do this?

I’ve thought a lot about this. Why have I been respecting people’s rights when they don’t respect mine? Why have I denied my own freedom of expression just to make sure someone else doesn’t feel uncomfortable?

Maybe it doesn’t matter why. Maybe it only matters that I stop doing it.

The email I sent - the break up - was a small step in stopping my cycle of silent compliance. Maybe it was also me becoming more honest with myself and everyone else, too.

A first step in a journey that’s been a long time coming.

I know it’s not just me who feels trapped between wanting peace and wanting to be honest. I hope you also know that your voice is as important as anyone else’s, even when the other person gets mad.

I encourage you to speak your truth when it matters. Choose your battles, but be true to yourself. Speak out with kindness and with an open heart and mind, but speak out.

If nothing else, it cleans your house quickly of would-be fake friends.

You may not have as many friends at the table as a result, but they’ll be real… and they’ll be a lot more interesting!

YouTube

If you don’t already know, John and I are on YouTube documenting our off grid adventures - clearing clogged drains, planting gardens, reconfiguring the solar set-up. It’s all there.

I even created a video recently about finding balance between Society and Solitude. I hope you’ll watch it.

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And Now, For Something Completely Different

I received a couple packets of Alaska Chaga Tea from a subscriber and I want to express my sincere thanks! I’ve been getting over a slight cold/congestion recently and “chugging the chaga”, I believe, helped me recover more speedily - plus it’s delicious!

If you’re interested in healthy products, supporting small, honest enterprises and love all natural tea, I hope you’ll check out Alaska Chaga.

Their small family business is located in Ester, Alaska and they’re experts in chaga mushroom products - including Chaga Soap, which smells and feels so luxurious.

Stay well and, as always, thanks for being here!