8/8/14
Aboard DL 443, En Route JFK-SEA
The philosophical theme of this trip, one that I probably should have
more properly explored when I was travelling with my best friend, will be
friendship. More generally, it will
evaluate the way I feel about people, specific people and general, what I mean
by friendship, and who earns my love and friendship. I say “earns” because I never give anything
for nothing. Everything must be traded
or earned, from love to friendship to respect.
I am working on a mathematical definition of this concept, but I will
start with a broader overview. I think
the best way to consider it is to think of my 193 Facebook Friends. Yes, my grandfather is not on the list, but
that I care about him goes without saying, nor am I Friends with Danielle, for
obvious reasons, so she does not apply here, either, nor do maybe a few other people with whom I am not Friends on Facebook. 99% of what I read is meaningless
drivel. Fun, interesting, and amusing
drivel, to be sure, but meaningless. It
is that other 1% that I need to consider here.
The question I am asking is, if I were to see someone in my feed post
something bad that happened to them, would it bother me? Would it make me upset? My family, my co-workers who have become like family, my best friend,
the manager of the cigar store, one person from my Israel trip, and maybe,
depending on how bad said thing was, a few other select people. That’s it. The other 170 or so, it wouldn’t phase me for
longer than the time it took for me to read the post. The other 7 billion people in the world? I honestly don't give two shits about them. They can go fuck themselves as far as I’m
concerned. Yes, I may engage in
certainly mutually beneficial relationships with some of them, but, on a
personal level, I don’t care. How could
I say that? What about all the children
starving in Africa? The people living
under oppression in the Middle East? The
victims of the drug lords in Central America?
No, I don’t care about them, except for 7 million very specific
people. The 7 million people living in
Israel. I do not care about any
individual person there, but I do care about them as a whole, that the nation
survives (and I suppose the same can be said about the US, the UK, and Canada).
Does that make me
callous? An asshole? Sure, why not? Those words do not bother me. My father is more compassionate than I, and
he is constantly talking about he does not want to live in a society with
people dying on the streets. He has lost
his Objectivist way. Of course, I do not
want to see people dying, but I hold as an even higher absolute that I do not
need to do anything to help them, unless I so choose. That only the 20-30 or so people who have
earned my love and friendship can lay any kind of claim on me, that I do not
give two shits about anyone else in the world, other than in regards to a
mutually beneficial relationship. That
is not to say I would go out of my way to harm anyone. I am not capable of that. It just means that I would not go out of my
way to help them. That is where this
thing I want to call the Friendship Quotient (FQ) comes into play.
The basic math behind it is, someone to whom
you assign an FQ of 1 is someone for whom their happiness is your happiness,
what’s yours is theirs, and there is completely equality. A FQ of 5 would be more like the way a mother
feels for her child. Seeing her child
happy makes her 5 times as happy as her own happiness. You can also look at this from a monetary
perspective. If you would give X dollars
of your own money (or time or life) only to provide someone with something
worth 10 times X dollars to them, it would be an FQ of 0.1, while an FQ of 1
would mean that you would give up X dollars to buy some a present that is worth
exactly X dollars to them.
Again,
excluding those 20-30 people, and maybe another 20 or so that would have an FQ
ranging from 0.01 to 0.1, the other 7 billion people in the world? FQ = 0.
Well, if you want to get technical, it’s more like 1 E -12. In other words, 1 in a trillion. The way I get that number? I would not give up a year of my life to save
1 billion lives with no reward. Does
that make me heartless? No, it just
means that my heart is reserved for the few people whom I love. Maybe a month of my life to save 1 billion
lives, maybe. The exception would be
saving the entire human race from extinction.
As in, a space invader says, you die now or we wipe out the entire
planet in 50 years. Then, I would need
to think about it.
How did I get so far
off track? Oh, so, while Sokol probably
had an FQ around 0.5, Stuart only has an FQ of 0.1 or so. I’m trying to think if there is anyone in the
world to whom I would assign an FQ of 1 or greater. I don’t think so. My brother would probably score the highest
at about 0.8. One day, I’ll get married,
have kids, and then I’ll be more than happy to assign FQs of greater than 1,
but, until then, I’m quite happy to remain the selfish bastard people wish to
call me.
I suppose that this would be
the time where I recall the events of Day 0, but it was a rather boring day at
the office, getting in at 7 AM, leaving at 3 PM, and having lunch from Hop Won
(boneless spare ribs and sweet and sour chicken) in between. I did my business at the cigar store, negotiating
myself a good deal on a new box and then headed to the airport. Stuart was waiting for me when I arrived, and
we were plenty early. I got some wings
at Buffalo Wild Wings, which has become a bit of a Terminal 4 tradition when I
arrive early enough. Soon enough, we
were boarding, and I proceeded to write this entry as soon as we were en route.
Fife, Washington
Yes, Fife, fucking Washington.
One day, I will right an entry that says Fife, Scotland, United Kingdom,
but, for now, I’ll settle for Fife, Washington.
Over the past 6 weeks, I have landed at SeaTac 3 times, yet I have only
spent a sum total of about two hours within Seattle city limits. It is an airport as familiar to me as any
airport outside of the New York area. I
slept well on the plane, and we had soon landed. Even before we got our car, we almost had our
first fight of the trip. Our hotel was
about 20 minutes south of the airport, and all of the restaurants Stuart had
picked out were in Seattle, 20 minutes north, which would have meant we would
not have gotten to the hotel until after 1 AM, which would have completely
fucked up my day tomorrow. I told him
that he could drop me off at the hotel here in Fife and then continue to a
restaurant in Tacoma. This is another
good application of the Friendship Quotient.
Is an hour of sleep for me worth Stuart missing a whole night? Yes, it would be, so long as he wasn’t
complaining about or putting me in a bad situation in re: driving. That was not the case here, but it is a good
example of FQ.
I found an all-night
restaurant en route, so we stopped there, getting lost along the way. I wound up getting a steak with all the
trimmings, and it was so good. Stuart
hadn’t even finished his salad, so I decided that we need to consolidate
time. I knew that this entry would be a
short one, and I wouldn’t need to upload any photos, so the limiting reactant
was the cigar. I had portioned my cigars
for the weekend when I was at the cigar store, so I chose a Diamond Crown from
the Friday bag and lit up while I waited for Stuart to finish. It was a good decision. I was half done with the cigar by the time he
was out, and I had a little Leftovers moment staring at him wordlessly through
the window as I smoked. It was about 5
minutes to the hotel, which was really a casino, a huge complex. Smoking was allowed everywhere, even in the
elevator, but I was told cigars were verboten in the public area. I just held it to my side and waited to get
back up to the room before I relit it.
Stuart had booked a non-smoking room, but, much to my delight, I saw
ashtrays, so I relit the cigar, got changed, and proceeded to write this entry,
which I will now close so that I can get a little sleep before I head to North
Cascades NP.
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