That’s what friends are for…

Here is the (edited) text of an article I intended for the now-defunct MUIC Tabloid (university newspaper). I decided to publish it here instead. Sorry if it's a bit too sentimental.:P

This is dedicated to:
M.V. (future “Best Young Researcher/Doctor” of Thailand, for helping me to graduate!)
J.Y. (for your dry sense of humor and your endearing ignorance of basic scientific phenomena)
S.V. (for your sarcasm, second to none and your mysterious ways)
M.I. (for letting me cry during math and that Hello Kitty! figurine)
K.P. (for all things British and for caring about me)
And finally, last but never, ever least, my roommate, best friend and confidante, B⁵ (for you know why – and a trillion things more)

I love you all very much. Thank you for everything you’ve given and continue to give me.

As my graduation draws near (gasp!), I can’t help but look back over my years at MUIC and take stock of what I’ve learned. Let’s see…aside from all the stuff I should have learned (i.e. the academics), I realize some of the most important things I now know weren’t discovered anywhere near a classroom. For instance, I know now that “Burberry” and “Pena House” are not a type of berry or a cake shop, respectively. I know what “Marmite” and “sashimi” are; I found out that yes, peacocks do attack. Did I learn these tidbits from some humanities course? No, these pearls of wisdom came via that group of people who have shared my ups, my downs and my in-betweens - my friends.

Elbert Hubbard once claimed, “A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.” Well, my friends know me and amazingly, I still feel an abundance of love from each of them. Sometimes, I even take it for granted, as I’m sure we all do. We show our gratitude to our parents by being good children, to our teachers by being good students, to our country by being good citizens – what about our friends? I wonder, as we traverse the paths of our blessed lives, if we ever truly stop and give thanks to and for these people who make our lonely journeys that little bit less lonely? So, as one of my final columns for this paper, I’d like to do a tribute to friendship and most importantly, to my friends. (Please note: names have been omitted to protect the innocent; or me, as the case may be!)

According to evolutionary psychology, friendship is a form of altruism, which is basically a fancy term for helping. Your friends probably help you in a million ways you can’t even appreciate and you probably do the same for them. My best friend will pick me up after drama rehearsal, even if it’s late at night and she has to work on a major project due the next morning. I can call her at two in the morning with any sort of crisis and rant and rave for four hours without her holding it against me. She once dictated my biology notes onto a tape so that I could study in the shower. If you think about it, your friends probably do similar things for you and you for them. Most likely you think, “Why are writing about this? This is total common sense.” Would it surprise you to know that altruism, and by extension, friendship, is one of the most enduring evolutionary puzzles?

Think back to your basic biology; specifically Darwin’s theory of evolution. Remember natural selection, survival of the fittest (although FYI, Darwin did not coin that latter phrase)? If everyone is primarily trying to pass on his/her own genes, if everyone is in essence, selfish, how do friends fit in? Why would you bother helping someone who has nothing to do with your genes?

There are no scientific answers, only speculation. However, anyone who’s ever even had at least one friend doesn’t need validation from science or any source; your friends are your friends and you love them. End of story. So, you see though that friendship – something we take for granted every day - is a complete mystery (rather like the MUIC bureaucracy’s lack of efficiency). It makes no quantifiable sense. Perhaps it’s not earth-shattering, but it’s something to think about – why do you love your friends, and more importantly, why do your friends love you? I was sure I would be friendless after I laughed so hard, I fell off my chair in the middle of the canteen and my friends had to leave or die of embarrassment. Yet these same people still allow me to call them my friends today. They still message me to tell me that they’re there for me, they care about me, they’re willing to listen when they sense I’m depressed. They smile wryly at my corny jokes, patiently explain to me how blue tooth works, tolerate my ignorance of all designer brands and calm me down when I suffer a sudden attack of nerves before an exam. My best friend knows me about as well as anyone can know me – and she still hasn’t run for the hills. Mysterious? Definitely.

You most likely have a number of these same anecdotes. If these are not enough reasons to love and cherish your friends, then I have nothing else to say. Or rather, I have one more thing to say (or rather, Muhammad Ali said it for me): “Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.” MUIC, you taught me a lot and I thank you for that, but the greatest thing you’ve given me are the people in my life, the people I’m proud to call my friends. God keep and bless all of you.

Oh, and additional thanks goes to a certain “friend” who pointed out how my Creon-like stubbornness and over-analytical nature would be my downfall (how true, how true).

Final thought: It's not the journey, but the people you meet along the way.