Who Cares

An anonymous man with a moustache once told me that friendship is like peeing your pants. Everyone can see it, but only you can feel the warmth.

For full effect, download “That’s What Friends Are For” by the four British vultures in The Jungle Book and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

I know I have beaten this topic like a dead horse but what can I say, it’s one of the truest pieces of Brocktrine I have ever stumbled across in my near three-decade existence. I have no idea what is pushing me to blog about the good people in my life, so don’t ask what is the source influencing my “feel-good” post of the week.  Maybe it’s the push of the Pacific Northwest’s allowance of marijuana usage that has inspired this genuflection of the good people in my life. Yeah that’s got to be it, secondhand whiffs of Snoop Dogg’s fuel. I’ll claim that as my muse.

For the record, I would like the jury to note that I am not having some type of a mid-life crisis where I gaze at my surroundings and wonder what direction my path is headed. I know that is common for the majority of Utah-raised men on the brink of their thirties. However, I do not fall in the same category as the rest of them because I don’t have my third child out of six just starting middle school, so I think that sets me apart. All I can say is when I’m on the road for a few weeks by myself in late October, jumping on 4 am flights to Seattle and listening to podcasts at midnight to make sure I don’t fall asleep at the wheel on Highway 5, I sometimes ramble into the uncharted territory of what is important in my life.

And that’s where my rants on friendships are born.

The lives we live are devoted to material gratification by things that have absolutely no value whatsoever. Our satisfaction is fueled by the number of “toys” we can play with in our adult lives. Fast cars, manly four-wheelers, grey suits with a sky blue pinstripe on sale at the Nordstrom Rack for $199.99, you know, those things. We all want them, we all live for them. They are the fabricated indulgences that we strive to attain, and in the back of all of our minds, regardless of our upbringings, we know that none of these things matter at all.

They don’t. They really don’t. The clothes we wear, the bling we flaunt, the new pair of red Nike free runs we purchased at the outlet malls in Centralia Washington, none of that will be remembered in the long haul of life, I guarantee it. When I am laying on my bed about to die from e.bola or laryngitis or whatever freak of a viral concoction turning everyone into a Zombie in fifty years, I will not look into the eyes of my posterity and tell them how nice it was to own a 55-inch flat screen HDTV. Material things are just that, only material. The memories they make have no substance whatsoever.

And that’s where friends come in.

Again, I am not sitting on some lonely bench in the park writing down my thoughts, wiping back the tears because of how grateful I am the good man upstairs invaded my pastures with flocks of friends that I can’t count. We all know how cynical and bitter I can be, so please, don’t confuse me with some sap whose eyes tear up watching movies like Captain Phillips. All I’m saying is that friends are some of the most valuable consistencies anyone can have. When everything goes to crap, they’re the ones we can call and vent to. They know us for our vulnerabilities, and we are okay with that.

You can go ahead and blame the allowance of weed usage in this part of the country for this spark of sentimentality, but regardless, I am still grateful for the friends I’ve come across thus far in my life. I’m grateful to eat overly priced pizza in liberal-themed restaurants with couples who care investing time in my love stories. I’m grateful for a high school buddy and his wife who allow me to come over for home-cooked meals once a year while their sons run around dressed up like Ninja Turtles. I’m grateful for group texts from bros across the country living up to the Bro Code and pushing me to buy that grey suit with a sky blue pinstripe. I’m grateful for old college roommates who agree to our annual snowboarding trip the first week of December.

Kids, this life is full of things that are not important, that have no meaning once all of the cards are dealt. They may have a price tag attached to them at this point, and we may hand over monetized slips of paper in exchange for these plastic pieces of false fulfillment, but you know and I know that these things do not matter. What does matter are the interpersonal connections that we can’t buy with money, the friendships that will never have a shelf life, the people we surround ourselves with every single day in this messed up creation known as life.  

Those things, are worth more than anything.