The Ineffable Qualities Of Friendship
The other day I had a sudden urge to contact an old friend of mine, someone I've known for 25 years now. So I SMSed him – a short, casual message asking how he was and when he'd be in the neighbourhood. I received a reply a few hours later. He was surprised that I was asking at this particular time: he had just dreamt about the way we used to be, and he would be visiting our tiny state this very weekend.
It has been a long road. Somewhere amidst the tomfoolery, the visits to odd parts of the country, the late-night sessions, the banter about life and girls, the practical (and impractical) jokes, you can still find the thread the holds it all together. But the nature of that thread is a difficult one to perceive, let alone describe.
You see the cut-scenes, you remember the insane moments, and yet you cannot quite say what strange weapon was tempered, what familial defence was proofed, what dread chain was forged. I still remember the first long walk we took, around the shopping district. Right in the middle of it was a girls' school well known for its spirit of sincerity, courage, generosity and service. And inaccessibility. We walked around it three times before he figured out I was leading him in circles.
He demanded to know why we were doing this. Then I found the right moment and we were in the school grounds, making friends. Of course, it was a completely illegal activity. But you can't have a school in the middle of a shopping district and not have such goings-on, surely? Well, the defenders of the gate were quite serious about evicting us. Years later, he would recall that we had not appeared to make much progress in our sad little social lives, and yet... there was this incredible database.
Databases were new in that long-ago era. It is difficult now to remember just how long ago VisiCalc and dBase were, how wonderful it was to programme in Assembly, to use a Z80, to touch the face of CP/M. And there I was, assiduously keying in every little bit of data I could find, creating profiles of everyone we knew.
It was odd that nobody thought of me as a geek; it was a relief that I had enough social life not be thought of as a nerd. The database saved me, in a sense. I became a computer-assisted social coordinator in a time when this was uncommon. I wrote little programs to assess compatibility; I devised ranking formulae for acceptability and style. It was a grand endeavour, great fun, and almost completely useless. We never took it seriously, but it was serious enough to consume a fair amount of time.
And 25 years later, with high school and university and other major events behind us, what did all that accomplish? What traits, qualities, behaviours did such a life develop in those who shared this peculiar friendship? I have a few ideas.
Apparently, one of these qualities is the capacity to forge 'psychic' links. I don't mean something paranormal (or at least, I don't think so). We had no cellphones, hardly any internet capability, fast modems ran at 300 baud. It made us compensate in ingenious ways. It was a kind of information tradecraft, the ability to exchange very compressed useful information and have enough redundancy to make it work. Inevitably but inexplicably, some of us developed the ability to communicate without saying anything, or to leave the equivalent of post-hypnotic messages.
Another one of these qualities is the sense of being connected into a huge safety-net. Somehow, in any major city of the world, there is the odd sensation that resources are always available. And they are, often just around the corner. Parachuted into NYC a few years after 9/11, I met up with friends I hadn't seen for years. You turn a corner, and there they are. Walking down a lonely London lane, you find another one. It isn't something you rely on, of course; but in a sense, it has come to be something you almost expect.
These two qualities together really forged the equivalent of a universal knowledge resource. You always know whom to call when you need something esoteric or a person with the right professional skills (intellectual-property lawyer, dermatologist, uranium toxicologist, coastguard commander, and so on). The modern equivalents, I am sure, are not lacking. But I think of the odd talents we found in ourselves as the equivalent of steampunk – not quite cybernetic, but close enough and considerably more romantic.
It has been a long road. Somewhere amidst the tomfoolery, the visits to odd parts of the country, the late-night sessions, the banter about life and girls, the practical (and impractical) jokes, you can still find the thread the holds it all together. But the nature of that thread is a difficult one to perceive, let alone describe.
You see the cut-scenes, you remember the insane moments, and yet you cannot quite say what strange weapon was tempered, what familial defence was proofed, what dread chain was forged. I still remember the first long walk we took, around the shopping district. Right in the middle of it was a girls' school well known for its spirit of sincerity, courage, generosity and service. And inaccessibility. We walked around it three times before he figured out I was leading him in circles.
He demanded to know why we were doing this. Then I found the right moment and we were in the school grounds, making friends. Of course, it was a completely illegal activity. But you can't have a school in the middle of a shopping district and not have such goings-on, surely? Well, the defenders of the gate were quite serious about evicting us. Years later, he would recall that we had not appeared to make much progress in our sad little social lives, and yet... there was this incredible database.
Databases were new in that long-ago era. It is difficult now to remember just how long ago VisiCalc and dBase were, how wonderful it was to programme in Assembly, to use a Z80, to touch the face of CP/M. And there I was, assiduously keying in every little bit of data I could find, creating profiles of everyone we knew.
It was odd that nobody thought of me as a geek; it was a relief that I had enough social life not be thought of as a nerd. The database saved me, in a sense. I became a computer-assisted social coordinator in a time when this was uncommon. I wrote little programs to assess compatibility; I devised ranking formulae for acceptability and style. It was a grand endeavour, great fun, and almost completely useless. We never took it seriously, but it was serious enough to consume a fair amount of time.
And 25 years later, with high school and university and other major events behind us, what did all that accomplish? What traits, qualities, behaviours did such a life develop in those who shared this peculiar friendship? I have a few ideas.
Apparently, one of these qualities is the capacity to forge 'psychic' links. I don't mean something paranormal (or at least, I don't think so). We had no cellphones, hardly any internet capability, fast modems ran at 300 baud. It made us compensate in ingenious ways. It was a kind of information tradecraft, the ability to exchange very compressed useful information and have enough redundancy to make it work. Inevitably but inexplicably, some of us developed the ability to communicate without saying anything, or to leave the equivalent of post-hypnotic messages.
Another one of these qualities is the sense of being connected into a huge safety-net. Somehow, in any major city of the world, there is the odd sensation that resources are always available. And they are, often just around the corner. Parachuted into NYC a few years after 9/11, I met up with friends I hadn't seen for years. You turn a corner, and there they are. Walking down a lonely London lane, you find another one. It isn't something you rely on, of course; but in a sense, it has come to be something you almost expect.
These two qualities together really forged the equivalent of a universal knowledge resource. You always know whom to call when you need something esoteric or a person with the right professional skills (intellectual-property lawyer, dermatologist, uranium toxicologist, coastguard commander, and so on). The modern equivalents, I am sure, are not lacking. But I think of the odd talents we found in ourselves as the equivalent of steampunk – not quite cybernetic, but close enough and considerably more romantic.
Labels: Friendship, Networking, Nostalgia, Remembrance, Technology
etched with acid at 11:43:00 am
2 Comments:
HAHA. I'm trying to recall your observation about said school's girls. Tai Tai's was it?
Oy! That kind of comment should not be promulgated except in a specific sociocultural context. One from which said author also derives identity. 'Context is all.' *grin*
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