Losing friends

      Why is it do people you once considered close friends all of a sudden become people who can't stand you or you can't stand them?  What changed in your relationship?  They seem like the same person, so what happened?  Did you just grow apart?  Or is there some underlying cause?  This happens to people all the time.  Now, I'm not talking about big events like they stole your significant other or something like that.  I'm talking about how one small little fight ends up in the end of the friendship.  It's easy to say that it was the straw that broke the camel's back, but I have a deeper insight on why that was the straw that did it.
    When you decide someone is your friend you let them into your circle.  You allow access to your thoughts, desires and want to spend your free time with that person.  Since people are naturally guarded, the longer you know someone the more you let them in.  After a while, they become so close that you stop looking at their actions as something independant of you.  You become emotionally involved with that person, which means that their actions now affect you.  For me, this normally takes someone six years to become emotionally involved where it's no longer just something I do, but it affects them because they worry or they care.  Sometimes it happens vice versa but not often.  It isn't that you just got sick of their shit, it's that you started to care so much about them that their problems now drain you.  It brings you down when something harms them, and if they keep doing those things, eventually you have to protect yourself by breaking away.  That is how we lose those we considered close friends.  Up until now, it only hurt one of you, now it hurts you both.

Self-security and friends

Most people feel better about themselves when they say they get along with everyone and have many friends.  Not only is this not often the case, but the opposite is more true.  Someone who is secue with themselves doesn't need a lot of friends.  They don't need the constant vertification that it's okay for them to be them.  Because of this, the quantity of friends is low but the quality is high because you attract self-secure people who accept you for you.  Then there is no need to pretend to be someone else, live a lie, or do what most people do to try to get friends.  Afterall, it's very easy to keep the friends you got by being you.

Fried Chicken and watermelon

Recently I heard a black person get extremely upset because a white guy said, "I like friend chicken and watermelon too."  Immediately the white guy was called racist.  How is that a racist comment?  In Greece, it is extremely common to have watermelon after your meal for dessert.  In fact, I don't know many people who don't like the taste of fried chicken or watermelon.  The only problem the people I know have with fried chicken is that it's fattening.  How did this become a black thing? Why is it racist for a white person to like it? 
      Let's just pretend it was a black thing.  Why do blacks hate when whites enjoy their culture.  Other cultures from the Greeks to the Dominicans, to Mexicans to Puerto Ricans love to show their culture.  Jews don't get mad if I say I like challah.  Greeks don't get mad if someone likes galaktoboutiko or baklava.  Dominicans don't get mad if you like mangoes and platanos so why do black people get offended if people like watermelon and fried chicken?

I've even heard blacks complain about blacks openly admitting that they like watermelon and fried chicken.  Two years ago, NBA star Josh Childress had a Youtube video of him eating fried chicken and watermelon. The next day a black basketball analyst named Stephen Bardo said something along the lines of how disrespectful this generation is because his dad would have slapped him in the back of the head if he did something to put black people back like that.  He went on to say that blacks are trying hard to fight against the stereotypes against them.  Why would you fight against that stereotype?  Who really cares?  How does it set black people back in their civil rights fight if some blacks are unashamed that they like watermelon and fried chicken?  Well, I'll just say this, call me a racist, I love watermelon and fried chicken so if you don't want yours, I'll eat it.

Finding yourself.

People always ask me how is it that I can be so secure with myself.  How is it that I can act the same no matter who's around?  Why am I the way I am?  They ask this because they want to know themselves and they want to have that same self-awareness and self-knowledge that I have.  Some find this through therapy or graphology but for me, use the money you would spend on that stuff to travel abroad. 
         Once you leave your home country and you're in a foreign place, the only thing you have is time to reflect. Ideally, you want to do this without a close friend because when you're abroad, you're surrounded with people that you know you may never see again.  You also are not in the environment you grew up in.  I'm a firm believer of "You can take someone out of the city but you can never take the city out of the person" but when you're in a different environment amongst people you may never see again, there's no reason not to act yourself.  Nobody to impress, nobody to fit in with, no reason to go against your nature.  For me, it was sitting on the edge of a cliff by myself over the Aegean in Greece with the Mountains as background.  For others it may be the clean water of the Carribbean, or the pyramids of Egypt, but when you force yourself in solitude, all there is is time to self-reflect.  And then, you just might find who you are.

Fan comment about my book

i'm loving your book. 

i only read 2 chapters so far but i really am enjoying it.  ill let you know what i think as i go.

i can hear your voice reading it to me in my head.. kinda creepy

~Joe ~ Denver, CO

Hate

      Recently I have been yelled at because I use the word "Hate" a lot.  People believe it is wrong to hate but hating is just as natural as loving.  There is a reason that there is a thin line between love and hate, they're both born out of passion.  They only differ in where that passion takes you.  I know what I hate, it allows me to be able to avoid those things so I can avoid them. 
                    The point is though, your hate should be based from your own personal experience not what you've heard.  Do not be afraid to have an opinion of something after having tried it only once.  You do not need to waste any more time on things you've experienced and found you hate.  Do not be afraid to hate or admit you hate something, for if you can hate, then that means you can love.  The reverse is also true, if you cannot hate, you cannot love.  Therefore, the opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.