as queer as a clockwork orange

I have always carried around with me the philosophy that people disappoint. At some point signs of flawed character start to emerge from the people you care about. They tend to betray you in a silently murderous way. On the surface it would have been an action no one would ever have taken seriously, but underneath lie the unexpected selfish motives that wrenches your heart clean of any previous love you had for that person. I have grown to expect this. Or maybe I’ve grown into it. Whenever you think you’ve seen the worst in people, there’s always worse. So, I tend to treat everyone equally and indifferently. I place everyone an arm’s distance away just for my own selfish reason of not wanting to get my heart mutilated by insensitive people.

Have you ever wondered if you would  jump in front of a bus to save a friend? George O’ Malley’s martyrdom in Grey’s Anatomy really makes me wonder. I know it’s just an overly dramatic situation created by the producers of Grey’s, but it makes me wonder if it is easier to die for a stranger than a friend. Completely ignorant of who the person is. Completely heroic because the saved is ignorant of who the hero is. Untainted by ulterior motives. Untainted by memories. A pure act of heroism. It could get messy for a friend. The split second before you jump in front of the bus, you think of all the experiences you’ve had with the friend. You think of all his/her flaws. You calculate their worth. You judge, using your mental storage of data about this person, whether he/she is worth the risk. Nah, my life is more valuable and he/she gets run over by the bus.

But of course, that’s just one way to think about it and I suppose it requires a great deal of twisting your sense of right and wrong (and a lack of true friends) to think that way. This was the way I used to think. But now there are some people in my life that make me not want to disappoint. They are the ones who completely obliterate my emo world of sadly disappointing people. They are the ones who don’t just make my day. They make my life. I would step in front of a stupid bus for them.