Monday, January 09, 2006

Any human heart...

I believe I've mentioned (more than once) that I firmly believe everyone out there is potentially loveable and admirable, and one can always find out if offered the chance, or the time & effort, or the right circumstances.

I just came across what I considered an excellent example of human behaviour, in a friend of mine whom I've known for almost a decade. This friend of mine is called Nick, he's a roleplayer (yep, the kind of geek that plays RPGs like DnD and such) and is self-admittedly "Lawful Stupid". His heart is a great and shiny object, and although he can get overly miserable at times (he's been compared - by us mostly - to Marvin, the robot from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, in many occasions), he's truly one of those people I'm grateful to be able to call "my friends". We don't share that many common interests (well, he is a Firefly fan, but what sentient being that's given it a chance isn't?) and our popculture interests seem to drift further apart as time goes by, having different priorities and tastes and all, but never once have I doubted that he is indeed a wonderful person.

And today he went and proved that again, the bastard. It wasn't anything ground-breaking, or anything that affected me personally, and it was something to be expected from him, but it still made me think, and it was one of those moments when my faith in humanity was reassured - I love it when that happens, and if you keep your eyes open it happens more often than you'd expect...

For some weird reason, and although I myself haven't played any RPGs for many a year, I keep in touch with a specific circle of friends back in Greece through a greek RPG forum. It gets on my nerves much more often than I'd like it to, but I keep writing there for various reasons. And he writes there too. So, since he's still "one of them", an old sage in those crowds, he was offered "moderator status" the other day in the all-important RPG topics.

So, you'd expect most people to be "corrupted" by authority - even "pretend" authority like the kind you would find on an internet forum. But no. He actually started caring, he became more involved, more aware of his influence and stood firmly by his duties as a moderator, even when that conflicted with what he, personally, would find fun or reassuring, where he still a regular user. And, especially in these crowds, where geekiness leads to low self-esteem and vice versa, and low self esteem is a great recipe for vulnerable, power-hungry egos, this man stood proud and was his brilliant, lawful stupid self despite all odds - despite mean and jealous comments that could push him the other way.

And I'm proud. I'm proud to have known this person for such a long time, I'm proud to be able to count him among the people I care about. He's probably not the first person I'd call to say "Happy New Year" or anything, but he's still my friend. And he deserves it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

"everyone out there is potentially loveable and admirable"
That only holds if you're saying that everyone can someday decide to become loveable and admirable. Is that what you're saying?
"Potentially".

(I like to leave comments once in a while, just to give the impression that I actually check your blog regularly :P)

BunnyDee said...

"everyone out there is potentially loveable and admirable" in the sense that, if you take the time to discover why, or if the conditions surrounding their relationship with you (whatever that may be) are at some point "the right ones", everyone has within them various things that could certainly justify you loving them, admiring them etc.

So, it's not a matter of them "changing" into someone loveable and admirable - they all already are. It's a matter of each person discovering why that holds, for each person separately.

Like yeah, maybe I'd love someone for checking my blog regularly among other reasons. But that someone isn't you right now, the reasons I love you and admire you involve the reasons why you *don't* check my blog regularly, and they're the same reasons why you're in its links :P

Anonymous said...

Did I say thank you yet?

... No, I didn't.


Well, thank you bunny dee :P even though I seriously think you have me overrated. I'm just a miserable, unhappy, pessimistic pathetic soul ;)