on friendship
saturday, april 21, 2001
i'm watching schindler's list for the first time in many years. i forgot how good it is -- in my mind, large movies that got a lot of acclaim often become movies i never watch again no matter how much i initially liked it, so this is a good thing. it's darker than i remembered. maybe i've just gotten better at watching movies. i don't know. college'll do that to you, i suppose.
a sporadically close friend elsewhere once disclosed that she's not convinced the holocaust happened. she pulled out a school project she had done with collected 'evidence' of things that just "didn't make sense". she was quite upset that the teacher had failed it, resented it in fact because while she realizes it's not a pleasant topic, the work was meticulous and extensive.
i'm not going to elaborate on her otherwise, things are always more complex than its smaller details, but i do still consider her a friend, albeit with ideas and thoughts i do not support. i'm not sure how to explain it. i am able to see that despite her beliefs or interest in things i am either passionately defending or opposing, i see no illwill, none, no intent to ever carry out harm.
maybe i hope to rub off some of me on her; maybe she'd like to rub off some of her on me. i don't know.
i suppose it's some mutual fascination, the intrigue of touching the other side, and never agreeing, but learning to understand at least where it comes from. i don't know. the conversations go on for hours, neither convincing the other of anything. somehow, we function despite this. i can't explain it. it's just the way it works.
i believe in learning as much as you can about what you fight against, or you will never be able to know how to fight it, or why things are the way they are. through her, i learn. it's a simple as that.
the holocoust conversation never really got an end. she has a doubt; i do not. never shall the twain meet and all that. it gives me a chance to strengthen my certainty, though, to defend that what i believe in comes with completely convincing evidence. arguing for something distills and solidifies my points.
i could never think of the small, wrinkled man in my 9th grade class room showing us painting after painting, images straight out of his memory of men shot to the right of him, to the left of him, but not him; his brother hung; himself, hiding inside a latrine because he was supposed to have been killed but managed to hide and was now not on any list to be found -- i could never think of his quiet, teary eyes and shaky hands and imagine it some elaborate fabrication, exaggeration -- some sort of eager wish to ceate sympathy.
and so, she will bring her fuzzy aerial photo's of supposed gas chambers and point to them, "see, see, they never found anything inside here, never." and i will bring the wrinkled men in classrooms, the friends of my family with their faded ink numbers and we'll talk. we'll talk for hours.
and we'll learn.
