My Favorite Friend
This I sent to my favorite friend for his birthday. He is perhaps the most beautiful person I have ever met. It has been edited slightly--things removed not added. Ellipses denote omissions.
Happy Birthday,
Summertime is in the process of ending. As with most observations, one can approach this ending either positively or negatively. On the one hand, the end of summer is the beginning of a new journey at the University of Chicago, and, in so far as the decline of one increases the other this is a good thing. On the other hand, the end of summer marks the end of what has been an enjoyable vacation. Indolently lazing about after a month of library work has increased both my joy and my mental health. Undergraduate life was, in some ways, an intensely busy schedule punctuated with moments of abandon, procrastination, and partying.
The summer, by contrast, was a time of no schedules, pure procrastination, and a casual enjoyment of the pleasures of Dartmouth after classes. I lived in Norwich, in an infamous location know as "the Experiment", renown for its excellent location as a pot house. Living there quickly provided me with the reason for why this would be the case: the house seems remote and few things could be done that would disturb the one neighbor we have. (Said neighbor is also our landlady.) The Experiment is two miles from my fraternity, and about a mile and some change from Hanover itself. Not being able to drive, I walked frequently between the two. The summer also includes my first trip to the beach (though it was in New Hampshire). Much about the world makes sense when one dwells at the meeting place of Earth and Sea.
...
I write to you on the occasion of your birthday, with the few minutes that remain. I hope that your day has been both pleasurable and rewarding. Your birth is conveniently placed such that you become older in time for each school your. And being of the firm belief that each year of life should be better than the preceding one, I offer you an observation from my experiences with might concern your next year of life.
For some reason, I am became enamored with, and now pursue, the bohemian quest of "beauty, truth, and love" as expertly summarized by the bohemians of Moulin Rouge. At first I believed that beauty was all around us and within each of us. Love was the thing that we all long for and for which we search; truth was a way of life without deception and pretense. What I have found is that beauty, truth, and love are scarce; they are gifts that certain persons bring into the world for others to share in. We move through life searching for beautiful persons, truth about our lives, and love to nurture us. You, sir, are one of those rare beautiful persons.
As a present to yourself, I want you to realize your beauty and nurture that beauty with self-love. Just to make sure that we are perfectly clear, I want to clarify what I mean when I say that you are beautiful. Beauty is a property of an individual that transforms the lives of people around them for the better. There are three common misconceptions regarding beauty which I want to distinguish from your beauty. Specifically, beauty is not located in charm, good looks, or wits. If beauty was a property of charm, then a celebration of beauty would valorize surface interactions, and the pursuit of beauty would be meaningless. Good looks are fleeting; though you are quite the smashing fellow, your good looks are not the source of your beauty. If people interact with you solely because you look good, then they are using you for their own enjoyment, taking much and offering nothing in return. Wits, necessary for preservation, do not make a person beautiful, just quick witted.
Instead, your beauty flows from your ability to put people at ease and to brighten their day. What you need, and deserve, are a group of friends and significant others who will prioritize your betterment and self-growth (we call this "love") and who will be honest with you toward the end of building you up (we call this "truth"). I pray, and hope, that the next year of your life will allow you to spread your beauty to the others that you care about. Find love, my friend, and you will an unstoppable force for the betterment of all that you meet. Remember that love is both kind and nourishing. Relationships of violence or derision are not love and should be scrapped.
I hope to hear from you soon. Enjoy your senior year and what's left of your summer.
...
John Stevenson
This I sent to my favorite friend for his birthday. He is perhaps the most beautiful person I have ever met. It has been edited slightly--things removed not added. Ellipses denote omissions.
Happy Birthday,
Summertime is in the process of ending. As with most observations, one can approach this ending either positively or negatively. On the one hand, the end of summer is the beginning of a new journey at the University of Chicago, and, in so far as the decline of one increases the other this is a good thing. On the other hand, the end of summer marks the end of what has been an enjoyable vacation. Indolently lazing about after a month of library work has increased both my joy and my mental health. Undergraduate life was, in some ways, an intensely busy schedule punctuated with moments of abandon, procrastination, and partying.
The summer, by contrast, was a time of no schedules, pure procrastination, and a casual enjoyment of the pleasures of Dartmouth after classes. I lived in Norwich, in an infamous location know as "the Experiment", renown for its excellent location as a pot house. Living there quickly provided me with the reason for why this would be the case: the house seems remote and few things could be done that would disturb the one neighbor we have. (Said neighbor is also our landlady.) The Experiment is two miles from my fraternity, and about a mile and some change from Hanover itself. Not being able to drive, I walked frequently between the two. The summer also includes my first trip to the beach (though it was in New Hampshire). Much about the world makes sense when one dwells at the meeting place of Earth and Sea.
...
I write to you on the occasion of your birthday, with the few minutes that remain. I hope that your day has been both pleasurable and rewarding. Your birth is conveniently placed such that you become older in time for each school your. And being of the firm belief that each year of life should be better than the preceding one, I offer you an observation from my experiences with might concern your next year of life.
For some reason, I am became enamored with, and now pursue, the bohemian quest of "beauty, truth, and love" as expertly summarized by the bohemians of Moulin Rouge. At first I believed that beauty was all around us and within each of us. Love was the thing that we all long for and for which we search; truth was a way of life without deception and pretense. What I have found is that beauty, truth, and love are scarce; they are gifts that certain persons bring into the world for others to share in. We move through life searching for beautiful persons, truth about our lives, and love to nurture us. You, sir, are one of those rare beautiful persons.
As a present to yourself, I want you to realize your beauty and nurture that beauty with self-love. Just to make sure that we are perfectly clear, I want to clarify what I mean when I say that you are beautiful. Beauty is a property of an individual that transforms the lives of people around them for the better. There are three common misconceptions regarding beauty which I want to distinguish from your beauty. Specifically, beauty is not located in charm, good looks, or wits. If beauty was a property of charm, then a celebration of beauty would valorize surface interactions, and the pursuit of beauty would be meaningless. Good looks are fleeting; though you are quite the smashing fellow, your good looks are not the source of your beauty. If people interact with you solely because you look good, then they are using you for their own enjoyment, taking much and offering nothing in return. Wits, necessary for preservation, do not make a person beautiful, just quick witted.
Instead, your beauty flows from your ability to put people at ease and to brighten their day. What you need, and deserve, are a group of friends and significant others who will prioritize your betterment and self-growth (we call this "love") and who will be honest with you toward the end of building you up (we call this "truth"). I pray, and hope, that the next year of your life will allow you to spread your beauty to the others that you care about. Find love, my friend, and you will an unstoppable force for the betterment of all that you meet. Remember that love is both kind and nourishing. Relationships of violence or derision are not love and should be scrapped.
I hope to hear from you soon. Enjoy your senior year and what's left of your summer.
...
John Stevenson
