on Facebook and the authentic friend

I like you, however, Facebook is too one-sided without a 'dislike' button! Perhaps a few buttons which reflect our core-feelings and values, such as a 'significant' button with its opposite 'insignificant' too. A button for 'incompetent' as well as 'competent.' Those would reflect things better than the 'like' button alone. Doncha' think?

random 'friends' come and go, whether it's where you live or any other place you show your face, but this I know, that if you wanna' grow, wanna' embrace that grace, then you wanna' have friends that feel out of pace with your winning Master-Race, and friends that show-up broken and crying in your space, and friends who are not just clones of you, doing the same things you are compelled to do, and friends that'll quietly take your hand when you don't know what's going on, and friends that'll give you a firm push when you felt your life was finally done...

I remember the school yard, where tribal approval ratings were the thing, judged well if you wore the latest and greatest bling, and then another compelling day of whispered-opinion, when you felt their snickering derision; we sometimes have this need to feel special and cool, not just one of the herd, one of the clan, and yet, if you did not feel you belong, you'd be longing to all along, whether woman or a man -- rather than looking-away, we ought to be living like we were the first person who ever dared to say, 'hey, it's OK, I'd of loved you anyway...'

‘The love of a true-friend pierces the heart and batters the head’

we're really a lot like 'Le Petit Prince a novel by Antoine de Saint Exupéry,' that child-of-castles-in-the-air, in that we're all bubbles of brilliant shimmering hues bouncing and bullying each other around, looking for ways to merge with each other, leaking through our surface tension, wiggling or waiting for that 'special' one to burst us free, to really be whom we ought to be; beautifully-fractured-reflecting ones -- life is real, only then, when I am bursting at the seams of what I assumed 'I' really means...

"Most people, including ourselves, live in a world of relative ignorance. We are even comfortable with that ignorance, because it is all we know. When we first start facing truth, the process may be frightening, and many people run back to their old lives. But if you continue to seek truth, you will eventually be able to handle it better. In fact, you'll want more! It's true that many people around you now may think you are weird or even a danger to society, but you don't care. Once you've tasted the truth, you won't ever want to go back to being ignorant"

Socrates : Greek philosopher, mentor to Plato (469 - 399 BC)
Source: The Allegory of the Cave and Book 7, The Republic