I liked your post, niyazpk, because it moves from the implicit comparison to looking internally for the reasons one is stuck in such and such a place.
Friends are not bad/good people as much as certain relationships are destructive while others are healthy. But this is not a permanent state - and ultimately says more about oneself than one's friends.
This pruning off of friends is perhaps a necessary step in some cases - reminds me of the '12-step program' idea of not associating with the people you drank/smoked/particpated in unsafe sex with/etc. But ultimately it says more about the person themselves than it does about the goodness/badness of those friends. There are people who can drink and not have it ruin their lives... If you are not one of them but you are hanging around people who can socially drink - they are not the problematic ones.
When we are stuck we tend to look outwards for reasons that we are stuck and place blame externally.
There is one of Montaigne's essays that I enjoyed since school days, #4 in book 1 called something like "the soul discharges its passions on false objects when the true ones are wanting". There are some very funny anecdotes - some classical and some more contemporary of people essentially finding external causes for their griefs or gouts. The essay builds to a climax with an example of Ceasar defying Neptune after being shipwrecked and the author ends with a brilliant single sentence paragraph:
"But we can never enough decry the disorderly sallies of our minds."
This is one example in literature of a remarkable turn from external to internal - a moment of crushing realization that you create most of your own pain and discomfort and the first step to freedom from this is this realization. Whether is it Buddha's Fire Sermon, Eliot's "Waste Land", Rilke's "Headless Torso of Apollo" - this is the answer. Not ditching friends.
We move to Portland because we are not doing well in New York (or vice versa). The change in scenery will do us well for 6 months and that might be enough to set on a new track. But more likely you find out you are still the same person internally - that will creep back in.
I have had moments in my life where I have been in a magnificent place and yet for whatever reason i happened to be miserable that day. Firenze, Mongolia, Cat Ba Islands in Vietnam. Beautiful striking places and on those days struck with deep blueness (i will not use that oft-misused word depression here). And being in those places intensified the self loathing:
"... you asshole - how could you be miserable here!..."
And the answer is always the same - because I am miserable. Not because my girlfriend is 8000 miles away (and p'raps not so faithful :-0 ); not because of friends or lack of friends or type of friends.
Friends are not bad/good people as much as certain relationships are destructive while others are healthy. But this is not a permanent state - and ultimately says more about oneself than one's friends.
This pruning off of friends is perhaps a necessary step in some cases - reminds me of the '12-step program' idea of not associating with the people you drank/smoked/particpated in unsafe sex with/etc. But ultimately it says more about the person themselves than it does about the goodness/badness of those friends. There are people who can drink and not have it ruin their lives... If you are not one of them but you are hanging around people who can socially drink - they are not the problematic ones.
When we are stuck we tend to look outwards for reasons that we are stuck and place blame externally.
There is one of Montaigne's essays that I enjoyed since school days, #4 in book 1 called something like "the soul discharges its passions on false objects when the true ones are wanting". There are some very funny anecdotes - some classical and some more contemporary of people essentially finding external causes for their griefs or gouts. The essay builds to a climax with an example of Ceasar defying Neptune after being shipwrecked and the author ends with a brilliant single sentence paragraph:
"But we can never enough decry the disorderly sallies of our minds."
This is one example in literature of a remarkable turn from external to internal - a moment of crushing realization that you create most of your own pain and discomfort and the first step to freedom from this is this realization. Whether is it Buddha's Fire Sermon, Eliot's "Waste Land", Rilke's "Headless Torso of Apollo" - this is the answer. Not ditching friends.
We move to Portland because we are not doing well in New York (or vice versa). The change in scenery will do us well for 6 months and that might be enough to set on a new track. But more likely you find out you are still the same person internally - that will creep back in.
I have had moments in my life where I have been in a magnificent place and yet for whatever reason i happened to be miserable that day. Firenze, Mongolia, Cat Ba Islands in Vietnam. Beautiful striking places and on those days struck with deep blueness (i will not use that oft-misused word depression here). And being in those places intensified the self loathing:
"... you asshole - how could you be miserable here!..."
And the answer is always the same - because I am miserable. Not because my girlfriend is 8000 miles away (and p'raps not so faithful :-0 ); not because of friends or lack of friends or type of friends.