In his song, “My My, Hey Hey” he emphatically exclaims that it is “better to burn out than to fade away.”
Now, these words can be taken in a variety of situations: life in general, being a rock star, and the one that I want to focus on is relationships between people. Not specifically on romantic relationships, even though that’s another fine example that would apply to everything I’m going to say.
In terms of realistic life I’m not old yet, but when you start hitting ages that you’ve been dreading since you were a teenager you can very easily trick yourself into believing that you’re older than your grandparents by the time you hit that magical 30. (It’s not magical)
The question I’m getting at is if would it be better to have a giant falling out, like an ungodly fight and a reason to stop being friends with the people that you’ve been closest to your entire life or is it better to hang on to that friendship by making calls to people that haven’t really made an effort to be there? Resulting to only feel empty after every time you are sweating out the work of trying to make someone be your friend, when in the past it didn’t matter how long you had seen the person it was just like you saw your friend a few days earlier.
It’s an excruciating thing for me. People that I have loved like family fading away into a different world. A world that somehow and for whatever reason doesn’t include an old comrade.
If it came down to the fight that separated the friends, there would be a reason, a finite point to reflect upon as to why the friendship went south, or north, west, east… away. Fading away leaves the friend that truly cares wondering and pondering about little interactions here and there. Did I say something or do something stupid enough to make my friend want to start playing different tunes? (I suppose I’d see myself on the dark side of the moon)
You can’t make people be your friends. Even if they were your friends for the majority of your life.
Now, is it better to burn out or to fade away?
—-James Dust—-
Stay Tuned