I think the essential quality of being a friend to someone, of having a meaningful interaction with someone, is being able to disagree with them. To the extent you feel you can't disagree, you've got a big nothing. Just a pretend thing. Something meaningless.

It's sad to think that there are a lot of people who have no one at all they can actually be honest with. I have a few. But I want more. I want Real people. I want meaningful connections. I get sick of knowing that almost all interactions, although not based on outright lies, have an element of withholding in them.

I wish there were more people who could manage to just be honest.

But I understand that usually, in this world, disagreements result in savage behavior, and thus people are full of fear. And the way our society is set up, with the nuclear family, lemmings in shiny metal boxes, etc that there isn't enough reason for them to bother attempting to be honest with one another.

I look at my stepfather. His two daughters aren't close to honest with him. And well, to be honest, they've got some good reason to not bother being honest with him. He turns to force constantly to try to make people do things the way he wants them done. He almost never really uses reason. And he raises his voice. He yells. He will argue to hell and back over the smallest thing. For example this weekend he wants 5 of us to load into a car and go 3 hours out of our way to drop off one person instead of just taking two cars. And it's truly not worth it to not just go along with him. This time I won't bother. I'll bring some books. Just about any normal person wouldn't make a big deal about it but if someone says, 'No, I'll take a separate car." He's liable to fight over it right into a final heart attack.

It's understandable that people just want to avoid him. So that's what they do.

I have for the most part tried to not be that way. I think of Akira Kurosawa's Ran (King Lear adaptation). In which the older brothers just lie to keep out of any fight. The youngest cares enough about his father to tell the truth. The result is a huge fight with that son banished.

So have I done with my father. But in the end in Ran, the old king finds his youngest son and loves him so. I've had huge fights with my dad, given myself huge headaches where it would have been easier to just act like my sisters. Instead I've thought enough of him to act real with him. In the long run I'm the only person who he's got left that he feels really cares about him. I'm the only one who hasn't been meaningless with him. I'm the only friend he's got.

But then, he is my father. On the other hand there are so many people out there. 99.9% of them I'll have a short meaningless exchange with and nothing more. Being actually honest with them, bothering to disagree just has no point to it.

Generally speaking it's hopeless trying to be honest with people. And I must understand I'm going to go through my life with almost no one ever being honest with me.

Edit: I don't mean to make my stepfather sound like a bad person. He's essentially a man really trying to be good. He is not actually a selfish person. He cares about people very much. He's brought over 100 people from the third world to get college educations through a scholarship fund he created and runs (and donates a lot of money to from an ordinary professor salary). He's essentially a good guy who unfortunately has rightwing ideas ingrained in him. The father is the final authority on everything in his mind. And he made up his mind for good a few decades ago.