Merry Christmas! God Jul! Most of the population is raised Christian so there's none of that Happy Holidays crap. Just good ol' Christmas.

And while not exactly the most jolly Christmas post, I couldn't find a fitting spot on the last post, so here you go. The bus trip across Sweden gave me time to catch up on my Nietzsche. His argument that most friendships are simply means of using people seemed pretty bleak. He makes some obvious examples of someone you befriend in class because they take much better notes than you do. When the class ends the friendship ends as well. OK that's pretty clearly a friendship where people are used. Another example was someone you play sports with: you cannot play without an opponent so you befriend them so you can play a game you enjoy. That's arguable, befriending someone as a means to make you happy seems like a pretty normal thing to. The last example of a friendship of using one another is when people pick friends that are like them or complement/compliment them. The claim is that subconsciously we pick them to make ourselves feel better, and thus the friendship is another means of utility.
Nietzsche suggests that a better friendship is based on mutual enjoyment; that you must actually like the person you play sports with or like your friends. But, aren't people then just befriending one another so they can enjoy each other's company? Seems just as bad as playing sports with someone so you can enjoy the game. The best friendship is one from mutual inspiration, where one befriends people who you see as better than you and seek to emulate their virtues. Again, being friends with someone in order to improve yourself seems similar to the friendship with the person who takes good notes. Nietzsche looks like he wasn't so much describing what does and doesn't make a friend but the difference between friends/acquaintances and your bestest best friend in the whole wide world. Looks like the only way not to end up using someone is to never have friends of any sort, which would be one sucky life. Alternately you could just not say "using each other" and making it sound so base and manipulative, but call it symbiosis. If you get really cynical about it, you can suck the joy out of pretty much everything.
After all, Christmas is nothing but celebrating the birthday of the founder of a intolerant religion with a history of terrible violence and cruelty. But that isn't going to stop me from enjoying it. It's snowing! The first white Christmas I've ever seen, I finally can try out my new parka. Later everyone, spend some quality time with your friends (screw Nietzschean cynicism!) and family. Hejdå!