Category: Guest Articles

MR. YIHUA XU’s RESPONSE TO  STERLING HARWOOD”S ‘The DARK SIDE OF FRIENDSAHIP’– June 11. 2025

~ Billy

I’ve finished reading the latest post for several times to make sure I grasped the idea.

It is indeed a much darker piece, and I see the different “layers” or “aspects” of “friendship” it conveys. And I agree with Harwood’s statement:

“Relying on mere friendship to get us out of this mess is, as a piece of friendly advice from me to you, naïvely and overly optimistic in a way that brings us right back to the critical thinking of Voltaire’s Candide. “

I’m an engineer and engineers have this habit of looking at or analyzing things in a more “cold blooded” scientific or “data driven” way.

Thus I look at this humanly term “friendship” in a way that — it is just a mutual emotional “deposit” and “withdrawal” interactions and dynamics between two human beings (or animals). It is part of the evolution to ensure the bigger goal of the entire species — whichever species evolve to have the least selfish or destructive behavior; it is more likely to survive long on earth.

Whenever we show kindness or help someone, it is a gesture of “depositing” something good into that person’s mind; whenever we do something bad to someone, it is also a gesture of “depositing” something bad into that person’s mind.

Humans (or more broadly, animals) are “mirrors” to each other — when someone did something good to me, I feel the need to pay him back; when someone did something bad to me, I want him pay too.

This comes (or evolved) no surprise, because this mirroring “Tit-for-tat” (or “deposit/withdraw”) behavior is actually the best strategy according to the Game Theory:

With this mental model set, we could now easily explain all the possible combinations or dynamics between all these layers or aspects or interactions in “friendship” — with some simple idea also brought from banking/economy:

Imagine there are A & B,

A continuously deposits lots of good things (love, money, education) into B;

Imagine B is the “bank” of A; Could A _not_ expect any return from B but just pure “investment”?

And if A _is_ in the end expecting some return, what is his expected “interest rate” or “ROI / Return On Investment”?

Is this expected “return” from A aligned with B’s or B’s capability to *deliver* that level of return?


Should B return less (lower interest rates) or pause returning when he is in more difficult situations — is that reasonable?

Should B return more when he is more capable, and in another tit-for-tac, A should also invest more? How much is “more”?

If B somehow not returning (or simply not able to return) “enough” according to A, was A exploited? Or Should A feel exploited?…

We could easy ask tons of questions and quickly they would just cover all the “aspects” or “layers” of “friendship”.

Just like the central bank raising or lowering “interest rates” — As Warren Buffet once said: “interest rates are like gravity”, during this mutual deposit-withdrawal, tit-for-tac interactions between human beings, the “interest rates” and the expected vs. actual acts like gravity curves the spacetime between A & B, this determined whether this “relationship” or “friendship” is a healthy one like the moon orbiting the earth, planets orbiting the sun; or collide and collapsed into a black hole.

On the other hand, with regards to the topic of God and time — I’m not religious despite my parents believe in Buddha 🙂 — I’m long fascinated by Einstein’s theory of relativity, which suggests that time is not a linear progression but rather a dimension of spacetime, implying that the past, present, and future exist simultaneously.

For example: when right here right now we stare deep into the night sky, we are actually seeing the “past” of many stars, their dying lights are just able to reach into our eyes after so long a journey in the universe or spacetime. And there are all the fancy phenomena about time dilation when objects speed up…

Hope all these fun thinking brings some amusement to you. Have a nice day!

Best,

Yihua ( From Beijing – June 11, 2025 )

__________________________________________________________

BILLY’s RESPONSE to YIHUA’s LETTER:

To me, YIHUA, you have been, most caring, kind, helpful, and “TOTALLY WARM BLOODED “

Cheers  with warm affection always,

Billy – June 11, 2025

__________________________________________________________

The Dark Side of Friendship© 2025 by Sterling Harwood, J.D., Ph.D.

~ Billy

“The wicked have only accomplices, the voluptuous have only companions in debauchery; self-seekers have only associates; politicians have only their factions; the generality of idle men has only connections; princes have only courtiers; virtuous men alone possess friends.” ~ Voltaire, The Philosophical Dictionary , last visited May 26, 2025. Voltaire certainly makes several good distinctions above, and he makes friendship sound so virtuous, how could I reasonably disagree with the likes of Voltaire? One of the nicer features of Philosophy, however, is its insistence that even the best philosophers – or philosophes, if you prefer that label for Voltaire – can and do make mistakes. Voltaire himself rightly poked fun at the great philosopher Leibniz by using the character Dr. Pangloss, who glossed over all the world’s ills with the motto and implication of his philosophy of religion that we live in the best of all possible worlds. After all, in traditional Western thought of Leibniz’s day and beyond, God is the perfect father who created the world and God is omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect – a loving God. Millions proclaim: “Jesus, he’s my friend” and “You’ve got a friend in Jesus.”


What could possibly go wrong with this sunny picture? First up is Butch Hancock, who said: ““Life in Lubbock, Texas taught me two things: One is that God loves you and you’re going to burn in hell. The other is that sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth, and you should save it for someone you love.” https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/508980-life-in-lubbock-texas-taught-me-two-things-one-is, last visited May 26, 2025.


Millions or even billions fear God and even point to their fear as a source of pride: “I’m a God-fearing Christian.” I ask: “Is it consistent to fear the perfect man?” Why wouldn’t you trust the perfect man, who is your friend, to be at least fair and in all likelihood merciful and forgiving. Allowing or even causing the teeming billions of the Lord’s creations and friends to burn in hell forever surely seems strictly out of bounds.


This is a version of the so-called problem of evil. Theodicy is the field devoted to explaining away the problem of evil. One way is to say we are just in a test and those who pass the test get to go to heaven instead of roasting forever in hell. Why an omniscient being like God needs a test to get results is left unexplained? Some suggest free will is involved, specifically, that God loves us so much that he gave us a fair opportunity to earn a ticket to hell, and without warning us in the clearest of terms possible for an omnipotent being that such a fate awaits many or even almost all of us.


But let’s bring things back to earth. Next up in our list of witnesses is Jennifer Willoughby. She describes her experience, which I find eminently believable. Believe the women, some urge. So, let us at least try to do so. Here’s her story in a moving nutshell, the nub of her gist.


“[H]e could be kind and sensitive. And so I stayed. He cried and apologized. And so I stayed. He offered to get help and even went to a few counseling sessions and therapy groups. And so I stayed. He belittled my intelligence and destroyed my confidence. And so I stayed. I felt ashamed and trapped. And so I stayed. Friends and clergy didn’t believe me. And so I stayed. I was pregnant. And so I stayed. I lost the pregnancy and became depressed. And so I stayed.” ~ Jennifer Willoughby, speaking of her allegedly abusive husband Rob Porter (Republican, Mormon, Harvard University, B.A., J.D., New College, Oxford: Oxford University, M.Phil.), appearance on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell, MSNBC, February 8, 2018.


Friendships often end badly or become exploitative. To exploit someone is to take unfair advantage of their predicament, to give a rough and ready, short and snappy, down and dirty first approximation of a definition of exploitation. Consult your experience and ask yourself, seriously ask yourself as Philosophy demands, if Willoughby’s experience resonates with you as believable, and if her experience has parallels or analogies with some friendships you have experienced. Talk amongst yourselves while I move on, since I’m scarcely done.


One might object to my damn, fool questions and examples by insisting that friendship involves loyalty and what could possibly be wrong with that, especially in the world we live in now chock full of porn websites and dating websites urging us to explore alternatives rather than loyally hang around with the person who happens to be your romantic friend at the moment. As Stephen Stills sang, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one your with.” And websites make it push-button easy to get together. It’s just lunch? But is the service arranging lunch with someone of your designated range of ages, interests, locations, etc. really just lunch or is it a portal to another friendship or at least to an experiment in friendship or trying to make friends.


Dale Carnegie earned some wealth showing us in a book how to win friends and influence people. Well, surely any prize you win in the great capitalist countries of the world at least must be worthwhile. So, friendship must be worthwhile, especially since it involves a good measure of loyalty.


But the above is a procedural argument. We’re following capitalist procedures to win friends and spawn loyalty. We are allowed, however, to look at results rather than just have tunnel vision about procedure. We need simply ask a few pointed questions about loyalty to see that loyalty is not all it is cracked up to be. Millions were loyal to Hitler. Hundreds or even thousands were and are loyal to the worst gangsters. Hundreds of millions are loyal to questionable, to say the least, politicians such as LBJ, Nixon, or Trump. Is such loyalty and friendship really so good that it is beyond serious question? Very well, what about the loyalty and friendships in religious cults? Consider Jim Jones’ Jonestown, David Koresh’s Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas (have you noticed that we keep coming back to Texas?), Marshall Applewhite’s Heaven’s Gate cult in the suburbs of San Diego. OK, we keep coming back to California, too. The problem of overestimating the value of friendship, as if it is scarcely a double-edged sword, is bi-coastal, and bipartisan, since we find it in red and blue states alike.


And then there step forward the enablers. Many friends, out of friendship or even love, enable their closest friends or relatives to stay addicted to dangerous substances, all too often leading to death. Suicide among the young is at an all-time high in America. Guns are the leading cause of death among children. Relying on mere friendship to get us out of this mess is, as a piece of friendly advice from me to you, naïvely and overly optimistic in a way that brings us right back to the critical thinking of Voltaire’s Candide. Discuss all this with your friends.

________________________________________________________________

“ Boola  Boola Boula In Fiji  Means “We’re Happy You’re Here, Welcome, We Love You “ explained  Marsha Vande Berg, President of MJGlobal Insight- July 2024

~ Billy

Boola, Boola, rang out the cry. Faces turned up in smiles even though not even the Americans among us understood the words’ meaning. That is unless they were Yale University graduates or citizens of Fiji! Boola, boola is the recurring verse of the Yale song sung worldwide by Yalies and Yalie fans. In Fiji, it’s repeated three times in a greeting – We’re happy you’re here; welcome – we love you. 

On this sunny day in 2000 as the China economy was just beginning to open up,  boola, boola was the cry of a smiling Chinese American, Billy Lee, who hailed originally from Ningpo and who gradated from Yale School of Architecture and is now retired in California , USA. On that sunny day, Billy was focused on performing in an impromptu skit before a small group of Chinese citizens in a village in Yunnan Province. Back in San Francisco, he and the five others in the traveling delegation, including this author, were members of The 1990 Institute and by extension, guests in this western, China province of the All China Women’s Federation. All but the author spoke Chinese. I dare say fewer in the audience seated on the outdoor folding chairs spoke English! 

But we were determined to communicate, and hence we performed a skit.

Our intent was pretty simple: extending friendship that is curious yet speaks without judgment of the other. We spoke different languages but we regarded the gathering as an opportunity to share a common embrace, a willingness to break bread with one another and to express gentle curiosity about each other’s way of life.  To this day, we value this experience as a gesture on behalf of cross-cultural friendship. It works when it can happen with an open heart and open hands. Its effect multiplies when it grasps the potential for bridging otherwise difficult times in geopolitics and between behemoth economies.

Boola, boola, boola became our collective chant back in 2000 in Yunnan Province. Going forward, we knew it pointed to a better way for realizing friendship that’s measured not in trade dollars or competitive economics but in smiles and a handshake or two. We realized too that the chant would unlock memories of friendship shared without judgment. Boola, boola! 

Marsha Vande Berg is president of MJGlobal Insights, a international corporate and non profit director and advisor. Find her at: linkedin.com/in/mjvb

Holistic Thinking As Succinctly As I Can by Stephen Lee – Key Words & Current Questions – July, 2024

~ Billy

“What” is the Whole to think about?

The Wholest Whole is only limited by the ability of my imagination. The key definition is the boundary (if it exists) for including everything, and over all time. What is “everything” then … ? Holistic Thinking can be applied to a smaller Whole. But the conclusions we draw from that thinking will very likely have room for improvement when we look beyond the boundary.

An Example of Parts of one Incomplete Whole

The Universe

The Earth and All Living Things

Ethnic or Religious Groups Nations

Groups and Organizations of People

Families and Friends

Individuals

This is just one way to break the Whole into units, down to individual persons who interact over time with one another and the other parts of the Whole.

Smaller than the human size is the other direction for the boundary of the Whole to expand. Virus, nano particles, atoms, photons, Higgs particle? Invisible fields? Thoughts?

Consciousness? Free Will? Soul? “God”?

In addition to space and time as the dimensions to draw the boundary of the Whole, consider also the “dimension” consisting of the foundation assumptions of your belief system for truth and life purpose. What if some part of my belief system is different from that of another person?

Why Think in Full Consideration of the Whole?

What is your answer to this question? Our personal answer to this question is the best way to start a personal mental, emotional or spiritual journey. I leave this as an open question.

How to Think Holistically?

1. When a question (especially a serious one) comes to my mind and I want to make an evaluation or a decision about what to do next, and I have sufficient time to carefully and rationally consider the what, why, how and the possible consequences of the different paths which are open for me to choose, I would try to look at the Whole picture and consider the effects of each of my possible choices or decisions on the future paths of each of the parts of the Whole. When my choice affects another person, I need to consider what the effects are and how that person will react or choose to react. This is obviously an immense mental exercise and depending on the time available, a blend of personal rules of wisdom may need to be used. One technique is to think logically on all different parts of the question and then “sleep on it”. More ideas may pop up after our brain or our mind somehow connects the dots and then suggests some new ideas or an answer.

2. How do I know that I have found the best answer? When my mind finally can rest in peace and harmony with myself on this question. Recognizing that this is still my personal answer to my question, I accept it as a tentative solution, subject to personal lessons yet to be learned.

3. How and why we choose among the different paths ahead of us is the most difficult part of Holistic Thinking. It defines our individual wants in our own mind and in our estimation of others’ wants as well. Ultimately, if we think about what makes us happy about our whole life or what purpose, if any, we want to strive for in our life, this step of Holistic Thinking rounds out the Wholeness into a potential Unity in the Diversity of the Universe.

4. The most fatal mistake in critical or logical thinking is the False Dichotomy or the Excluded Middle (described by Carl Sagan in his Baloney Detection Kit). By casting a problem as a choice between black or white only, the argument promotes polarization. “If you are not with us, you are against us!”

5. For Holistic Thinking to be more complete, it is necessary to understand uncertainty, and learn how to make evaluation which considers uncertainty, especially when the uncertainty has a range of possibilities.

Some Key Words or Thoughts to Stimulate Holistic Thinking

● Interconnected ● Interdependence ● Working together ● See big picture ● Recognize patterns ● Parts working together for the Whole ● Cause and multiple Effects ● Multiple perspectives ● How to cut and share a Pie ● Is there a way to make everyone happy? ● What mode of interaction among the parts can make the Whole better?

Some Current Questions for Thinking Holistically

● Why is the behavior of my grandchildren so different from my own childhood behavior?

● Why has the influence of some religions declined?

● Why has Democracy in many countries become polarized or fragmented or appearing less ideal?

● Why global climate changes have not yet been taken up as an urgent world effort?

_______________________________________________________

Friendship and Compassion

~ Billy

STEPHEN LEE CONTINUES TO EXPLORE DIFFERENT CHARTS –

From: “Mindfulness Turns A Brain from Antagony to Compassion” to “Self-assessment For Personal Growth in Good Citizenship”, to adding “Four Levels of Friendship” to the above.   May 2023

It occurred to me after creating the two-dimensional and four-quadrant chart in my last posting on How to Turn Fear to Compassion, that there is an interpretation for the number inside each small box of the chart.

An obvious interpretation is a score of Fear vs Compassion, ranging from -8 to +8.

Let’s explore the following definition:

Good Citizenship = Unselfishness + Understanding of the Needs of Others

Poor Citizenship = Selfishness + Suspicion of the Intention of Others

Then we can interpret the numbers in each small block of the chart as a Score of Good or Poor Citizenship. In this perspective, the words in the lower left quadrant should be revised to describe poor citizenship. The new chart is as follows.

A score of zero may be described as an Indifferent citizen. A score of 1 – 2 may be described as a citizen with Pity for others. A score of 3 – 4 as one with Sympathy, 5 – 6 as one with Empathy, and 7 – 8 as one with Compassion.

On the score of Poor Citizenship, the adjectives to describe the different levels may be Passive, Cautious, Resentful, and Antagonistic?

Citizenship Score (-8 to +8)

If a social score (from -8 to +8) is self-awarded to a person after a mindful act self-assessed with a Citizenship Score, it would be informative to self-ask how he or she would rate his or her level of Selfishness to Unselfishness, from -4 to +4. This is of course a subjective and qualitative self evaluation, but over time, the self assessment will still provide a valuable indicator of self improvement.

Then the two numbers, the social score and the self rating of Unselfishness, would be two useful statistics. They can be also visualized as statistical distributions or a statistical mean value of the person doing the self assessment or for a group of people if the data are collected for people in different groups, socially or culturally. If both the social score and the self-assessed Unselfish index for a population are plotted as a statistical distribution on top of the chart, as shown in the following chart, for two different years, the improvement would be noticeable.

This approach would also be used for comparing different groups of people over the same year of study, for example, to see if culture makes a difference.

_____________________________________________________________________

A NEW CHART EXTENDING COMPASSION INTO FOUR LEVELS OF FRIENDSHIP.

Acquaintance

Friends

Close Friends, and

Bonded Friends   ( This last one is akin to the Chinese male bonding of Yi Qi )

CONTINUING THEIR COLLECTIVE FUN & CREATIVE EXPLORATIONS – STEPHEN LEE CAME UP WITH SOME AMAZING GRAPHICS

~ Billy

April 2023 Stephen Lee sent to Billy and James:

Billy to Stephen, and James:

Just realized that the ARROWS Stephen introduced in the charts are truly essential to our research Why they move in a certain direction to start with ?  What triggers ? What encourages ? Why slow down, stop, or turn around.?  Even turn around again ?  How can that be facilitated etc. etc. etc. ?

Stephen to Billy and James:

The attached picture is my answer to Bill today about the different steps to change my own behavior from antagonistic to compassionate. I suppose there are other ways to get there

James Luce to Stephen and Billy:

Not sure that Antagonistic is the correct word in this context.

Billy to Stephen:

Your Graphic is Fabulous. You are basically a Good Person with A Good Conscience, Stephen. Some people lack a Good Conscience. Yes,how can we build Good Conscience ?

May I suggest that you illuminate more about the ARROWs you showed in your earlier chart ?  Each directive arrow may represent first One’s Conscience, then Mindfulness, Reflection, and Commitment – all your words ?

Come up again with some amazing Stephen Lee graphics !

________________________________________________________

Deepening Friendship and Bonding, Pursuing FUN & CREATIVE Ideas Together. Compassion vs Fear

~ Billy

Three Friends: Bill or Billy ( an Architect ), James ( a lawyer ), and Stephen ( an Electrical Engineer ), were having fun lately – playing psychologists and seeking Truth and Meaning about COMPASSION.

Below is a report by Stephen which illustrates their recent collective FUN & CREATIVE Pursuit.

Mindfulness Turns Fear to Compassion

The following four Charts were built on ideas and works of three friends. More immediately, some of the ideas came from my friends Bill Lee and James Luce, and I simply internalized them with my personal philosophy to combine the two charts into one. This figure shows the two original charts. The upper right one came from Bill’s readings on Compassion. The lower left chart was created by James at the request of Bill.

I recognized that both charts have two axes and that if the value of the horizontal axis of one chart is rephrased to be the opposite of the value of the other horizontal axis, then both charts become connected. The same reasoning suggests that the two vertical axes can also be rephrased so that the two charts can be interpreted as a single chart. This thought results in the following chart. The horizontal axis ranges from High Feeling of Threat to You, to Low Feeling of Threat to You, and then crosses over the vertical axis to Low Feeling of Needs from You, and then to High Feeling of Needs from You.

The vertical axis ranges from High degree of Selfishness from the bottom of the chart to High degree of Unselfishness at the top of the chart. Then a color scale is painted on each little square of the chart to start from Red to represent an extreme feeling of threat and selfishness which causes the primitive reptilian brain in humans to attack out of fear and survival instinct. The color changes towards the Green color representing compassion at the upper right corner of the chart.

Then the second chart was created by adding three application cases to illustrate how Mindfulness can help a person to modify the reflex instinct of fear and survival towards the humanistic behavior is controllable by the more evolved human brain which can make reasoned decisions according to our personal values which take into account our tradeoffs between the self and others, as well as our often-flawed instinctive awareness of the intention of the other person.

The final chart adds a fourth case to the examples. It was an actual experience yesterday while traveling in an airplane.

April 12, 2023

Stephen Lee

Reflection

Compassion, Fear, Mindfulness

___________________________________________________________________

WE SHOULD NOT BE FRIENDS – The Story of a Friendship – by Will Schwalbe – Billy’s Thoughts:

~ Billy

Will Schwalbe and Chris Maxey, in my opinion, are destined to become friends.  They are both likable human beings who very much wanted to be liked. They basically believed in the value of Friendship from the start and was willing to risk the full Senior Year at Yale– two nights every week- to mix with fourteen especially diverse classmates most of whom they did not know well. BZ, Berzelius Senior or Secret Society at Yale indeed brought them together, and the BZ’s Audit tradition indeed encouraged them to explore personal differences and find beauty in the other persons.

The story focused on Will (a Nerd) and Maxey (a Jock) joining BZ. Will is also Gay while Maxey became a Navy Seal. Normally that is not going to mix well. It took time to learn about one another. It took many special moments and the right atmosphere to spark connectedness and eventually intimacy. The book described their growing friendship from Bright College Year, to Twenties and Thirties, to Midlife, Forties, Fifties, Middle Fifties, Pushing Sixty, and Coda.  I salute the two fellers for being honest and sincere – more importantly civil and respectful- and indeed their conscientious efforts to keep good vibes continuing. Each feller is intrinsically Loving and Lovable and each possessed amazing abilities and character. Their separate life stories are genuinely impressive notwithstanding.

I truly believe that The BZ Audit Tradition indeed challenged their quest to form Friendship with different contrasting personalities.  Indeed, BZ had a reputation for emphasizing Diversity. It was the first among the Secret Societies at Yale to admit Black members. It was the first to welcome Female members. I believe I was recruited partially because I came to the U.S. from Shanghai, China. The Audit Program was carefully guided, and it has been proven to be very successful. BZ’s Mission: Achieving Insight thru Open, Honest, Exchanges of Experiences – a Place for Contemplation & Reflection- Develop Good Characters, Tolerant of Others- Forging links, Mind to Mind, in a Chain Unbroken.

Place of Engagement is significant to me, an Architect. For Will and Maxey, their magic place is the Roof of the Hall. The need to climb up thru a hatch and to find open sky must have affected their mind and opened their hearts.

I also believe in Angels. For me there is clearly a Third Person in this amazing story. On top of Page 170 David Singer yelled at Will: “He’s hurting. A lot. Just fucking call him.” Will called Maxey who was in distress. Very often a Friendship is guided or saved by a caring Third Friend.      ___________________________________________________________________________+

FRIENDLY ARCHITECTURE ? by Edward Wuenschel – August 2021

~ Billy


The post in your blog about friendly architecture had me a little puzzled at first, as this is a new way of thinking for me about architecture. I had observed that architecture of makes a statement, for example through form and function, but friendliness hints at the subtle effects that architecture has on the soul and the senses. Shortly after reading the article, I found myself exploring the map of the US, curious about places and regions where I used to live or had traveled. A memory arose in my consciousness about a road that I used to drive on my way between Baltimore and the Albany, NY area shortly after graduating from college in the early 1970’s.. The road is The Taconic State Parkway.

Here’s an excerpt from Wikipedia under the heading of Scenery:

Landscape architects such as Gilmore Clarke worked closely with engineers and construction crews during the Taconic’s construction, often on site. Some features of the road’s design address practical considerations and increase safety. Curves that climbed or descended were banked to increase vehicle traction and permit better drainage. Likewise the curves in undulating terrain are located to reduce blind spots at crests and keep the sharpest turns out of valleys. These also make sure that views of distant landscapes open up on downgrades and on long curves, when they are less distracting.[12]

Closer to the road, on the northern sections in Columbia and Dutchess counties, the road was routed to showcase a nearby view of wooded hillside or a farm. Since trucks were not permitted on the road—for some time, this even included privately owned pickup trucks used solely for personal use—in many sections tree branches overhang the roadways, creating a park-like canopy. The curve of the northbound AMVETS Memorial Bridge over Croton Reservoir echoes the surrounding hills. On the medians and berms, plantings were carefully planned to maintain continuity with the surrounding woods. On the descent into Peekskill Hollow in Putnam Valley, the trees and shrubs above the retaining wall on the east side were transplanted from the path of the highway, which retained the appearance of the local forest and saved money.[13] Overpasses, both carrying roads over the parkway and carrying it over roads, were faced in native stone.[12] Grade intersections, usually a feature engineers tried to avoid, which initially helped keep local east–west routes open[14] and connect the parkway to the landscape it traversed,[15] have since either been closed or replaced by overpasses.

As a result, the Taconic has been the subject of much praise over the years not only for its vistas but for the way it harmonizes with the surrounding landscape. Sociologist Lewis Mumford, who often criticized the effect of superhighway construction on contemporary cities, always advised friends traveling up from New York to visit him at his house in Amenia that they should take the Taconic.[16] He described it as “a consummate work of art, fit to stand on a par with our loftiest creations”.[17] The engineers, he said, had avoided “brutal assaults against the landscape.” Albany-born novelist William Kennedy, whose family frequently drove the Taconic during his childhood to visit relatives further south, called it “a 110-mile [180 km] postcard. It’s the most beautiful road I’ve ever known—in all seasons.” “You can drive it with confidence”, said automotive writer David E. Davis. “There are no bad surprises about the way the road is engineered.”[18] Landscape architect Garret Eckbo called the Taconic “as lovely an integration of highway engineering and landscape architecture as one could hope to find”.

 Commenting on this years later, architecture critic Matthew Gandy wrote:

Clarke’s design for the Taconic State Parkway, for example, provides a vivid example of a new kind of mediation among nature, technology and society, with what appears to be a delicate balance between the new infrastructural project and an imaginary natural order. Implicit within this aesthetic dialectic is the notion of engineering as an art form that can in some way embellish or even improve upon nature: there is no radical disjuncture here but a sense of aesthetic progression and purity of form.[19]


So there you have it, one example of “friendly” architecture.

___________________________________________________

Billy found the following Taconic State Parkway photos from Googling. He learned from Ed Wuenschel’s writing above that indeed FRIENDLINESS is a JOYFUL FEELING created thru THOUGHTFULNESS and UNDERSTANDING of HUMAN NATURE and our INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP to NATURE :

FRIENDLINESS, indeed, privides a warm feeling of COMPANIONSHIP WITH THE SURROUNDING and the satisfaction of FEELING THE WONDERFUL BRIDGING and CONNECTING.    

Taconic State Parkway

_________________________________________________________________________

Lived by Love. –  from  Rick Hanson, PhD    

~ Billy

news@rickson.net – copied by Billy October, 2020


Explicitly, this practice means coming from love in a broad sense – from compassion, good intentions, self-control, warmth, finding what to like, caring, connecting, and kindness.

Implicitly and more fundamentally, this practice means a relaxed opening into the love – in a very very broad sense – that is the actual nature of everything.

Be a Friend – Live by Love – Billy Learned

_________________________________________________________