One Person’s Influence in the World: “No More Erasing.”

Originally posted on Facebook on September 30, 2010:

IN KEVIN SHEN’S latest video Beneath Our Wings, two high school friends (Jonathan Eng and Austin Jackson) are seen hanging out together and capturing some last few summer moments before the first day of college arrives. These two best buds have been classmates and just ordinary cool guys for years now, and their friendship has seemed to last the test of time. But upon treasuring these last few moments together, viewers find that separation will be inevitable, and that, at some point or another, all friends will have to go their separate ways. It also seems unfair that this separation can have long-lasting and long-bonding friendships suddenly deteriorate and have even the best of friends drift far apart from each other. But somehow…somewhere some friendships can last a lifetime and never deteriorate no matter how far apart certain friends are.

This is the core message of Beneath Our Wings. Now, I, being a Youtube fan viewer and long-time friend of Mr. Kevin Shen, have also realized the importance of friendships since I was a little kid. Friendships are important. This is the sentence that each of us have grown up to comprehend and to imbibe within our souls. Relationships between different people usually mean the world to people. People just can’t live without having other people around them. It’s our human instinct. “We got to make friends. We got to hang out and chill. We got to party…” and whatnot. If certain people out there in this world also agree with this statement, then I applaud you. But seriously, what some life-changing and life-motivating people say is so true. Friendships are so important to the vast majority of people in the world that we couldn’t imagine living and spending time without these special friends.

To further take the value of friendship into context with the video, friendships are still tested all the time. Questions like, “Can this person be trusted?” and “Will my best bud desert me after I leave his side?” are questions that people will always ask themselves. But in order to fully grasp this concept, one must understand that if you really trust a person, you’ll be their friend even if they really are a total screw-up. Sadly, not many people understand or even pretend to care about an idea like this and eventually, these types of people will turn their back on you and just walk away.

But the message that I’m trying to get at here are two very, very important concepts: loyalty to your best bud and being that kind of true friend that so many other people need to desperately see. Now as all people will eventually move on with their lives seeking something pleasureable and sustainable like going to college, finding a job, or getting married, some people will disregard a concept like friendship to be worth of any value. But let me tell you: it’s not. When you really examine friendships up-close and personal, they are humanity’s treasures; the sustainable supplements that we feed ourselves on.

In one section of the video, Jon Eng’s character fumbles through his backpack trying to find his pencil to finish an incomplete Sudoku puzzle. But instead of expecting to touch the wood of his pencil, he instead feels the softness of a piece of paper attached to a Sharpie marker. He curiously picks up the Sharpie and reads the attached note:

Hey, look around you. All those cars going the same way, the same path, the same journey. The people in your life will come and go, but those who really do matter will stay with you and never leave. Take it easy man. No more erasing.

Let me tell you, when I first heard Austin’s character say those three precious words, “No more erasing”, it put a little spark in my soul, and a sudden joy always leaps in my heart because of these words. “No more erasing” simply means that if people were to imagine their entire life and the people that they’ve come to meet and greet as a piece of paper, people will tend to “erase” the people that these people don’t really need anymore. These people don’t really matter to us, and so we erase them off our lists and out of our lives. But how does that impact those people, and more importantly, you yourself?

Time is flying by and no matter how hard we try, it’s like grasping at air. It starts from nowhere. Is it the current that swifts us away from the places we know or is it the current that carries us forward towards new, wonderful things with our most precious friends tucked beneath our wings? I guess it just depends on how look at it, right?

I mean, really think about it. Do friendships really matter to you? Are they really important, and if so, how does that impact both you and your friends? Finally, how should each of us treat our friends? With loyalty, love and compassion? You decide.

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