- Things just get so crazy living life gets hard to do -

Remember the good old days when things were nice and simple, straightfoward and uncomplicated? Neither do I. (If you were thinking of the time when all it took was a club and a well-placed strike, followed by some hair-pulling back to the individual's cave, then well yeah, that's about as close as it gets)

Complex creatures, we seem to be these days. It's just getting increasingly difficult to keep things simple. This is where the irony begins - complications arise when we go out of our way for the sake of our friends, yet also when our slight insensitivities prove more harmful than we think.

We go to great lengths to accomodate the people around us, even when it comes at our own expense. And why? For no greater reason, it seems, than the benefit of someone else's wellbeing.

We do our best to cheer a friend up when we know she's down, even when it means sacrificing other priorities momentarily. We venture that extra mile even when we're snugly tucked in someplace, to procure items for a friend we know is ill and generally immobile. We inconvenience ourselves to obtain the things we know our friends want but can't get themselves because they're otherwise engaged.

And then there are the little things others do or their apparently perfunctory words or suggestions (have no doubt, these make a huge difference), the ones we don't see or hear, but which inadvertently affect us more than we'd imagine.

Swing now to the other extreme, when we complicate matters unintentionally (or, in some cases, otherwise) with slight slips, or behave in manners which lead others to perceive us as being cold or ignoring them. As you would imagine, this most often refers to relationships between members of different genders. And most painfully so, as a recent acquaintance of mine would attest.

Forgive me for the poorly worded entry, it is 0124 and I've exhausted my creative juices on the ICA entry, but I just had to soldier on and write this one.