THIN SOCIAL VENEER

How To Tell If You’re On Good Footing With Thin Social Veneer.

You all know what plywood is?

Thin sheets of wood peeled off a tree, chopped into four by eight foot pieces, then glued together creating the super strong wood you build houses out of. And shelves, cabinets, and boats.

Instead of solid wood that reacts to every change in temperature and humidity by shrinking, expanding, and eventually cracking and breaking, plywood holds steady.

Look at the sound hole in an acoustic guitar and you might see a plywood front. It’s not a bad thing for an outdoor guitar.

Some good looking cabinetry has a hardwood veneer over plywood and you’d never know.

But what happens when thin social veneer stands alone?

Since it is a stand alone deal, it’s not plywood, and all you’ve got is a sheet of thin wood unsupported by strong backing. It’s going to break under pressure.

So let’s talk about pressure.

When a long time friend takes an attitude and quits on you during an important time, they break the thin social veneer.

How do you trust them after that? How do you patch things up?

Recently a man from the sobriety movement, someone who knows the exact time of their last drink, drug use, or treatment, caught up with an old friend on facebook.

Old friend said, “How are you doing?”

The other guy said, “Fine, still going to meetings.”

Old friend says, “What the hell are you doing? Now you’ve told millions I’m an alcoholic. Why did you attack me on facebook?”

Was it an attack? Or just an old friend catching up. Well, they’re not friends anymore and the guy in treatment feels bad for breaking trust when he didn’t think he did.

The broken part of the thin social veneer is where you get splinters, slivers, and wooden shards under your fingernails when you least expect.

Anyone who’s worked the green chain in a veneer saw mill knows this: The first place you get slivers is in your forearm when you whip the wooden sheet and guide it off the chain to a sorting bin.

The first week your lead arm, the delicate inside of your forearm, gets shredded like you shook hands with Freddy Krueger and got raked.

It looks like it’ll never heal. There’s blood, skin strips, and if you’re lucky no infection. Wrap it up and keep it clean.

After a month or so the scars look permanent. Eventually they fade.

No one blames the wood, just as you can’t blame the other person when their own thin social veneer cracks.

You think you’re dealing with one thing and it turns out another. Solid five quarter oak is the stuff you make staircases out of. Jump on it all day and it’s not breaking.

A friend made out of such stuff is one to keep.

Before you start thinking those are the only people you want around, check yourself. Are you oak, or oak veneer?

Most of us are veneer and we need to empathize with others like us.

The good news is wood floats, so if you find yourself in a shit storm, surf it.

You don’t want to wipe out.

What else can you build with plywood? The Spruce Goose. Thin social fabric in the air?

via youtube.com