What Can Change the Nature of a Man?

Ravel posed that question in the brilliant Planescape: Torment, a game that turned fantasy RPG tropes on their head and offered a journey more about character self-discovery than saving the world or defeating evil. Last night, I found myself pondering the question in a much more real sense.


It's strange how I can have productive and thought-provoking discussions with some people one day and the next find everything they say to be utterly asinine and annoying. Well, at least it's better than the (thankfully few) people who aggravate me pretty much every time I hear them say something. Ah well. Last night was more the former.

And it got me thinking...

If you have a friend, you've accepted them as they are, right? Maybe you don't like everything about them, and that's fine, but you do like them enough to overcome any such drawbacks, or you wouldn't consider them a friend. Barring some major aspect of personality or behavior that is new (or at least new to your perception), that's probably not going to change.

But... does that acceptance mean you shouldn't try to change bad behaviors? Or should you try to better your friends? Do you have a right to try, or is that a "bad" behavior in itself?

And then, if you do have the right to try, how can you actually pull it off?

Let's take a tangential detour for a moment. Smoking is one of the bad habits among some of my friends over the years. In my mind, cigarettes are nothing but bad - they're bad for health, they're an unnecessary expense, they usually lead to litter of butts, and they produce one of the most horrid and repulsive scents to my senses (capable of inducing headaches these days with little exposure). The friends I have who have smoked, I usually met before they acquired the habit or they were drawn into our gaming group by others.

I tolerate the habit in them, usually with little more than friendly "harassment" once in a while about the habit. So long as they're courteous enough to keep the smoke away from me, I generally don't feel it's my place to make them stop. Though I did, back just after high school, make a pact of sorts with one friend to keep him from smoking at the risk of $40 - he eventually just paid me and took up smoking openly even though the contract was made sort of in jest. Perhaps if I were around these friends more than once a week or two I might feel more strongly, but as it is I tend to pass it off as "their choice." So I guess I've already decided where my line of involvement ends, at least in those cases.

Last night, I was discussing with someone a more ephemeral issue of attitude and behavior. In some ways, I find it even more self-destructive - perhaps because I've seen emotional fallout whereas the decay of smoke-filled lungs isn't something I can see happening. And I find myself actually wanting to intervene and change the behavior.

But somehow that's more a gray area to me of whether I should try. And even if I do, I'm not sure how to make a difference. I'm talking changing how someone thinks and reacts. I could give advice and examples, but I find myself doubting that would be enough to change established behavior. Maybe I'm lacking sufficient "persuasion skill," but it's never seemed to be enough in the past to make any lasting changes.

I'm just not sure...