FRIENDSHIP

A friend is a person capable of loving irrespective of whether he is being loved or not.  Friendship can exist between the same sex: man-man, woman-woman, or opposite sex: man-woman. It transcends age and could subsist between even an old man and a small boy.  Human beings also establish friendships with their pet animals such as cats, dogs, horses, doves and parrots.  Friendship can also be felt in familial relationships between father and son, mother and daughter, husband and wife, brother and sister, elder brother and younger brother. Yet, more than friendship, love is the binding force in familial relationships. In a deeper sense, love is below friendship because it is an above/below relation, one of hierarchy and condition.  It is implied, then, that friendship is freedom plus equality.  It involves choice and volition. The concept of friendship needs exploration because often a man is known by the company he keeps; knowing the company helps one to know oneself and develop his personality to the fullest.  

Each of our friends mirrors a rejected or acknowledged trait in us.  They happen to be our friends because it is ourselves in different forms, and a unified vision of them constitutes to the sameness of our identity. Generally, friendship exists for three reasons:  a)  virtue  b)  usefulness  c) pleasure.  When virtue is the reason, friendship exists for the sake of friendship; where both like each other and cherish each other for some creditable values in the other’s personality.  You wish to be the friend of that person for the sheer personality that he/she has.  It has a magic in itself.  It attracts you.  And it is mutual.  You know that you would even die to swear your friendship for that person.  But you also know that the other would make you live than die for him/her.  It is somewhat platonic in concept in as much as the other may not be/need not be all that intelligent and good looking, useful or capable of giving pleasure.

A friendship of the second kind is formed for the utilitarian value of it.  How useful so and so is to me?  What can I benefit from him?  Can I use his car?  Will he use his reputation and influence to fetch me a good job?  Will he lend me money in need? Thus a person may ask and maintains relationship for practical, professional, and political reasons.  I remember the friendship I made with two others on a bus on my way home to Laguna.  It was extremely useful for killing time during the journey.  Further, all of us had to go to the bus-stand to continue our onward travel.  Therefore we took an auto rickshaw till the bus-stand and shared the money.  But then, once we boarded our buses to our 

destinations, we were looking forward to meet our people at the hometown.  That is the quality of this friendship; it is useful but lasts so long as the need for utility persists.  Once we do away with the utility need the friendship eventually dies.  It holds good only for that moment and need.Friendship of the third kind is formed essentially on account of the pleasure the relationship is capable of giving.  He is a joker.  The moment he enters, you forget all your worries.  You cannot but wonder what new joke he has got up in his sleeve to make you roar into laughter.  And he never disappoints you that way.  She is cute, intelligent and charming.  The very notion that she is your friend makes you feel proud.  That she walks, talks and takes tea with you is enough.  You are on cloud nine.  The point rests here:  How good is he/she in giving me pleasure--physically, emotionally, mentally and materialistically? Now to the question:  Which of the three is good?  It appears that type A is good, but it is not as useful or joyful as the other types.  Type B is good, yet it falls short of longevity and quality.  Type C too is 

good, but how long one enjoys only pleasure in life?  How many jokes can a person take in a day? And does it give the same pleasure as it gave to him in the beginning?  Doesn't he reach a saturation point, a mental and emotional exhaustion?  Where he would rather prefer to be left alone to himself?  Would prefer to shed a tear inside rather than go on laughing at the follies of the world?

In close observation, it would be revealed that all these type differences are not watertight compartments.  They overlap with each other.  A relationship started on the basis of usefulness may also get elevated to the status of virtue in due course.  Similarly a virtuous friendship also could soon impart usefulness and pleasure.  It would be an ideal package to have all the three together.  But you see my friend, how difficult it is to form relationships?