Thinking about Friends
Many more, think about friends and friendships then people who think about governance, terrorism, education or water! I usually call most of my acquaintances as my friends, even though I am not very sure how long I would be comfortable in their company!!
That reminds me of a blog of a friendly undergraduate student Ravi Kunjwal,Ravi wrote:
“The most universal and encompassing of all relationships is ‘friendship’. Given the innate urge to explore the dimensions of different words and ideas, I cannot but dissect the word ‘friend’. In a virtual world where people have an ever-expanding friends-list, it is imperative to reconsider the meaning of a ‘friend’ in the present context.
Who is a ‘friend’? Is it necessary to have friend(s)? Why would you need a friend? Some questions, many answers. The intent, however, is to offer (in the broadest sense of the term) reasonable, if not consensual, answers. Being a member of the society one can’t help but know the people one interacts with. It’s another matter if you’re not ‘normal’ (or, at least, not in the ‘normal’ circumstances – consider being stranded on an island a la Robinson Crusoe) – if you cut off all interaction with the external world (which is quite an improbability). Interaction, however, doesn’t necessarily translate into anything more than an acquaintance with the people you interact with. The greater the interaction, the greater is the chance of a friendship with the person. This is the usual norm. So, is it that a friend is someone you talk to, go to movies with, share your things with, and celebrate friendship day with? Partially yes, but there is more to it than just that. The most generic definition of a ‘friend’ that I can conceive of is: A friend is someone with whom you can ‘just be’. The degree of friendship is a function of the degree to which you can ‘be’ in your interactions with your friend.
In society, we often put up facades. Often “friendship” is one of these facades and we may not even know that. We might really, genuinely, sincerely believe in the truth of our “friendships”. That you talk to and interact with another individual might make you believe he/she is a friend. That there is one on your friends-list might make you believe the same thing. The truth, however, is that you can’t ‘just be’ with everyone of these “friends”. That is, you can’t be who you are in the real and comprehensive sense of the term. There are, then, degrees of friendship for people who don’t always ‘be’. The degree of friendship depends on the extent to which you can ‘be’ in your interactions with others. There are “friends” you only talk to occasionally. There are those you talk to very often. The degree of friendship, however, is not a function of the frequency of such interactions (forgive me for this compulsive “scientific” expression of a simple idea). It is rather a function of the intensity of such interactions estimable in terms of the degree to which you can ‘just be’. This classification of friendship in terms of the degree to which you can ‘be’ in your interactions with others might appear a bit strange upon first encounter. But think about it. Do you not feel more comfortable in the company of some friends compared to others? Do you not connect better with some people than many others? Do you not share your secrets with only a few “best friends”? .......”
I think he is a very mature student?
Getting along with my thinking, I am reminded of some of my other much older friends, for example, K.S. Ravichandran. We resided in the same Hall of Residence while both of us were postgraduate students at IIT Kanpur (Indian Institute of Technology), more then thirty years ago. He got a Ph.D in Aeronautical Engineering while myself was a Chemistry research scholar. After many years, we met several times, sometimes when he visited Delhi and sometimes when I visited Bangalore, with gaps of several years, but still we enjoy the same feeling of closeness towards one another. Why? I really do not know, but perhaps the following paragraph I read at the website of Stanford University. In an article about friends and friendships, I read:
“Friendship, is a distinctively personal relationship that is grounded in a concern on the part of each friend for the welfare of the other, for the other's sake, and that involves some degree of intimacy. As such, friendship is undoubtedly central to our lives, in part because the special concern we have for our friends must have a place within a broader set of concerns, including moral concerns, and in part because our friends can help shape who we are as persons. Given this centrality, important questions arise concerning the justification of friendship and, in this context, whether it is permissible to “trade up” when someone new comes along, as well as concerning the possibility of reconciling the demands of friendship with the demands of morality in cases in which the two seem to conflict.
Friendship essentially involves a distinctive kind of concern for your friend, a concern which might reasonably be understood as a kind of love. Philosophers from the ancient Greeks on have traditionally distinguished three notions that can properly be called love: agape, eros, and philia. Agape is a kind of love that does not respond to the antecedent value of its object but instead is thought to create value in the beloved; it has come through the Christian tradition to mean the sort of love God has for us persons as well as, by extension, our love for God and our love for humankind in general. By contrast, eros and philia are generally understood to be responsive to the merits of their objects—to the beloved's properties, especially his goodness or beauty. The difference is that eros is a kind of passionate desire for an object, typically sexual in nature, whereas ‘philia’ originally meant a kind of affectionate regard or friendly feeling towards not just one's friends but also possibly towards family members, business partners, and one's country at large (Liddell et al., 1940; Cooper, 1977a). Given this classification of kinds of love, philia seems to be that which is most clearly relevant to friendship.”
That indeed reminds me of my friendship with a woman Kalpana Mehta, just two days older then me. I came to know her through a mutual friend. Our friendship grew when she was pregnant and she decided to part her way from her husband. I remember, that I was present in the nursing home when she gave birth to a beautiful girl, Aditi. I held Aditi in my lap within a few minutes after she was born. In fact, Aditi calls me her friend!! Kalpana and myself have about two days age difference. But we somehow never developed a love relation. But, I still care a lot about her.
I really wonder if animals other then human beings have a relationship of this kind.
I think and I know, that is true.