Oh, if I had had a friend at this moment, a friend in an attic room, dreaming by candlelight and with a violin lying ready at his hand! How I should have slipped up to him in his quiet hour, noiselessly climbing the winding stair to take him by surprise, and then with talk and music we should have held heavenly festival throughout the night! Once, in years gone by, I had often known such happiness, but this too time had taken away.
Having worked with wild and feral animals, I do think they form friendships, sometimes surprising ones, but we as humans (who work with animals) call it "bonding" because we don't want to be accused of anthropomorphism. For such animals, of course there's the question of survival, which is closer to the bone (so to speak!) than it is for many modern humans, but the bonding I've seen goes on in spite of survival stresses, and loss of the friend can result in the bereaved one grieving longer & harder than I've seen humans grieve.
But is it what you're talking about here? including a recognition of a good that is above & beyond the relationship, or the individual? but which both recognize? I have no idea. I suspect so but I could be anthropomorphising ;)
Beyond the question of animals, it strikes me too that the same flattening of relationship that Robert Bly talks about in Sibling Society has done a number on friendships--there's a strange need lately for people to agree on everything, and an almost violent turning away when there's disagreement, which is killer for true friendship. Also, work stress. I can remember when work (good work, hard to come by now), was a decent ground on which friendships sprang up. Now, that doesn't appear to be the case.
Touching reflections. Friendship as an expressionon of love is, for me, one of life's purest joys and greatest mysteries. When I first encountered friendship, in mid- childhood, its joy was apparent and not at all mysterious. To me as a child, friendship was but the happy consequence of shared simple feelings and modest insights between me and my new best friend. It was the condition of two school children who simply liked each other because we like the same things. ('Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free".) Yet, later, upon experience as an adult and after close reflection, (as you have done so sensitively) I learned that friendship is a mystery and that comprehending it is well beyond the grasp of feelings and the reach of reason. And I saw for the first time what I believe most adults see for the first time in mid-life, that friendship is poorly expressed and inadequately explained by words, except perhaps those of poetry and religious mysticism. Even the words of Aristotle, Cicero and CS Lewis fail fully to plumb the depths and illuminate the heights of friendship as I have experienced it. (I think St. Thomas does it some justice.) As we grow old unable to advance that adult insight and accepting of the poor empirical, analytical and communicative powers of our human condition, we also become grateful for our awareness that the joy of friendship is, in fact, an inexplicable mystery of the human condition. For me, it seems that mystery enhances joy and joy deepens mystery.
Thank you for reminding me of how important true friendship has been to me. Since June 2020 when I lost my best friend to cancer, I'd forgotten. At times now I feel as if it will be impossible to create such a bond again. Perhaps that is true, but what is also true is that I was extremely fortunate to have experienced such a bond at all.
During the time between his diagnosis and his death, I tried to anticipate losing him. At one point I wrote this, echoing thoughts Virginia Woolf evoked in "A Sketch from the Past." It might not be Cicero, but it is my thinking about the beauty of friendship in real time.
"Over three decades ago to this very day, I began a friendship that most likely will not last another year’s journey around our modest sun. What the insects’ songs remind me, however, is that my friend’s magic existed in the world before he arrived. It awaited him to take up his role in weaving the song, to make his contribution, and it will be carried on by another after he is gone. What is most precious about him – what compelled me to treasure him from the moment we met and to continue despite the ups-and-downs of our complicated relations – cannot disappear because it is inseparable from the essence of beauty and truth in this world and cannot be lost."
Having worked with wild and feral animals, I do think they form friendships, sometimes surprising ones, but we as humans (who work with animals) call it "bonding" because we don't want to be accused of anthropomorphism. For such animals, of course there's the question of survival, which is closer to the bone (so to speak!) than it is for many modern humans, but the bonding I've seen goes on in spite of survival stresses, and loss of the friend can result in the bereaved one grieving longer & harder than I've seen humans grieve.
But is it what you're talking about here? including a recognition of a good that is above & beyond the relationship, or the individual? but which both recognize? I have no idea. I suspect so but I could be anthropomorphising ;)
Beyond the question of animals, it strikes me too that the same flattening of relationship that Robert Bly talks about in Sibling Society has done a number on friendships--there's a strange need lately for people to agree on everything, and an almost violent turning away when there's disagreement, which is killer for true friendship. Also, work stress. I can remember when work (good work, hard to come by now), was a decent ground on which friendships sprang up. Now, that doesn't appear to be the case.
Touching reflections. Friendship as an expressionon of love is, for me, one of life's purest joys and greatest mysteries. When I first encountered friendship, in mid- childhood, its joy was apparent and not at all mysterious. To me as a child, friendship was but the happy consequence of shared simple feelings and modest insights between me and my new best friend. It was the condition of two school children who simply liked each other because we like the same things. ('Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free".) Yet, later, upon experience as an adult and after close reflection, (as you have done so sensitively) I learned that friendship is a mystery and that comprehending it is well beyond the grasp of feelings and the reach of reason. And I saw for the first time what I believe most adults see for the first time in mid-life, that friendship is poorly expressed and inadequately explained by words, except perhaps those of poetry and religious mysticism. Even the words of Aristotle, Cicero and CS Lewis fail fully to plumb the depths and illuminate the heights of friendship as I have experienced it. (I think St. Thomas does it some justice.) As we grow old unable to advance that adult insight and accepting of the poor empirical, analytical and communicative powers of our human condition, we also become grateful for our awareness that the joy of friendship is, in fact, an inexplicable mystery of the human condition. For me, it seems that mystery enhances joy and joy deepens mystery.
Wow. That really hit the nail on the head
Thank you for reminding me of how important true friendship has been to me. Since June 2020 when I lost my best friend to cancer, I'd forgotten. At times now I feel as if it will be impossible to create such a bond again. Perhaps that is true, but what is also true is that I was extremely fortunate to have experienced such a bond at all.
During the time between his diagnosis and his death, I tried to anticipate losing him. At one point I wrote this, echoing thoughts Virginia Woolf evoked in "A Sketch from the Past." It might not be Cicero, but it is my thinking about the beauty of friendship in real time.
"Over three decades ago to this very day, I began a friendship that most likely will not last another year’s journey around our modest sun. What the insects’ songs remind me, however, is that my friend’s magic existed in the world before he arrived. It awaited him to take up his role in weaving the song, to make his contribution, and it will be carried on by another after he is gone. What is most precious about him – what compelled me to treasure him from the moment we met and to continue despite the ups-and-downs of our complicated relations – cannot disappear because it is inseparable from the essence of beauty and truth in this world and cannot be lost."