The Dilemma of Friendship

 

               “Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life"

(Mark Twain)

                                                                                                          

Adrian was sitting alone in his dimly lit, small reading room  staring at the books he has collected over a protracted pattern of diverse seasons. In front of him, there were books  he has never read, he smelled, scanned, settled them smoothly on the wooden shelf for the future purposes. On the left corner, there were a few, he has abruptly left, after reading a few pages due to abundance of boredom and drabness effusing from the long prosaic paragraphs. He had his own likings for the books and authors, he read, relished and referred then again and again to explore and understand the various complexities of human lives and umpteen shades of human behaviour and emotions captured in the white pages. These books were like an old wine to him, he will pour, drink till he gets inebriated.

 

While turning the pages of the of one his favourite books randomly, he discovered a  handwritten note, he has referred this book on multiple occasions, but he could neither recall the timing of the scribbling nor could he correlate it with any purpose he might have thought about ,while putting it safe and secure within the pages of the book “The Difficult of Being Good”. The crumbed old note read as follows :

 

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle's best-known work on ethics, he described that friendship itself is a virtue, or involves virtue. It is not only important for living well, as a means, but is also a noble or beautiful end in itself that receives praise in its own right, and being a good friend is sometimes thought to be linked to being a good person. He differentiated into various categories based on the motives :

·      The pursuit of good

·      Utility or usefulness

·      Pleasure

According to him utility or pleasure are the inferior motives of the friendship. True friendship will be rare. When it does occur, it will only occur after a long period of time

 

His eyes got glued to the note, for him friendship was a conundrum that he could not resolve despite investing mammoth efforts and time. He was feeling betrayed by the recent events of his life, he thought that perhaps his gesture of friendship is being considered a sign of emotional weakness by the people around him. He wondered, not a long back he started his journey of friendship with Ashley with high hope and immense enthusiasm.  He remembered the cloudy winter evening, while sipping hot coffee they got into an accidental conversation about an uninteresting issue pertaining to collective behaviour of the society.During the prolonged conversation thanks to the continuous drizzle outside, they did discover a bit of commonalities in their thinking process that paved the way for them to meet again for the bitter caffeine and pleasant conversation.

 

He picked the paper in his hand and murmured, “perhaps Aristotle’ long time is longer than human life”. He needed an instant friendship that can make him cheerful and happy, needed a friend he can share his weird thoughts with. He wished to engage with someone to enjoy coffee and confabulation about mundane matters without irking other individual.

 

Ah, its not the right time for friendship!

 

In the “Dog eat Dog” world where all and sundry are racing against time, ultimately and ironically, only to be defeated by it – Aristotle’s long time needs to be recalibrated against the time keeper of the modern times. Adrian’s experience and expectations are not unique, it is much easier to find a friend in school with shared interest. You can find acquaintance, companion, colleague, comrade in the corporate corridors and happening cafes, but not necessarily a trusted friend driven by the “Pursuit of Goodness”.

 

The friends are lost during the journey from school to corporate world. Trace back your own path- you might have had many close and trusted buddies and besties in school and college, after spending a few critical years in the glittering corporate cosmos, perhaps you are left with a few that too if you have the luck of the Irish? It is indeed true that friendship is the first casualty after the watershed event of marriage as it changes the contours of relationship between couple and their friends upside down. The innocence of informality existing between friends fades with every passing day, paving the way for a decorated, formal, decent, perhaps a “nicely fit designer friendship” with rigidly defined boundaries.

 

 

Digitisation of  friendship

 

No one can disagree with the impact of digital connectivity to get into quick, crisp and cordial conversation leading to the strengthening of the bond of friendship. Digital revolution has changed the paradigm of friendship in many good and bad ways. It has significantly reduced the in-person interactions - the understanding of unspoken feelings, the warmth of the meetings, empathetic considerations, impatient wait to greet,  the innate giggle and guffaw seems to have lost the meaning in the world of meaningful discussions. In the upgraded version of friendship, we feel pleased to share the moments of glory and but feel hesitant to share the instances of pain. There is an invisible curtain between best of the friends that only allows the visibility of happy events and occurrences. Mostly, the meeting is between personalities, the persons are well hidden  behind their smartly crafted façade.

 

 

Friends are blessings

 

The Indian Telecom Giant “Airtel” ran an advertisement  campaign a few years back with a tagline “Har Ek Friend Zaroori Hota Hai”, to target the young and exuberant college going students. I believe that friends are crucial for all age groups to keep the spirit of vivacity and liveliness alive. You must have one true friend who can stand with you when the chips are down.

   It is indeed true that unlike Adrian, many of the aspiring professionals ready with parachute to jump into  the galaxy of excellence and exclusivity may not have necessary bandwidth  and even temperament to understand and accommodate the need for a true friend in life.

    The success requires blood, sweat and tears but once you get taste of it,  it induces many unique dilemmas. The person who accedes the summit always gets the advices he/she wishes to hear from the medley of acquaintances circling around him/her. This necessitates the need for a true friend who can share his /her displeasure and disapproval  without any fear of repercussion or  hope of favour. It reminds me of Oprah Winfrey’s interesting line  - “Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” 

 

 

Sustaining friendship

 

It is not easy to sustain a friendship, even if it has been nurtured and nourished over a long period of time due to plenty of  reasons emanating from the complexities of life.  More importantly if the value of true friendship in life  is not known,  once celebrated friendship  will reduce to functional association of strangers.

The discussion started with a silent conversation between Andrian and his books and  strayed desultorily into the strange territories of friendship. Let me invoke this beautiful couplet of Ghalib to close the chapter.

 

ye kahaa.n kii dostii hai ki bane hai.n dost naaseh

ko.ii chaarasaaz hotaa ko.ii Gam-gusaar hotaa

                                                            (Ghalib)

 

 

(Woe betide, my friendship, that the friends give pious advice and sermons they deliver.
I need someone on whose shoulders could I weep, who could allay my grief and my fears)