The Enigma of Friendship
In the pursuit of being a future great thinker, I stumble myself upon one problem that seemingly artificial yet markedly predominant. The quest of friendship, is precisely what I would call it. I am a 25 years old woman living in a foreign land, standing by my own feet to feed and nurture my own self. A lot would consider me as strikingly brave and independent, but not many understand that I have been struggling to experience a long-lasting friendship.
What is a friendship to begin with? Does it merely have something to do with having a few close people to laugh and share story with? Or is it, perhaps, far beyond that?
I found the very concept of friendship as absolutely enigmatic. It does not own any logical pattern to begin with — yet if you consciously try to idealise it, you are going to lose.
In the last few months, I reckon this very problem I have in nurturing friendships. I lost count of how many people I have cut relations with, due to my very own friendship expectation in them. Some of whom, I loved dearly.
I started to question whether this is my problem, their problem or simply nobody’s? Guilty as charged: as a contrarian and someone who has been trying to sharpen my critical thinking, I found myself highly critical to my closest peers as well. I have been having this ideal figure to my respect — Syifa, my 7 years best friend during college — as my standardisation of what a loving best friend should be; extremely patient and extremely supportive. She only wishes me well, there is no such thing of subordinating one another due to the mutual respect. Now that me and Syifa have been living in a whole different continents; as she started her little family and I had the chance to pursue my-becoming-a great thinker- quest, I started to realise that there is an empty spot that becomes a hole. An abyss that I have been trying to fill with friendships that seemingly impossible to reach that very standard. The extreme of goodness.
I frequently recall one of the lines I once heard somewhere, to which it claimed that, “ friendships are the very foundation of mental stability, the world can shake you but when your foundation (friendship and connection to loved ones) is strong enough, you will remain stable,”. Not that I fully agree to that statement per se, but it is worth to consider by some means. As an extrovert, I have the ability to make 10 new friends in one night yet I am able to nurture my emotional connection to none. This strikes me once I feel like I have the very lack of connection to my surroundings and as an independent being as I could ever be — I know for a fact that life would be so much fulfilling when I can share great things to the ones I love.
Or.. is the fear of dying on my bed alone, terrifies me?
As a philosophy enthusiast, I always seek refuge to great thinkers’ viewpoints on the matter. Looking back, the very pattern I personally notice of a great thinker is to be a loner. There are way too many great works throughout the history of humankind were produced during the solitude time of the creators. Isolation, too, could be a blessing in disguise. Frederick Nietzsche’s concept of Übermensch (in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883–5), for instance, has visualised the final form of human beings’ metamorphosis is to be someone who determines one’s own authority upon his own life. One who trusts and relies on himself and no one else. One who has the very power to self-overcome and confront the obstacles he faces with his own greatness.
However, to give justice to Ancient Greek, one shall refer to what Aristotle said about the distinction of friendships. This one bright pupil of Plato explained in his Nichomachean Ethics (Book VIII) that friendships are based on three distinctive nature; utility, pleasure, and virtue.
Along with the technological development and the ongoing economical system, I have noticed that the first type of friendship mentioned is the most common. Utility. Precisely when friendship is built in according to the exchange benefits between two parties. This is precisely the kind of friendship I always accidentally sign myself into — thinking that this particular friendship would turn into a “I would take a bullet for you” kind of friendship — while it was just entirely wrapped around eye for an eye mentality.
As a Machiavellian Realist, I would claim that contemporary friendships have been resembling what he precisely mentioned in The Prince,
“For the friendships which we buy with a price, and do not gain by greatness and nobility of character, though they be fairly earned are not made good, but fail us when we have occasion to use them.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli
I would now consider this as a systemic mindset, the societal and economical system have forced each individual to thrive and to be better than others to the extent that collaboration can only be possible when it gives both parties receive certain benefits. Once the feasible benefits are no longer there, the friendship sinks. The very reason why some friendship do feel like a race of achievements, one feels the urge to be subordinated upon one another to avoid feeling “small”. Friendship that feels a lot more like a pool of mercantilism.
The second is pleasure, I would connect this briefly to Freudian concept the pleasure principle later on. This type of friendship according to Aristotle is one of the two accidental friendships together with the one I have previously mentioned, utility, that both are fairly non-permanent by nature. The name speaks for itself, it is based on pleasure. Once the pleasure shrinks, the friendship sinks. In Sigmund Freud’s concept of pleasure principle (1920), he explained this as the instinctive driving force of the ID (the deepest layer of human’s unconscious) that seeks immediate gratification from others. This includes how certain friendship does rely on the immediate availability of others to soothe unwanted status quo down and any kind of conduct within that intends to draw back any form of unpleasure (repression). The kind of friendship that lasts during euphoria and glory, and will leave you empty-handed when you need them the most.
Last but not least, virtue.
“Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good themselves.
Now those who wish well to their friends for their sake are most truly friends; for they do this by reason of own nature and not incidentally; therefore their friendship lasts as long as they are good-and goodness is an enduring thing. And each is good without qualification and to his friend, for the good are both good without qualification and useful to each other. So too they are pleasant; for the good are pleasant both without qualification and to each other, since to each his own activities and others like them are pleasurable, and the actions of the good are the same or like. And such a friendship is as might be expected permanent, since there meet in it all the qualities that friends should have.
For all friendship is for the sake of good or of pleasure-good or pleasure either in the abstract or such as will be enjoyed by him who has the friendly feeling-and is based on a certain resemblance; and to a friendship of good men all the qualities we have named belong in virtue of the nature of the friends themselves; for in the case of this kind of friendship the other qualities also are alike in both friends, and that which is good without qualification is also without qualification pleasant, and these are the most lovable qualities.
Love and friendship therefore are found most and in their best form between such men.”
— Aristotle (Nichomachean Ethics, Book VIII) translated by W.D. Ross
The kind of permanent friendships. It does not rely on the consistency of pleasure or utility underneath but virtue. Those who wish each other well. Those who empower one another. Those secure, non-competitive friendships.
The rhythm of friendship will forever be enigmatic; what kind of person I would encounter, what kind of personal and traumatic background they have faced in life, and most importantly how do they respect and nurture personal friendships.
To this point, I acknowledge one thing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the way I have been nurturing my friendships nor my ideal standardisation of a loving friend. The failure of others to reach such virtuous standard should not be the reason for me to level down the kind of friendship I deserve.
