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.
Friendship is one of the greatest bonds anyone can ever wish for. Lucky are those who have friends they can trust. Friendship is a devoted relationship between two individuals. They both feel immense care and love for each other. Usually, a friendship is shared by two people who have similar interests and feelings.
You meet many along the way of life but only some stay with you forever. Those are your real friends who stay by your side through thick and thin. Friendship is the most beautiful gift you can present to anyone. It is one which stays with a person forever.
True Friendship
An individual is familiar with numerous people in their day to day existence. In any case, the nearest ones become our companions. You might have a huge companion circle in everyday schedule, except you realize you can depend on a couple of individuals with whom you share genuine fellowship.
There are essentially two types of friends, one is good friends the other are true friends or best friends. They’re the ones with whom we have a special bond of love and affection. In other words, having a true friend makes our lives easier and full of happiness.
Most importantly, true friendship stands for a relationship free of any judgments. In a true friendship, a person can be themselves completely without the fear of being judged. It makes you feel loved and accepted. This kind of freedom is what every human strives to have in their lives.
Importance of Friendship
Friendship is important in life because it teaches us a great deal about life. We learn so many lessons from friendship which we won’t find anywhere else. You learn to love someone other than your family. You know how to be yourself in front of friends.
Friendship never leaves us in bad times. You learn how to understand people and trust others. Your real friends will always motivate you and cheer for you. They will take you on the right path and save you from any evil.
Similarly, friendship also teaches you a lot about loyalty. It helps us to become loyal and get loyalty in return. There is no greater feeling in the world than having a friend who is loyal to you.
Moreover, friendship makes us stronger. It tests us and helps us grow. For instance, we see how we fight with our friends yet come back together after setting aside our differences. This is what makes us strong and teaches us patience.
Therefore, there is no doubt that best friends help us in our difficulties and bad times of life. They always try to save us in our dangers as well as offer timely advice. True friends are like the best assets of our life because they share our sorrow, sooth our pain and make us feel happy.
Types of Friendship
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 inasmuch 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 train journey from Mumbai to Chennai. 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 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?
Virtue-based relationships are formed mostly during childhood, schooldays. Sometimes later, at college days, when we live in a state of blissful ignorance, or rather, fool’s paradise. But once one tastes the coldness of reality and learns to conduct oneself a successful professional, the circumstance demands one to have friendships on the basis of usefulness/pleasure. Be it sharing a cigarette or going for a picnic or deciding to invest in the same company shares together. Though I said earlier that it is capable of developing a virtue out of it in due course, mind you, it is not a virtue in itself. Virtue-based friendship is fantastic for this reason: it lasts till the end of this universe! Though it is disheartening to realise that most of the virtue-based relationships is formed during our young, immature (ironically because we were thinking at that time that we were the most matured of the lot!), developing stage--the mind then was remarkably uninhibited and the ears listened without prejudice and the tongues twisted smoothly to the words that flew out from the bottoms of hearts
