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Friendship.
From C.S.Lewis' Four Loves:
Ever since I first read this book, I have thought that Lewis' definition of friendship perfectly encompasses online friendship, something often dismissed as 'not real friendship' as you are not physically a part of someone else's life. More quotes under the cut:
“In a circle of true Friends each man is simply what he is: stands for nothing but himself. No one cares two-pence about anyone else’s family, profession, class, income, race, or previous history… That is the kingliness of Friendship. We meet like sovereign princes of independent states, abroad, on neutral ground, freed from our contexts. This love (essentially) ignores not only our physical bodies but that whole embodiment which consists of our family, job, past and connections. At home, besides being Peter or Jane, we also bear a general character; husband or wife, brother or sister, chief, colleague, or subordinate. Not among our Friends. It is an affair of disentangled, or stripped, minds. Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.
Hence (if you will not misunderstand me) the exquisite arbitrariness and irresponsibility of this love. I have no duty to be anyone’s Friend and no man in the world has a duty to be mine. No claims, no shadow of necessity. Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which gave value to survival.”
Ever since I first read this book, I have thought that Lewis' definition of friendship perfectly encompasses online friendship, something often dismissed as 'not real friendship' as you are not physically a part of someone else's life. More quotes under the cut:
Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest of even taste which the others do not share and which, until that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, 'What? You too? I thought I was the only one.'
Lovers seek for privacy. Friends find this solitude about them, this barrier between them and the herd, whether they want it or not. They would be glad to reduce it. The first two would be glad to find a third.
It may be a common religion, common studies, a common profession, even a common recreation. All who share it will be our companions; but one or two or three who share something more will be our Friends. In this kind of love, as Emerson said, Do you love me? means Do you see the same truth? - Or at least, 'Do you care about the same truth?' The man who agrees with us that some question, little regarded by others, is of great importance, can be our Friend. He need not agree with us about the answer.
Hence we picture lovers face to face but Friends side by side; their eyes look ahead.
The mark of perfect Friendship is not that help will be given when the pinch comes (of course it will) but that, having been given, it makes no difference at all. It was a distraction, an anomaly. It was a horrible waste of the time, always too short, that we had together. Perhaps we had only a couple of hours in which to talk and, God bless us, twenty minutes of it had to be devoted to affairs.
For of course we do not want to know our Friend's affairs at all. Friendship, unlike Eros [erotic love], is uninquisitive. You become a man's Friend without knowing or caring whether he is married or single or how he earns his living. What have all these 'unconcerning things, matters of fact' to do with the real question, Do you see the same truth? In a circle of true Friends each man is simply what he is: stands for nothing but himself. No one care two-pence about anyone else's family, profession, class, income, race, or previous history. Of course you will get to know about most of these in the end.But casually. They will come out bit by bit, to furnish an illustration or an analogy, to serve as pegs for an anecdote; never for their own sake.
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*HUGS*
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Stacey
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It was a horrible waste of the time, always too short, that we had together. Perhaps we had only a couple of hours in which to talk and, God bless us, twenty minutes of it had to be devoted to ~affairs.
#aboutme
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I say this with his comment - if you will not misunderstand me - hovering in front of my eyes. Have I misunderstood him? I don't know.
But his definition or definitions ... I find them too, I don't know, one-dimensional. It's understandable of Lewis, because conversation and the exchange of ideas was of utmost import to him and he seemed very unknowing or uncomfortable with other aspects of friendship, but seems to me to be very deliberately dismissive of something else that I've always thought friends had - an affection that can bridge masses of misunderstanding, something that is sparked that can't often be parsed simply as "we share an ideal" or "we share the understanding that having ideals is important."
For instance, to me, both lovers and friends look both into each others eyes and out, together, at the world. To shoe-horn the two into separate compartments is to misunderstand the inchoate and undifferentiated nature of love.
I don't know; perhaps to me, one of friendship's integral parts is active, is doing for one another. That doing may indeed be the sharing of thoughts and beliefs or random pleasant discussions, but it is not and cannot be solely that.
To me, my friends' affairs, as Lewis calls them, are not things which must be put up with (albeit willingly and gladly), so that we can get back to the real part of friendship. Those things are part and parcel of the person I've chosen to call my friend. To decide that those are of secondary importance is to call some aspect of the whole person who is my friend secondary.
Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which gave value to survival.”
There is so much with which I disagree in this single sentence, right down to "for God did not need to create." Of course God needed to create. Otherwise God would not have done so. Of course philosophy, friendship, art are necessary; try living without them. Without them one survives, but dims, grows pallid and eventually dies inside.
Agh. Perhaps tomorrow I shall read this again and get a different feel from it. I have loved Lewis and his words a great deal in my time. Some of the things that I believe have crystallized because of what I've read in his stories and his essays. But I have severe problems with him as well, and I guess this is one of the times when my problems are overwhelming my understanding of what he is saying.
And now I've gone and been the bad guest at the wedding; I apologize.
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Knew you'd understand!!!!!!!!!
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I rather suspect you and Lewis are entirely in agreement there, and simply using contradictory metaphors.
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This is where dragging quotes out of a whole is problematic. The book is called 'The Four Loves', and does exactly what you say - it tries to separate different kids of love into different compartments. Because we do love in different ways. I don't love my husband the way I love my children, or my children the way I love my friends. That is what Lewis is digging into, and it does necessitate a certain amount of differentiating between different kinds of love. (He also talks about how friendship love can very easily turn into romantic love - as loves overlap.)
To me, my friends' affairs, as Lewis calls them, are not things which must be put up with (albeit willingly and gladly), so that we can get back to the real part of friendship. Those things are part and parcel of the person I've chosen to call my friend. To decide that those are of secondary importance is to call some aspect of the whole person who is my friend secondary.
I think that's possibly Lewis not phrasing himself well, and possibly him just being a man - he does confess to using his own (male) definition of what friendship is, and does not attempt to claim any knowledge of the female side of things.
There is so much with which I disagree in this single sentence, right down to "for God did not need to create." Of course God needed to create. Otherwise God would not have done so.
What Lewis means is that God had no obligation to create. Just like we have no *obligation* to become friends with anyone.
But I have severe problems with him as well, and I guess this is one of the times when my problems are overwhelming my understanding of what he is saying.
He is... very much a man of his time. When he talks about society, or gays, for example, he lacks the ability to look beyond the current accepted limits. But he is hardly the first or the last.
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Weirdly, the one person with whom I can say I truly have this sort of relationship, other than online friends, is my sister. My mother despairs that we don't talk to each other. Just because we never know what's going on in each other's lives!
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I've certainly made online friends because of my love of folklore and dance.
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