Sunday, June 03, 2007

Real friends needed!

Sure this appears like a classified ad in a daily newspaper, but to my mind it is a very important issue that we have to tackle. The human being is one of the social mammals, he or she normally like and strive for living in groups. The group can be formed by the family, the acquaintances or in work. But friends are a different subject. A wise proverb once said that: “A friend in need is a friend in deed.” So what is a friend? And what is the need? A friend is different from a colleague or a companion or a co-worker. Friendship is a higher degree of human relationship. In this day and age, finding real friends is a real problem, because pseudo-friendship can be easily formed. In that situation, either that one party knows it is sham that he or she uses as a cover for a particular purpose for a set period of time, till reaching his or her goal then he or she disrupts this soap bubble; or it is a bilateral play from both parties. I am speaking here about friendship between two persons, not the diffuse diluted multilateral friendship which approaches more the fellowship. Friendship carries a lot from the love experience. Though love has more intense feelings, more passionate and carries sensual attraction, and a thirst for carnal desires. But both are chemically oriented, so we can’t arrange logically for an automatic friendship or a robotic love. Sure there are still puzzles and enigmas about why this befriends that or why she loves that, in particular. But a common background of both, love or friendship is sincerity. That is the point of this post, sincerity. That doesn’t mean that our days as friends must be all honey and butter. But we have to respect each other, accept that no human being is completely identical in his feelings, likes, interpretations and beliefs as any other, even identical twins. May be even if humanity made cloned humans, they will not be copy-like in their attitudes. Always we have to remind ourselves as friends, that there is no one higher than the other, we are equal when we are friends. So problems can arise between friends, they can have opposing views on a point, and can make some distance between each other due to a temporary misunderstanding. This is normal to a certain degree that they will not cut their relation or become enemies. But we have to examine first why they have became friends and how do they declared that to each other? Have they got many likes, many converging ideas and carry a similar frequency ? Can they cohabitate together in peace? Do they find joy when meeting each other, sit together, talk and interact? Are they both free, independent and responsible? Because if one is dominated or manipulated by the other, so this is not real friendship. Friendship can also be between two persons of opposite sex, and can turn even to true love if their feelings melts together and the law of carnal attraction plays in. But it can be limited to only a formal human friendship, the one type that is not so welcomed in eastern societies. They believe it is not always pure, and fear that it turns bad and sinful. It is scarcely present, because to be on a wide scale, it has to be trained for, since childhood. To this end, the Internet has provided an opportunity for an objective electronic friendship, where both sides can explore each other with no obligations. Deceit can be discovered easily by alert bright people. Sincerity again, can be ascertained from between the lines. This electronic friendship, doesn’t replace the real-life friendship of course, but can be in particular cases a prelude for it. The need is obvious, because friends are made for listening, providing emotional support, social acceptance, discuss ideas or events or problems, inject esteem for ourselves, interact in a healthy way, for a constructive jovial existence. Courtesy not hypocrisy is needed between friends. Friends have to stand beside each others in difficulties, not giving because they wait a favor in return but they give out of their genuine concern about their friend.