FRIENDSHIP

Francesco Alberoni. Friendship. An Approach to One of the Most Ancient Human Bonds,
Barcelona, Gedisa Editorial, 1997. Brother Paulo Dullius, fsc

Does friendship still exist in the contemporary world? At first glance, it seems not. The market-
Economics and interests govern the business world; the struggle for power dominates politics.
There is little room for sincere personal relationships. There is also a lot of change and we say goodbye.
about friendly people promising to return, but other realities make this practically unfeasible. The
the use of the term ended up representing individualistic criteria and privileges, big and small,
About a system that, if it were just, should be governed by universal and commendable criteria. Many
they think that friendship is a ghost of the past, doomed to disappear.
However, friendship continues to be an essential component of our life. Confucius (V
aC) lists five fundamental types of interpersonal contacts: the relationship between the emperor and his
subjects, between parents and children, between man and woman, between older brother and younger brother. These
relationships are from a superior to an inferior. The fifth relationship - non-hierarchical - is the one that occurs
among peers is friendship. The model of a friend depends on the values of a society in a...
in the era. It is necessary to look at what is common in relationships. It is surprising that the term
"friendship" does not have a univocal understanding. The most common meanings are:
a) The acquaintances. Most of the people we consider our friends are actually
Only acquaintances, that is, people who are not strangers to us like the amorphous group of others.
we know what they think, and their problems. But they do not inspire deep trust; we do not...
we have our deep anxieties.
b) Collective solidarity. Everyone who stands by our side are friends, as happens in war
On one side, the friends; on the other, the enemies. This solidarity is not personal. Here-
The one who wears the same uniform is a friend, but I don't know anything else about him. The forms of solidarity that
they are born into sects, political parties, and beliefs belonging to this category. Christians call themselves
mutually of brothers or friends, socialists speak of companions.
c) Paper relationships. These are personal relationships based on social roles. It is the friendship that...
tends to benefit, both in business and in politics.
d) Sympathy and friendly feelings. They are the people we enjoy meeting.
who are nice and whom we admire. But, even in this case, emotional states often come into play.
fragile and superficial dreams.

What is friendship, then? This word brings to mind a serene, transparent feeling,
made of faith and trust. In general, people are quite satisfied with what they understand as friendship.
J.M. Reisman says: "A friend is someone who is pleased to do something good for another and desires to do so, and con-
consider that your feelings are reciprocated." It is the field of altruistic and sincere feelings. It is
it is impossible to confuse her with interest, calculation, or power. But that is too general. A
A mother wants the best for her child and hopes to be reciprocated. The same happens with romantic partners.
those who love each other or siblings who care for one another. Reisman's definition relates more to the love of
that friendship, for it is love that wants to make the other happy. One might say that a friend is someone who pes-
a being we care for and who cares for us too.
It is easy to distinguish friendship from more superficial social relationships, from utilitarian or base connections.
youths in professional activities. The problem is to distinguish friendship from other forms of love. For
example, in which friendship differs from dating? Are there maternal and paternal love relationships and if you want
to maintain these sometimes petty ties. Can we manipulate our friend? The love of friendship is
of a particular type and must be clear, because otherwise it fades away?
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 Friendship and dating. Friendship and dating are two completely different and opposing phenomena.
a) Onamoroé is a fact that has a defined beginning. In its origin, in its incipient state, it
manifests through a glow, a revelation. Friendship does not settle with just one initial situation, but
through a series of meetings and successive deepening. b) There is no true courtship-
one is more true than the other. There are no different degrees of falling in love: very much, much, bas-
aunt or little. Saying 'I am in love' says it all. The relationship follows the law of 'all or nothing'. Aami-
it manifests in various forms and degrees. It ranges from the minimum to the maximum of perfection. It can be small.
Oh, very great. It tends to the maximum. When we talk about friendship, we have an ideal in mind, a
utopia. c) Onamoroé a passion, Leidenschaft. Leiden means suffering. Passion includes the s-
Suffering. Dating is ecstasy, but also torment. Friendship has horror of suffering. When
Sometimes, avoid it. Friends try to meet and feel comfortable together. If they can't, they tend to
to let oneself go. d) We can fall in love with someone without being reciprocated, and even so, we do not stop.
of being in love. Dating arises without reciprocity and seeks it. Friendship demands without-
For a certain reciprocity. We do not continue to be friends with those who are not our friends. It is difficult to abandon...
To those we love. To free ourselves from unrequited love, we need to use violence against
ourselves, hating the other. But the hatred for the loved one is a suffering, the most atrocious of them. In friendship
There is no place for hatred. If someone hates their friend, they are no longer their friend, and the friendship ends.
In a relationship, the loved one is transformed: they are themselves and more than themselves. They are dual: they are one being.
very concrete and it is also the divinity that carries within itself all the possibilities of the world. The request to
A boyfriend is a desperate scream; the friend does not transform with the request. We hope that the friend-
Let's share the image we have of ourselves, or not stray too far from it. If your image...
the gem is excessively positive resembling an adulation; if it is too negative it does not benefit us
justice. Two friends need to have similar but not identical reciprocal images. We hope that the
friend, don't get us wrong.
We can continue to be in love with a person we ignore whether they loved us or deceived us,
from which we ignore whether it is good or bad, whether it has noble or petty feelings. We can continue
always questioning us about love, a question that is answered by the presence of the person
that said "yes" to us. Once the presence is completed, the response ceases and the question returns constant, obsessive.
It is distressing. Thus, love is sublime and miserable, heroic and stupid, but never fair.
finds justice in love, except in friendship.

How does friendship arise? Many believe that it starts with superficial knowledge, of-
but deeper ties, favors are exchanged and there would be friendship. But it is not like that. We do not become
friends of those with whom we interact most frequently. It may be that we can consider
a friend whom we meet only a few times. But only with her do we feel at ease and are led to
express our self to you. Friendship begins as a leap. It arrives at the moment we experience-
we have a strong impulse of sympathy, interest, and affinity. This experience is a meeting. The meeting
it is always unexpected, revealing. With our acquaintances, we rarely take this step that leads to a-
Friendship is built through a series of meetings, each one resuming the pre-
assignor. And it is different from the previous one, new paths are discovered and new perspectives open up.
When friendship is true, this happens very often.
Friendship is a filigree of encounters. No one knows in advance whether it will happen or not.
against. It is always unpredictable, unexpected, like happiness that is never where we seek it.
If we search with anxiety, we may find disappointment and boredom. Each encounter is a
test. Happiness appears unexpectedly when we do not think about it. The meeting is in itself a mo-
moment of happiness, of great vital intensity. We understand something about ourselves and the world. In the-
when we feel that another person helps us take the right direction, even having different points of view
not identical. In fact, the other must be different. This difference is valuable, as it opens another perspective.
Each one helps the other to discover what is essential for them, thus getting a little closer.
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What matters is seeing that the other does not complete me nor do I complete them. The meeting is to walk together.
a piece of the path to one's own identity, to the discovery of what is most important to
each one. The other is with us not for interest or calculation, but because this is his path, his
vital trajectory.
The meeting is a discontinuous fact, a clot of time. What matters are these moments.
of great vital intensity. What happens in the interval does not count. We may even not think about it.
This is a big difference with dating. Dating is also a meeting, but its nature...
reveals in the interval, when we feel the need to find again the person who begins-
we are to love. She is always present, at least in a potential way. Our thoughts are always
they lead us to her. We always want to be with her, to be by her side for as long as possible until being
embraced by her, with nothing in between, not even the clothes. The erotic love is just another desire.
of mental and physical fusion than a sexual desire. This need does not arise in friendship. We have
fully aware of the importance of the meeting, but we do not wish to prolong it indefinitely.
This does not mean that we no longer want to meet the friend. There's always a 'see you next time.'
once we see each other again." No important relationship has a deadline. Also, friendship is forever. The
Gratitude is also an attitude of permanent duration. There is no recognition nor love nor friendship.
fixed-term offspring. Things only acquire dignity when they have the intention to last, when they-
to overcome time. The meeting also has the potential for a reunion.
Sometimes we feel sympathy for someone's qualities, and we could share so many things and it is
a potential friend. But it could be an illusion. On a second date, we have nothing to say. At the
sometimes, changing the circumstances, these people 'leave' life. This experience of emptiness and disillusionment
they are also produced with acquaintances, with those we usually call 'friends'.
we can spend a day together, or, if we do, we avoid talking about certain things, we don't say
What we think, we do not seek to maintain a deep dialogue. We have a need to be ourselves.
even in a more true form. We ignore who we are. We are a multitude of people,
wishes, aspirations that express themselves in the same mouth and come together with the I. Sometimes we manifest
our problems to our closest ones, and they do not understand us and the illusion becomes stronger
strong and we feel alone.
Why is the meeting so important? Because it is a moment of authenticity, because it appears
a sense. It is the ordering of the multiple. The small steps are differentiations. Authenticity is
the moment of synthesis that orders and hierarchizes. It is a global and complementary experience.
Each one is a whirlwind of desires with a burning fire at its center. In the encounter, we touch on
In some way, this core, and the friend points us to the goal and walks a little with us. I always hope.
some revelation in the meeting with the friend. He opens the door that I wish to open, says some truth-
that reassures me and gives me peace. This meeting is far from being like that of the master/disciple. The
A friend is not a guru who holds the truth. The revelation of a friend is not a teaching, but arriving at
together to the same conclusion from different points of view. Talking with a friend helps me get to know
what I actually am, because in reality I am myself only in relation to what I think
what I can be. By knowing a friend, I know myself. In general, the knowledge of the other
is being corrupted by envy or rejection. When the other speaks or we identify with them and desire
be it, or we recognize ourselves as different from him and are indifferent. In relation to the friend, we are interested-
We are us, but without envy. He speaks to us about himself and we are participants, but we remain ourselves.
Thanks to this experience, we discovered what we have in common and what differentiates us. The experience
The friend is interesting precisely because he is different. With him, we can understand and appreciate.
our uniqueness and his. The friend's experience is the only one we can take advantage of. In general
the experience of others is of no use to us. Even children have difficulty taking advantage of it.
parents' experience. Everyone who has experienced something important wants to pass it on to those
They mean well. But this, in general, is impossible.

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 The friend does not deceive us, speaks to us inspired by the truth and we listen to him with honesty and im-
partiality, understanding, and lucid. Friends, when they are together, are happy, glad for-
that there was a meeting again. And one does not test friends as happens with love.
In this last one, the strength that unites and the availability of the other are put to the test. These tests do not exist.
in friendship. To demonstrate friendship means to show, confirm and not 'to demonstrate'.
In friendship, there are also crises just as happens in any interpersonal relationship.
country and children or among spouses. The crisis means that one feels insecure about the other's friendship and even
betrayed or misunderstood. Overcoming the crisis means that the other begins to understand us completely and
we understand him. In the crisis, we also misunderstand, we attack and want to break. We can say
that we never expected from a friend to be misunderstood. The misunderstanding is always a lack of goodwill.
We are convinced that when there is goodwill, an open, honest mental disposition exists.
favorable, we can be understood. Misunderstanding is an unconscious symptom of disinterest.
yes, disdain and even aggression.
The crisis can only be resolved in a meeting. This meeting is called 'explanation', not
conceptual, but understand why the crisis originated, what forces triggered it, and pacify
there, give them value and meaning. Explanation means to review the past together, to go back to the moment
prior to misunderstanding and fall. The encounter that resolves the crisis surpasses this prehistory and provides a
a step further. Overcoming also helps to discover one's own malignancy, an exaggeration of anger,
a superficial and inadequate way of acting.

When we meet a friend again after years, it's as if we had left them moments ago.
before. But we changed, our problems changed, and we have the impression of continuing what is-
we were doing, as if the break had never happened. Upon finding a relative, we asked
What did you do?
one of the moments in its history. When we meet someone we know, we ask them about the
plans for the holidays, and about what you did during the last holidays. If you lack confidence, we can talk about it.
Weather. After commenting on today's weather, we talked about yesterday's and projected for tomorrow.
When friends meet, even after a long time, there are no questions. There are no
questions to reconstruct the past since the last meeting. This past does not matter. Each one
they are willing to listen to the news without any preparation. If they say 'Tell me everything' they are not truly-
It is not friends because these are phrases of circumstances. It is also not a friend when he says 'How much'
time without news from you; why didn't you at least write to me?
"How are you? Are you well?" The friend lights up upon seeing us and smiles because he is happy with the reunion.
Wow. Saying 'how long!' is to express satisfaction. To the friend, it is significant that we know about
his past and ours. The important thing is that he knows, not what happened. He is fine if
We are fine. That's why the question: 'How are you, is everything okay?'. The only thing that matters to us is if
Are we well or not, whether we are happy or not. This matters to us and to you.
The extreme opposite of the time of friendship is the time of falling in love. If the time of friendship is
an amalgamation, a succession of present moments that overlap, the time of dating is de-
so, continuous, distressing. The lovers spend hours and hours talking about their past. Each one
is seduced by the other's past and interrogates him endlessly. Even after a brief separation
want to know everything you did, fill in all the empty spaces, all the gaps, even the shortest ones.
I want to know your thoughts, the shades of your feelings, your doubts. The relationship wants to re-
build everything to fully adhere to the experiences of the beloved, until filling everything and assimilating him.
dating tends towards the fusion and creation between two different people, into a new entity, a couple where
both transformed. The lovers change their lives radically through love and by
they critically analyze their past. Before meeting each other, they were different. After the e-
dating encompasses how your previous life was poor, cold, and arid. The incipient state is the
On the day of judgment, everything that was unhappiness is destroyed and condemned. But it is also the day of the event-

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Cement: an era of incredible and unimaginable happiness begins. The lovers tend towards the future.
They long for their loved one at every moment. When they are far away, they wait for them with anxiety. Always.
they arrive early to wait. The time of dating encompasses at once the most distant past and the
more distant future. The present is the tension of this experience. The eternity of love springs from the maxim
tension of time.
The friends, for their part, do not come together to build a new collective entity that would
Transcend. They do not need to change each other. Each one follows their vital trajectory and their destiny.
people; search for your love. The friend accompanies you in this search, is by your side and helps you, but is not the
object of the search. In friendship, the past is also discussed when one of the friends needs to return to
own past and the friend, then, accompanies him on his journey. Sometimes it is necessary to tell everything the
What happened to the friend. We talk because we need to be understood, we need
that a human being understands us to the core. Why do we need to be understood? It's because
thus we understand ourselves, we are objective with ourselves to judge ourselves. Every journey to
The past can judge, condemn, and absolve, so that we can correct the action we took or ...
to follow the undertaken path.
We have the ability to judge, but often we are too blind and tired.
he extends his hand to us and supports us. By looking into his eyes we know that we are just. It is not he who
judges us, but we judge ourselves. Only us, and no one else. We have the ability to judge,
but we cannot do it without the friend. To tell something is to think it out loud. The friend employs the
maieutics and provokes in us honest and objective investigation. What is set aside is the past or
the future of friendship in itself. Friendship is based on selflessness, and the first and essential
the manifestation of disinterest among friends is what each of them feels for themselves. The lovers
they are worried and anxious about the future, which is indifferent to friends. One only returns to the past
in the case of friendship when there is a crisis in relationships. Friends are taken by doubt and de-
they come to analyze the past again to pass judgment on themselves and on others. They must see with exact
they give what the friend did, what intentions he had, and to judge objectively whether he was or was not worthy of friendship
Zade.
The crisis equates friendship to dating. The same restlessness, the same fear appears and...
Friendship. Friendship requires a quick judgment: guilty or innocent. In general, friendship absolves and forgives.
a. If there is forgiveness, it is definitive. If there is not, if there is condemnation or mere doubt, friendship breaks.
Forever, even if there is simple doubt, for it poisons and contaminates friendship. The crisis of
friendship is similar to a process. The past is evoked to judge it and the future is evoked to determine it.
do it. The decision is final. In dating, any decision that the partners fear, be it to break up...
to stop loving oneself, to no longer love oneself, or to love oneself forever is irrevocable. Because the sentence does not affect
the love of dating, which can only be suppressed or denied, but never annulled. Passion is irresistible. In
friendship, the sentence is unappealable. Friendship and dating have their essence in two different spaces.
the romance in passion and suffering; friendship in valuing and in judgment.

Friendship and love

Friendship is a form of love. But it differs from other forms of love because it chooses its
objects with moral criteria and have a moral behavior towards them. Friendship is the ethical form.
of eros. This definition clashes with what is commonly referred to as friendship: the friendship-
privilege, friendship-favoritism, friendship-that-seeks-to-take-advantage... and has nothing to do with
a moral. "How to Win Friends!" (Carnegie). In fact, one cannot win true friends.
We can call a friend someone who doesn't tell us the truth, always smiles at us, always agrees with me.
And does he praise my vanity? Who behaves like a hypocrite, false or flattering? No! It is the opposite.
Friendship wishes above all for the freedom of the other. A mother also wants her child to be free,
but out of fear of losing him, she is willing to manipulate his will. The mother has an educational mission.
in relation to the child. Dating also needs the freedom of the other, but strives to subjugate
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I would dominate him because I would want to be sure of being reciprocated in his love. The dating is established
it is akin to the effects of a child or a drug. They want to fall in love because they feel what true is.
happiness, but wants to flee because fears losing it. The idea of a filter never even crosses the friend's mind
in friendship. It is a state accepted and cherished. A sick, drunk, or drugged friend will remain
always in front of us a little lucidity: will recognize us and will fight to remain lucid in us-
in our presence, even if it is just to ask us to leave him alone.
If a friend does something useful, we can even thank them, but we avoid asking why they did it.
A friend does not owe us explanations and should not be asked for them. We should not analyze their behavior.
to find your motivations. We can always explain an action taken. The act is free before being
done. Until the last moment we can do it or not do it and no one knows what we will choose.
We always want to think of the friend as a free being, and that's why we don't ask ourselves why they did that.
or that.
In dating, we get desperate and anxious trying to decipher the other person's behavior. The na-
Moro is surrender and struggle against a power that continues to exist beyond our will. Friendship.
does not allow any power contrary to our will. If free will ceases to desire it, it ends the
will. A friend does not put themselves 'above'. I view it in a moral context. Hate damages friendship, fe-
re-a and the damage is irreparable. Hate is not an accident on the path to friendship, it is an evil, a
malicious feeling that is neither justified nor forgiven. We do not choose as friends people who
we do not estimate. Recognizing a person's freedom and respecting it means considering this
person as an end.
Kant's categorical imperative also helps to describe friendship. It is the only norm to
All other maxims of action must be adjusted accordingly: 'Act only according to that which'
the maxim that one could wish to see converted into a universal law." It is also difficult to establish as a standard
universal or maternal love that loves the child more than herself and asks for nothing, but unique-
the mind gives. We falter in establishing as a universal norm the sublime and heroic virtues or making a rule
of something extraordinary that overturns all customs. Sometimes we seek to achieve positions of
power to be less dependent and more free. But in doing so we use others as means and
we feed the chain of struggles. With some we behave or try to behave according to the
categorical imperative. Friendship aspires to an ideal of moral perfection and we choose our friends
such people. So, do we choose as friends all those we cherish and admire? No.
We can estimate a person and admire them, yet that does not mean we become their friends, nor does it
You are dear to me. Friendship cannot exist without this esteem nor exist without moral behavior.
reciprocal. Friendship is not just esteem and admiration, but it is also love. Friendship is the special form of
a science of love whose object is a person we appreciate and who, from an ethical point of view, is...
door in a proper way, at least with us.
The friend reveals ourselves to us. In the beloved, we appreciate a nod, a gesture,
a whim. In a friend, we appreciate good intellectual and moral qualities, sympathy, liveliness.
from the request that shows for us. To appreciate a quality, a disposition is required.
benevolent. The friend is benevolent. He sees what we are and helps us to be ourselves. We ...
we fall in love completely disregarding the virtues of the loved one. One way of loving is
try to match the ideal image that the beloved has formed of us. In the case of a friend, what
account is the ethical image. Friends are the objective portrait of a person's morality. They show us
its rigor and its intransigence, but also its love for intelligence and its creativity, and even its
tolerance. Voltaire says that friendship is a tacit contract between two sensitive and virtuous people.
"Sensitive" because a monk or a hermit can be good people and live without knowing the
friendship. 'Virtuous' because the wicked only have accomplices; the sensual, companions of revelry; the
covetous, associated; the politicians their supporters; the princes, courtiers. Only men
virtuosos have friends.

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 Friendship is also preference. Being a friend always means being more loved than the other.
that the immense anonymous mass, and to be preferred to all. It is the feeling of the brothers, each one wants to be
chosen and demands more attention for itself. A mother's love levels and equalizes. The individual demand
he faces this absolute equality. Friendship is the demand for personal attention. Fenelon
says that everyone wants to be loved for themselves; wants the entire world to be sacrificed. It is not here that
root of all privilege and all injustice? Kierkegaard says that is why Christianity distrusts the
profane love and friendship, because preference, passion... deep down they are an act of selfishness. The
Christian love can only exist as a duty. Christianity teaches us that loving our neighbor is a de-
So, love is not a spontaneous inclination, an impulse of passion, or a feeling. It is
an ethical imperative, a choice of will. But we can impose the duty to love someone on ourselves and
feel sympathy for him? Kant says that the answer is negative: we cannot force ourselves to love someone and
to feel sympathy. Love and sympathy are spontaneous feelings that cannot be provoked at will.
I can undo bad thoughts, but I cannot instill tenderness and sympathy in myself.
neither sincere friendship. Morality cannot ask us for affections, but only actions. According to Kant, the
ethics has nothing to do with friendship, sympathy or love. Moral action is done solely out of duty,
against their own inclinations and feelings.
Society has improved not because people love each other more, but because it has created organizations.
Impersonal justices. The modern world was born from the separation between ethics and feelings, whether they are
altruistic or personal. The virtues have been objectified into norms of impersonal and impartial conduct.
So, friendship has no function in this context. Friendship loves what it appreciates and appreciates what
However, that does not make it more meritorious nor is it an overcoming of duty. Friendship only makes sense in
to the extent that human beings also have a need for love and consideration personalizes
from other human beings. In hospitals, the doctor needs to care for everyone indiscriminately.
But it is the mother who reaches out to the crying child because he needs care and
because she belongs only to him and to no one else. Life needs both: As far as the
health improves, a mother's love remains the same. The same goes for friendship: it can't-
You can't ask her for more than she can give.
In a society organized on the basis of partiality, friendship will be partial. But today that the
society is based on universal norms, friendship must respect all universalism and the
impartiality. The preference that friendship requires is individual consideration, recognition of
value of one's own individuality, unique and unmistakable. Friendship is more related to what we
individualizes as unique and unmistakable individuals rather than what puts us above the
After all, everything is unique, even a stone, but that doesn't mean it has value. Value is given by the cen-
the uniqueness of the self as consciousness, the conscious unity of the multiple. Love is the model of this preference
reference. Children could not continue to live if they did not feel loved by their mother. Freud tells us
it is clear how there is this desperate need to be an object of love and identification. Even the
Dating consists of finding the one who is preferred or preferable among all, who loves us the most.
than anything else. We need to feel loved more than anything else in
world to find the strength to master the incredible multiplicity that exists within [Link]-
is the product of all our social experiences, of all our identifications, and of all
our desires. The self is the unstable and precarious unity of these divergent forces always on the brink of
daring to take a risk.
Dating, maternal and paternal love, and friendship all turn towards individuality.
Soil, even being the most fragile and the most important thing. So fragile that it requires external support.
of recognition and the love of another person endowed with value. But it is the only untameable power of
nature.

7
 Friendship is a relationship between two isolated individuals, masters of themselves. Even under conditions
different economies can only be friends if they meet as two sovereign and independent beings.
teeth, with the same power and equal dignity.
In general, when we think of friendship, we think of need and favors. In fact, re-
we run to friends when we need them. But these are not the moments that constitute
True friendship is tested. Friendship does not survive when we put ourselves in a situation of need.
Always about a friend. She is incompatible with a high degree of need because she is incompatible.
with an imbalance of power too great. If I need something that only the other can satisfy,
this other one exercises a power over me. That's why, if I always turn to a certain friend, I end up
not for depending on him, and his power is greater the more I place myself in his hands. This behavior-
it contrasts with the sovereignty of friendship and it is inevitable that it will end up destroying it, even if the or-
I hope you have the best disposition towards me and willingly do something for me.
There can be friendship between a rich person and a poor person, an educated person and an uneducated person, between an adu-
Is it a child? In general, the answer is 'no'. A large inequality makes friendship impossible.
Many inequalities are overcome if friends put them in parentheses. Friendship is
it is akin to humility. It requires that there be no envy or greed.
All things that matter, including friendship, need to have at their core the passage of...
give all. It is required to be empty in order to fill it. In love, despair becomes ecstatic exultation.
Aunt. Renunciation does not mean complacency through renunciation. Those who take pleasure in renouncing, de-
for it is incapable of enjoying. Renouncing friendship is not a heroic act.
Why does it cost so much to ask for other things? Because at the moment we ask, we give to the other
an ulterior power, we are at your mercy. If you deny us, we weaken even more and he strengthens himself
even more. The unions do not ask, they demand. They understood that asking is of no use. The humi-
complaint does not satisfy and that's why they do not ask; they fight, they claim. When the power difference is infinite-
There, justice is only on one side. Only the counterproposal from another power can eliminate the humiliation.
Only by acquiring power does right emerge. The claim presupposes a power, the possibility of a
fight. That is why a request that does not humiliate is an armed request. Even in relation to loved ones and-
we exercise a power, the power to make them suffer if they do not meet our demands.
With a friend, we do not exercise any kind of power. We do not protest or use reprisals.
We ask and he gives us. We rely on the friend and that is all. What is the difference between a compliment from a
Is a friend that of a superior? The superior praises, but keeps his distance. If the superior, when praising-
me, accept me as a peer, become my friend. Friends are two people where each one
of one could be superior to the other. Friendship is a movement of creating superiority, if-
guided by the renunciation of this superiority. For this reason, friends place themselves on the same level and are sober-
we have not asked who is superior and who is inferior.
In general, friendship can overcome many inequalities. It would be wrong to think that it is pos-
civil only among people of the same salary or social condition. In the monarchy of divine right the
A king does not need to humiliate because his superiority is recognized. Also in a hereditary democracy...
they recognize the levels of hierarchy and competition is reduced. But in a type of nepotism,
Everyone can aspire to power. Those at the top always have reasons to fear their subordinates.
two and that is why he needs to master them. The despots have no friends and fear friendship as a com-
In harm to oneself. Friendship is a democratic and republican virtue.

Three states of the social field (In physics, there are solid, liquid, and gaseous states).
a) A state is fluid, hot, passionate, and has a great power of attraction and a great
solidarity, but it is unstable and tends to transform into two other states. Max Weber calls it
from emerging state.
b) A second state is the institutional one. It is reached gradually. Each step is a
act of opposition, of will. The institution is that which was desired, maintained, and realized from what
8
It had interviewed in the emerging state. The institution is also excited by a belief and has
a strong solidarity, but it is not fervent like the previous one. It is more rigid, more dogmatic.
c) A third state, the quotidian, is the product of the weakening and the decomposition of the insti-
tuition. It is characterized by scant solidarity and by utilitarian and pragmatic links.
These three states can be found in countless social formations. Social formations
different ones present analogous properties when they are in the same state. But the mes-
More training, in two different states, offers surprising differences.
Thus, the couple is made up of two unique individuals. In this case, the state of the newborn corresponds to
from dating. Before, these people did not know each other or, if they did know each other, they did not feel any sympathy.
special. With the emerging relationship-state, they see themselves and see their own world and the...
self-suffering in a different way. The nascent state is a new initiation. There is great solidarity.
and both are 'possessed' by a collective force that animates them and compels them to be together. Then
For some time - years - this couple is taking the step towards institutionalization. The two lovers have overcome
the difficulties that separated them and chose to live together, got married and had children. They are a
couple together, but they have lost the enthusiasm and passion of other times. Sometimes they feel nostalgic for the...
that time, even without the doubts of the dating period. The torment accompanies the ecstasy. The insit-
tuition is the product of choice, something desired, it is something solid. Then comes the moment when the two
Spouses lead a normal life and are governed more by habit than by passion, more by convenience.
of the reciprocity of being together than by a deep love. Sometimes there is not even certainty of having
making the right choice, the pride of having overcome obstacles. It is the formation of everyday life.
In our group we found the peculiarities of the emerging state, of the institution and of everyday life.
of. Thus, a religious group (political or cultural). When the religious group is born, we see people-
as touched by divine revelation, full of a burning faith and an immense hope for renewal.
Queen of fraternity and spontaneous community. People are full of happiness. They look at the
past as a period of obscurity and error. It is the time of enthusiasm, the time of origins.
Then this group becomes a cult; it lays down its rules and resolves its theological issues.
He abandons the original enthusiasm and realizes that the Kingdom matures slowly. Neither does it exist-
there are the mistakes and excesses of the beginnings. The members of the sect still call themselves 'brothers' but without
so much spontaneity. Established norms and its field of activities, and chose its pastors. The
solidarity is no longer passionate, but everyone can trust it. It is the institution.
There is also everyday life. Now the cult exists as a consolidated structure. No one anymore
It enters through conversion. Those who are born into the religion are part of it, and go to church because their parents did.
The parishes are living on. The priest is more concerned with worldly problems than with God. Already
there is not this great solidarity. The word 'brother' is used, but only during religious acts.
What was a sign of mutual and ardent love became a ritual expression.
In both couples and groups, and even in large religious and political systems, the state in-
The center is labile. It produces an institution. We call it a demovement the process that goes from the state in-
centered on the institution. That is why the movement always has a certain duration. Judaism, Christianity-
Tianism and Islam were born as movements. In the beginning, there was an emerging state that pro-
it brought about a first institutional nucleus. Then there were other episodes of a nascent state, others
movements that recognized themselves in initial teaching and contributed to create a structure
institutional increasingly complex. Now they are cultural civilizations, institutional powers.
able to give movements their own language.
Is friendship a couple (pair) or a group? Does it belong to the nascent state, to the institution, or to the ...
What about friendship? Is the central core of friendship the pair or the group? Historically, it is the pair. Friends mo-
Narcissists are rare. Friendship does not tend to form a closed and self-sufficient pair, which is more
characteristic of dating. Dating is the nascent state of a collective movement that generates a
a collective that generates a community formed by two unique people. They develop a great
solidarity and, together, they are incorporated into the society. Friendship is not a feeling
9
Exclusive. The arrival of another satisfies both friends and they behave like true friends.
It remains a strictly interpersonal bond, a preference, and it should not be confused.
with the solidarity of the group. Friendship, which status it belongs to: emerging, institutional or everyday-
Unity? It is none of the three states. It is constituted through encounters and endures thanks to them. It
it's a serial solidarity. Viewed from the inside, friendship is reticular. At the center, there are few
deep affections, renewed and rediscovered on multiple occasions and which are the pillars of the system.
From them, or without passing through them, hundreds of wires extend outward. The vital energy
it never stops at a point, but travels throughout the network, which never ends. It is always possible to
new meetings are seen and each new meeting implies, in some way, a revision of the whole.
It is always possible to find someone who enriches us, who walks part of the way with us, who
encourage us and show us a possible goal.

Can there be jealousy in friendship? New friends can come in. But if cases of jealousy arise.
real and true friendships, especially with teenagers, resembling dating.
We all feel a little abandoned when we see that our favorite friend was dedicated to
another and no longer cared about us. But is this jealousy or disillusionment? The new friend did not us
should lead to neglecting the 'old' friend. But 'jealousy' applies to situations in which we cannot
divide our beloved with no one else; we want them to think of us exclusively, and to us
anguish at the idea that I might not do it. Jealousy is always a kind of jealousy delusion.
The jealous person is someone obsessed with fearing being abandoned by anyone else. This type of
jealousy is incompatible with friendship because friendship does not tolerate bosses or prisoners.
The need for exclusivity is also incompatible with friendship, because friendship is open.
free, serene. When these feelings appear, it is a sign that something is not working and sooner or later
there will be a crisis.

In the nascent state, individuals feel transfigured, they see each other with features.
heroic, dazzling. Let's look at the case donamoro. At first, we don’t know anything about the indi-
individuality, the materialization of the beloved person. We know that we love them before knowing where they live,
if she has siblings, father, mother, if she is rich or poor, healthy or sick. To please her we need to know her
tastes. We do not intend to please you for who we are, for our presence and for our dedication. A-
We are only interested in one thing: our love, and that's why we provide proof of its intensity.
We accept her as she is. We are not interested in her affections. If we know what they are, it moves us. That
appears in gifts from both boyfriends and friends. The boyfriend chooses a gift that
makes the loved one even more desirable and beautiful in your eyes. The first thing a woman
A woman in love changes her way of dressing to please her man. The second is to change her way of ...
radical the way her man dresses to please her. She had fallen in love with the man.
how it was before, but he no longer wants it that way. With his gifts, he changes it to bring him closer to this perfection
that she builds in her mind. The enamored man also seeks, with his gifts, to gesture
to enhance or amplify the beauty of your beloved. In summary, neither of them gifts something to please.
giving to the other, does not worry about satisfying their tastes. Gifts what contributes to make the
beloved even more desirable for him. The gift we want to give to the friend we chose so that
he likes it, so that it enriches and enhances him according to his criteria. To make a gift to
A friend, we need to think of him as he is, what he can do with this gift, where he can
use it. We do not want to embellish it or make it more attractive and desirable in our eyes. In a pa-
Lavra, we place ourselves at your service and do not seek - as in dating - to put you at our service.
ideal.
Only later, when the pair is already formed, there is a slow process of discovery,
knowledge and respect for the person as they really are. The love that points to the essence

10
learn to satisfy the empirical and concrete desires of your loved one. Look for what they like and dis-
Letter about what you don't like, intrudes into your concerns. This is the passage from love to love.
Dating, while alive, makes the other unrecognizable. It tends toward collectivity and drives the in-
individual transcending in the collective. If we continue to be in love with someone, even after
years of separation, we do not know what it really was nor what he actually thought. When a love
it truncates, and does not consume in everyday life, we will never know if the other truly loved us or
No. The lover is never sure of the love of the beloved if they do not say so. Those who are not in love...
Rado knows this, but those who are waiting.
The relationship can continue, reach the institution, and then it transforms into mutual love, it is-
It is deep.. But it can also fail and end, and generally, in a sudden, dramatic way and
painful. There is disappointment. Dating is a search for reciprocity. Each one asks the other for things that
there isn't or cannot give, things that cannot be done. There are always points of no return. The despair
what appears at the moment of non-return reveals the deeper aspects of being, the foundations on which
what builds your self. Love goes against these "no return". From the boyfriend's point of view,
the rejections of others are culpable weaknesses, absurd limitations. If you do not do what is asked, you do not
feels sufficiently reciprocated in her love. That's why she says 'no' and walks away.
There is a legend that says that even if the relationship ends badly, it leads to friendship. Two beings who
they were in love, did not know each other and did not understand each other, now they say that they knew each other deeply
they, freed from passion, love each other as friends. As a general rule, this is not true. Dating,
when it ends, it always leaves some resentment, some bitterness. And this also includes the criticism of
past. Their hearts are always full of longing and longing generates resentment, especially
in the one who had the impression of having suffered more damage, of having been deceived. Therefore, it is very difficult
that the relationship, when it ends, leaves a peaceful friendship as a balance. It leaves behind the obsessive desire.
to manipulate the other, to occupy their thoughts, attract their attention without leaving them alone for a moment
Often, when love ends badly, it transforms into an obsessive desire for possession.
Eager. This desire can inspire great and heroic actions, it can drive those who have creative gifts.
you are going to create a work of art. To the petty and less gifted, it pushes them to offensive calls
you, to criticism and, falling lower and lower, to defamation and to the anonymous.

It is difficult to maintain friendship between former lovers, precisely because desire continues to act within them.
from lost paradise and the resentment towards those who did not manage to achieve it in one time and do not know how.
now evoke it. Only a new relationship destroys resentment. Only a happy new relationship makes one go through it again.
past with its purifying fire and only when this courtship became a serene love can it re-
to meet with serenity. Everything will depend on the virtues they possess. Friendship is an un-
unappeasable, does not allow exceptions.
Friendship is not a continuation of love. "We continue being friends," but it is to deny the
that truly continues to exist: the deep desire and resentment. At other times, this sentence only
serves to say that the two former lovers maintained a civilized, friendly and not...
poisoned by hate.
Not being reciprocated is typical of dating, whereas reciprocity is typical of friendship.
friendship does not continue if there is no reciprocity. 'Whoever wants the good of the other without reciprocity is
"Benevolence; when there is reciprocity, benevolence is called friendship" (Aristotle). A friendship
without reciprocity is a nonsense.

Can friendship only be interpersonal or can it also be communal? It's an anti-issue.

The ideal of Epicurus and his followers was to form communities of friends to bring there a
life of perfection. All your wisdom is directed towards the building of a community based on
friendship. The master is the one who knows the truth and communicates it to the disciples. Epicureanism is a mo-
movement that advances through the different phases of the nascent state (of group), of institution (

11
group) and the everyday life of the group. Epicurus refers to friendship as the relationship of brotherhood that is
It establishes itself within a movement. But this is different. In a movement, people come together.
we find friends through movement, but it is not the group of friends that creates the movement. It is the movi-
Mentoring that creates friendship, and it is not a simple matter. The nascent state of the movement generates strong
bonds of solidarity, of fraternity. But one cannot confuse this type of love with friendship.
Hey folks. Those who belong to the movement feel like companions, brothers, comrades of the others. The
companions–or brothers or comrades–tend towards fusion and dedicate themselves entirely to the service of
group and its mission. The movement demands unlimited dedication: in religious movements, to God;
to politicians, to the party, to the homeland or to the revolution. This service is more important than the individual.
isolated.
Within the movements, the person sees themselves transfigured and not only in religious movements.
contention among the feminists of the seventies. Women spoke with enthusiasm about compe-
beings whom they had found and only known. In the nascent state, one believes to belong to
Republic of the saints, to the federation of the chosen. In the emerging state, everyone is a leader. Each subject
feels completely free and, without a doubt, tied to the collective destiny. Therefore, not even when obeying
they feel diminished, because both the leader and they only obey this entity
transcendent. One does not find friends, but militants. One does not see the true personality of
outro. Everyone praises and recognizes each other at first glance, everyone sees themselves as heroes.
The great collective forces are egalitarian. Before the leader, before the king, before the law, before the movement-
Mentor, friendship seems like an unjustifiable favoritism, even if nothing beyond that is proposed.
what is demanded. In the movements, the existence of personal friends corrects the merciless indifference of
the chief or of the group. In Christianity, the individual is a limit and an end. To love the individual as they are, is
an end. This has never happened in Christian movements. At most, there were individual dialectics-
group, individual-leader. Also in Christianity, the collective impulse tends to suppress the individual and the
to absorb it into the group. The movement, when it is born, places itself beyond good and evil. It appears
an ethics when the group recognizes that it has limits.
It is somewhat the law of life to have superabundant impulses and a limit. Without impulse, there is only meanness.
There is interest. Without limits, there is only moral totalitarianism. Personalism is the limit that is set to the mo-
but also an improvement of it.
Companions and friends are not the same thing. Friendship is always more unpredictable than the
ideology. It makes people different, it never treats people the same way. Only the friend
It can be personal, but never the companion. The ideologue, the charismatic leader treats everyone the same way.
as abstractions and not as unique and unmistakable individuals. The group has a substance
socially homogeneous, friendship is never homogeneous. Friends are not pairs that treat each other as
equals, like the monks do. They are pairs that treat each other in a personalized way.
There is another type of solidarity that is sometimes identified with friendship: it is the type of union and
reciprocal trust that comes from a shared life experience, from having shared with
good and suffering, frustrations and dangers; having been together in front of death; having fought against a
common enemy. This sharpens when people feel they are subjected to a co-destiny
Mom. Individuality almost merged with that of others, establishing a connection between them and us.
This solidarity also characterizes those who belong to a political or ethnic group with a
good organization. Examples we have in Catholic Action and others. In all countries there are circles of ju-
God who shared common persecutions, participated in the same history and the same culture and
are more willing to understand each other. Almost all psychoanalysts followers of Freud were ju-
God and those who first distanced themselves from the master and argued with him were those who were not.
Jews.
The militancy within the movement is the third source of solidarity. A movement emerges.
in the world to oppose the world. Its members always believe they are the chosen ones, the saviors. Iden-
they become mutually and live like brothers. But the movements can disappear and then the soli-

12
darity ends. Among the participants remains the nostalgia of the past. When the movement is instituted
It institutionalizes, becomes a creed, a religious order, a sect. The ties are reinforced. Examples:
Communion and Liberation and Opus Dei.
These types of solidarity are just the precondition of friendship. Even within solidarity-
friendship fulfills its choices. Friendship is a choice. In situations of certain oppression, friendship
it is a form of liberation for her. What was suffered together is not worth it, if this life was empty or insignificant.
sing. What matters is the quality of life, the direction that the meeting takes. That's why every friendship...
it's always from the community, but against the community, it arises from a field of solidarity, but
against this field of solidarity. Between friendship and the group, there is a dialectical connection. Friendship
it arises as an interpersonal relationship between individuals opposed to the group, but it can also
gradually transform into a group. The friends who isolate themselves within the community to
they continue being themselves and gradually start to form a small closed community, with
rules and its own language.

Why don't we get upset with friends? Because true friendship is always...
tura, exploring the mysteries of life, search? Thus friendship is born during childhood and
during adolescence. Two children become friends by inventing games, unleashing their imagination,
exploring the world around them. Each one needs the other to give body to an imaginary world and
put it on stage to explore in it, then, the real world. There is practically no knowledge of
world that does not stem from fantasy. In adolescence, the fantasies of adventures diminish, but they come closer.
found the interest in psychic life, in the social world and in history. Thus, adolescents need
I choose the type of relationships with others. Everyone is, in some way, psychologists who p...
we scrutinize our own psyches and those of others to understand their laws. In this quest for one's own identity and,
therefore, from the differences with others, the person we feel closest to, the most studied is the
friend, the one who is closest to us and whom we can study as if we were studying ourselves
ourselves, seeing ourselves from the outside. The friend from adolescence is not identical to us; he is similar to us and
at the same time different, extremely different. It shows us a different perspective of the world
He saw things we hadn't seen, explored the world for us and continues to explore regions in
goes from the experience.
The teenager, which philosopher asks: Why are things this way and not different? Why
I am here and what did I come to do? Where am I going and where should I go? It is the awakening of consciousness. Friendship.
is connected to these questions. The relationship with the friend marks the possibilities and the limits of pes-
Friendship is identification and differentiation. The meeting among friends is always a discovery.
from its own diversity, from its own unity and from its own solitude, from its own individual risk. It is so-
It is true that friendship is security, for a friend is always there. In company, friends
they can even do the most dangerous things. The more times friends meet, the more they become
they start to transit alone later in real life.
It is not true friendship that is spoken of as protection, as custom. It spread-
the idea that friendship is a custom, and that its essence can be found in a meeting at a bar or
in a pool. There are people who equate friendship with social gatherings or conversations afterwards.
of people. However, when there is boredom there is no friendship; when there is repetition and monotony, there is no friendship.
If friends get bored with each other, it means they are not friends or a third party intervened to disturb.
your meeting. A party is not a gathering of friends: it is a mix of friends, acquaintances, and people
occasional, with diverse goals: passing the time, meeting new people, doing business, indulging oneself in
to meet, seek an erotic adventure, etc.
Children get annoyed with their friends, feel disgusted by them, get jealous, and then reconcile.
adult friendships do not allow for such things. Sometimes teenagers exhibit attitudes similar to those
purple with their friends: they cling to them demanding exclusivity, feel jealousy. In adolescence
there is no clear distinction between dating, affection, brotherly love, and friendly love, what exists in

13
adult age. Childhood and adolescent friendship differ less from other forms of affection and love.
which does not mean that they cannot be distinguished at this age.
There are people who meet for one night, year after year, to talk a little. Many times
They are of the same age, they are schoolmates. The themes are almost always the same. But this
it is more about companionship than friendship. Friendly company is a traditionalist group without any other fi-
the fact of your own survival. Many groups of adolescent peers dissolve
when they get married, when they move to big cities. But, friends live in different places.
They need to schedule the meeting. Sometimes former students from the same class meet up.
contram, increased by their wives or husbands. After a while, the community restructures itself.
like a closed society. Many people, when thinking of friends, think of this type of formation.
social.
In a structured and consolidated society, the pursuit of novelty, of variation, is 'imprisoned'.
Something that excites. Friendship, while an unsettling search, is bothersome. That is why this type is attributed to.
friendship to childhood. Friendship takes the side of the individual against the community. As is natural, the
collectivity always prevails, absorbs individual friendship into its core and turns it into a molecule
from any other body. But one cannot eliminate the tension: it reappears. Friendship consists in this
reappearance of tension, that is, of individuality and its demand for spontaneity and authenticity
de.

In essence, the friend is the companion in hunting and war, the one who is by our side in
activity of exploration and conquest of the world. A friend is not someone who gives us or feeds us
and welcomes us; it is not our source of livelihood nor our benefactor. It is our accomplice, the one who
helps us achieve things. In childhood, parents support us and care for us. More
later we learn to survive on our own. A friend is someone with whom we learn to un-
to enjoy the resources and to manage the world. The meeting is to walk together a stretch of the path. To
both need to be in motion. When we make friends, we force ourselves to change, to re-
mar everything we do and what we are. Many times in life we lose our identity and need
reconquering it. Our identity is always a social identity. We are what we are in relation
with the world, with the way it defines us and we define ourselves. What changes the most is society
as a whole. In a short time, it changes the way of thinking, values, and solutions to problems,
the words, the language.
Who can maintain their status, their position without constant activity and struggle! For
For many, what is always under discussion is fame; for others, it's simple sustenance, and for others, the ...
power. What we are, the state of being, is the result of a profession, a capability, an action
constant. The animal spends a great part of its time searching for food. That is why birds
They fly. If they had food, they wouldn't fly. Well-fed swans are lazy animals,
In natural conditions, animals need to avoid being eaten. Almost all animals
they are food for some other. Furthermore, sexuality forces one to confront the male of the same species.
the territory itself is the result of an action. It is necessary to patrol it and defend it from entry.
strange. When the animal feels protected from everyone, it sleeps.
In life, there is not a single evolutionary age. All life is an evolutionary process. But, neither
two days we need to adapt. There are periods during which we identify with a task,
with a paper. So we know who we are and what we want. But then this fades and we experience-
We're in a certain predicament. The truth is that we are the ones who lose with the broader society and us.
we take refuge in our immediate surroundings where everything remains static. The weariness is a symptom of deterioration.
tion of our relationship with the world and, consequently, with ourselves. The fast only de-
it seems like when we return to the world, when we accept the challenge, when we seek our new
identity.

14
 In these periods of transformation, we find friends. The meeting with a friend is only
an aspect of the encounter with the world. In periods when we lose contact with society and
we drifted away from ourselves, diminished our interpersonal relationships. We reduced our account-
We have conversations with very well-known people, and we have little to say to our friends. The search for reconnection.
I know that the same is done through trials and errors. It is an exploratory activity, in which mistakes are accumulated.
and disappointments. Only after a certain amount of time do we begin to glimpse what our path may be.
So there we program actions that project us in a direction. We cannot, therefore, lose ourselves in
fantasies and weaknesses. We begin to believe that those who treat us well are friends, those who us
they help to overcome barriers. We are sensitive and we come to hate those who could help us and do not.
what it does, to envy whom, from its privileges, denies us justice.
The people who help us and treat us well, our benefactors, are a security within the
enemy society, and they are a support to go to other places. Until the moment of a restructuring
we consider many people friends. If we take a closer look at our feelings, we notice that
our friendly attitude depends solely on what they do, on their benevolence, on the fact that they serve us
and in being useful to us. If they deny us something, we quickly become aggressive or we set them aside.
Within this tangle appears friendship. It is not something that appears fully formed. It arises in
struggle. There is a need for anxieties, dangers, uncertainty, lies, hypocrisy, doubts.
Zade is the ethical island in a world lacking morality and in which everyone is at war with everyone.
During this time, it is difficult for her to appear to us as a benefactor. They are more resources from which to-
let's take advantage, beings towards whom we adopt an instrumental attitude, whom we treat well for
that we need them, but we would not hesitate to take things from their hands if they denied them to us.
What is the relationship with the benefactor? It cannot consist solely of utility. We depend quite a bit on it.
You give. The prototype of a benefactor is the mother. The feeling that the benefactor inspires in us is one of gratitude.
of gratitude. Gratitude is not the product of reflection nor the result of calculation by the benefactor.
received. It is a spontaneous movement of the spirit, an impulse that gives rise in us the desire to
to repay what we receive, but not in a proportional way. Gratitude does not depend on qualities.
of the benefactor or our feelings towards him. The benefactor can be likable or unlikable,
smart or stupid, kind or rude, honest or dishonest. Our gratitude does not suffer from influences
It's about that. In relation to the friend, there is reciprocity. That's why we don't feel indebted to him.
even if he has done a lot for us. It may happen that the benefactor becomes a friend when he
it is not passive, when it is not a source of resources, but someone who stands by our side to build
by our side; that is, when he also sets himself in motion and embarks on the adventure. A friend-
the go is always double: on one hand it is like us, our copy, and on the other, it belongs to the society that is ours
unknown. In a foreign country, a friend is someone who takes a stand against their country, at least
in some way, and becomes our accomplice. It is not the one who hosts us, but the one who us
helps to uncover the secrets of the country.
The search for identity is a journey of initiation. Those who seek their identity must
to lose oneself and find oneself, to die and be reborn, to descend into hell and return to the light. This journey does not
can be done in a group, it is an eminently individual adventure, and it has risks. Death-
Renaissance can be death; one may not return from hell. It requires caution and cleverness.
sometimes the friend accompanies from the beginning to the end, other times at a crucial moment, at the
sometimes it takes the lead, other times it is limited to confronting and advising.

In addition to dating, friendship, and other forms of love, there is eroticism. Eroticism can be...
to present autonomously or connected to other dimensions. In dating, there is extraordinary eroticism.
The lovers spend time embraced, in reciprocal ecstasy. But also outside of dating there exists
there is a strong erotic attraction. We can say that it is eroticism and not dating that predominates in everyday life.
tidiana. It is somehow present in all relationships between the two sexes. The woman ava-
Reading, in general, man as a possible erotic object; man evaluates woman in the same way.
15
In a time of sex appeal, some are more attractive than others. An interesting person from
an erotic point of view may lack other qualities or virtues. It is not necessarily intel-
people, honest or determined. Erotic attraction has nothing to do with moral judgment. In this sense
she completely opposes friendship: it is its antithesis. But, eroticism also produces forms of
union influences people to seek each other, to long for each other from a distance, wanting to meet again
and being together. Many confuse this attraction with dating. The difference is that once satisfied-
as the erotic question is raised, it diminishes, while the lovers, the more time they spend together
but they want it to prolong. The more united they are, the more they feel the need to diminish it.
gives more distance between them. Eroticism, on the other hand, has the capacity to satisfy itself. Simulates the
passion and has madness in common with it. But when it reaches the goal, it calms down and forgets. From-
for interest is reconstituted from the same dynamics as hunger, thirst, and sleep. The erotic interest
differs from dating because it is attracted by novelty and stimulated by difference. Dating seeks
with the same person's obstinacy, and if she does not find her, she has no peace. Eroticism, even if it seeks the
the same person is always willing to replace her, as long as the opportunity presents itself.
In the erotic relationship, the two lovers seek a purpose: to give pleasure to each other, and nothing else.
but. They cannot live without each other. It is likely that no other form of reciprocity exists.
more immediate, total and spontaneous like this. For this reason, psychoanalysis has taken sexuality
genital as a prototype of reciprocity. Eroticism, like friendship, has the nature of encounter.
The time of eroticism, like that of friendship, has a granular structure. Dating seeks a person.
unique and unmistakable in which all qualities are extraordinary and sublimated. Eroticism only
sees the erotic qualities and seeks the experience and not the person itself. The core of dating is this-
of the dawn. The core of friendship is the encounter and friendship is a filigree of encounters with the
same person. The core of eroticism is the experience. An erotic experience lasts as long as the rela-
erotic action, erotic pleasure, preserving their extraordinary and unheard-of nature. When not
one finds in a person, another is sought. Dating aims at the formation of a collective, a couple. The
friendship seeks to walk together the path of life, side by side, with loyalty. Eroticism is hidden.
to go to give oneself an extraordinary pleasure. The erotic pleasure comes from the fusion of bodies, from the...
the identity; in dating, the two people merge to form a new one
entity, a we, that aims to last and modify reality; in eroticism, the two people tend to
a temporary merging, a temporary annulment of their physical and psychic individualities.
well, eroticism is the longing to know. One wonders what it will be like, how it will react; perhaps it is the way of
the simplest knowledge between two sexes, the most immediate door to enter intimacy.
In general, it is the youth who most frequently seek erotic experiences. Therefore,
consider it incomplete and partial a relationship that has not led to sexual contact.
The search for sexuality can become a paroxysm, that is, maximum sensation, excitement in certain
two periods of life. Then, the person tries to 'seduce' or 'win over' as many as possible
of people of the opposite sex. In certain aspects, it is a form of power; in others, an exploitation,
a longing for knowledge. The quantity ends up nullifying knowledge, leveling experiences
scandals and destroying eroticism, and people confuse themselves with one another. So many naked bodies and
so many identical bodies. And eroticism dissolves in the absence of differences.
Eros is the tension between individuality and fusion. It requires the individual to anu-
there; it needs fusion and nudity to find in them the specific, the unique. The erotic man-
Tico has a need for elegant clothes. But he is cold; the woman is haughty, distant, and unapproachable.
like a goddess. Female seduction is simultaneously distance and invitation, modesty and insinuation.
action. It is the generic symbol of seduction, inviting the man to advance, to propose, to take the ini-
initiative to be able to defend itself, and then, on the spur of the moment, to yield. In this, the human being repeats what in
generally happens with other living beings.

16
 What is the difference between friendship and erotic relationship? It is not in itself stability. There are cases in
that friends live close by for their entire lives; others meet less frequently and even,
sporadically, but it is true friendship. Eroticism can generate a lasting relationship. Friendship
is characterized by the meeting. In the meeting, we discover the friend beyond time. In the meeting
erotic also interests the present, without caring about what happened in the interval. The difference
it is in the experience itself. The erotic experience is never casual, it is prepared. One prepares to have
zero new, extraordinary, not necessarily reciprocal. If you don’t have it, it may even disappear. The
Friendship does not prepare anything. Friends do not expect anything from their meeting. They do not judge you, they do not...
Liam. The erotic encounter is prepared with its outcome in mind. Everything that happens is evaluated and
The erotic encounter is a reciprocal provision that should cause satisfaction. Each one can
deluding oneself, and if this repeats more times, there will be no reason to continue searching for something that doesn’t
exists. There are manuals that discuss techniques for improving performance. The art of loving, if love is
understood in the erotic sense, it is an art that can be learned and taught. There is no art for falling in love or
make friends. Books about the art of loving are mystifications. Love is not learned, it is known.
a priori. Friendship is not learned either. Good manners are learned to live with kindness, the
what truly benefits love and friendship. Seduction is learned. The world of eroticism is a
of means and ends: the ends are known and the means are perfected. In friendship and dating, people...
They find themselves not knowing what they want. Only in the encounter does the end reveal itself. For the eroticism more
purely there is no interest in existence and durability; it only wants extraordinary pleasure and that's enough.
erotic relationships, unlike friendship and love, can cease in an instant, without regret,
without resentment and without bitterness. Love ceases only after countless frustrations. The friend-
the seed dies from trauma, betrayal or disappointment, and with it also ends in pain, the-
maturity leads to a feeling of illusion that can last a long time. Many relationships do not last.
of erotic relationships enriched by romance.
Friendship never feels self-satisfied for itself, but sexuality does. During the
erotic contact the person says: 'How I like you, how good it was for us to be together.' The eroticism
there is a need to proclaim pleasure, one's own pleasure and the pleasure of being with the other, of being
together. There is no shame. The erotic relationship is nourished by reciprocal declarations of love. Friendship,
On the contrary, it is elusive, modest, and silent. Two friends do not say 'How nice that we spent Jun-
Friendship is a pleasure, produces great joy, but it is a kind of joy that is not expressed
To be able to help a friend who helped us in the past is a happiness, and it brings us great joy.
but we cannot express it. Lovers vow eternal fidelity; friends never swear,
they promise nothing to each other.

Can eroticism and friendship coexist? They are different and cannot be confused, but not
they are necessarily incompatible. Friendship and dating, yes, are incompatible. If we say to ourselves-
So dear: 'We remain friends' means that we no longer love him. Friendship is incompatible even
with the love that appears in the stable form of dating. The love that arises from dating (institution)
preserve their essential characteristics. Those who love each other this way can have encounters similar to
two friends, but their affection is exclusive and they are often jealous in the sexual aspect and always
The are in front of another relationship. The couple is a solidarity collective, with mutual obligations.
with great reciprocal control. Friendship is the opposite. Introduce into this couple the liberality of the
destroying it. Friendship is also a form of love, but very different. Eroticism also-
little can be considered as a form of love. By its nature it does not produce a relationship
stable.
By combining eroticism with dating, he sanctifies it, he sublimates it. The erotized body of the being
beloved evokes reverence and worship. In this case, eroticism loses its character of infraction and violates-
tion, but because the very act of dating is transgression, revolution. Sometimes the combination of ero-
tism and love dissolve after a certain time and love loses its eroticism and becomes
affection, sweetness, loyalty. A love that has lost its eroticism remains love and does not fade away.

17
The link between eroticism and friendship is even more difficult. Friendship is completely heterogeneous in relation to
a connection to eroticism. In general, in the relationship between two sexes, there is a moment when the encounter can
evolve into eroticism or towards a friendly relationship, with equal possibilities. Almost always, one opts for
for one reason or another. Friendship and eroticism can coexist. Friendship between people of
different sex that have maintained or maintain erotic relationships with each other. It is possible because friendship
knows how to live an autonomous life, does not need eroticism and therefore does not feel threatened by it
frivolity. Eroticism in itself does not extend into friendship. Erotic attraction can feed on
incompatible things with friendship, such as vulgarity, whim, and lies. Eroticism is ambi-
goes by nature; says 'yes' and 'no' at the same time. Eroticism does not generate friendship, but friendship is
compatible with eroticism. In erotic friendship, what matters is the filigree of encounters. What matters
it is trust, faith, spiritual loyalty. Eroticism in this case is just a component of the context.
In friendship, eroticism is always an appendage that does not interfere and should not interfere with the
foundations of friendship.
Erotic Namizade, friendship begins where seduction ends, where manipulation ceases and
the power. True erotic friendship is made of impulse, without calculation, with generosity for the-
to increase and to add, without petty calculations for and against, without the desire to hold back, to say-
to lead, influence or drive in a certain direction.

Power and aggression dominate everyday life. Often superiors feel a need to...
It is great in reaffirming its power in relation to its subordinates. Among colleagues, there is a struggle for hierarchy.
hierarchy. The professional system is built to rise in the scale of prestige and power. The groups
social groups are coalitions that are formed to fight against adversaries and defeat them. To this end, there is the
malice, collectively attacking the one who is absent, and leaving him out.
The desire for power, to stand out, the need to dominate, are also present in the rela-
marital actions, between people who love each other. Among couples, there is a subtle and ongoing struggle in which
one asserts itself to the detriment of the other, makes them feel guilty, humiliates them. Sometimes, after the
intensive dating period, only this need for aggression and revenge remains. Sometimes we
we asked about some couples: what binds them the most is love or the desire for revenge
Do you wish to have the other bound or submissive?! Some become true despots. It doesn't matter the
what the other does, even if it is perfect and admirable, will never receive a compliment. They discover...
they find faults, make deductions from an insignificant detail, and thus destroy the value of the whole
the work. Thus, the other always feels guilty. Who frees us from this petty world and its
Daily weight is friendship. A friend does not have a stingy behavior towards us. None.
A friend will speak ill of us. In friendship, there is no room for aggression and power, nor for the mise-
daily power, nor for the slightest malice. Friends are magnanimous towards each other.
outro.
Ambivalence dominates everyday life. Sometimes we feel love and hate at the same time.
An object of love – the person we love, our father, our homeland, our Church – embodies burdens.
positive. The more important the object, the greater the accumulated charges. Conversely, our
personal enemy or the opposition political party, that is, everything that seems unpleasant to us
we hate permanently, they are objects that incorporate negative charges. A relationship does not
ambivalent is one in which there are either only positive charges or only negative ones. From the point of view of
the pleasure principle, the presence or absence of the ambivalent factor is of utmost importance. According to
Freud, we experience pleasure both when we express our love and our aggression.
the warrior feels happy when looking at the corpse of the enemy he killed, in the same way the lover is
happy in the arms of the beloved. The happiness of the warrior depends on the fact that his aggression was able to
to unload on the enemy, the object of negative burdens. And it would be unhappy if it had killed someone.
The happiness of the lover lies in being in the arms of that person who only embodied
positive charges. One would be unhappy to embrace their enemy. Therefore, pleasure is only produced when the

18
charges are directed towards objects that have continuously absorbed charges of the same type. Every time that the
aggressiveness is directed at objects of love we experience suffering, which can take the form of
Remorse. Every time eros is directed towards negative objects, we feel anger towards ourselves.
It is easy, then, to understand that ambivalence is a source of suffering. It prevents us from...
take the pleasure of aggression and love in its pure form. If we are ambivalent, when loving-
we also wish to do harm to the loved one. Then we feel bad and have the need
to repair the damage. Intense ambivalence is a sign of illness and death. Why our life
is dominated by ambivalence? Because of the importance of some objects of love. The mother loves
your children, but must always live with them, take care of them always, even when you are tired, and
even when you don't feel like doing it. The children fulfill her as a woman, but they are also a
obstacle to your personal growth in other aspects.
Ambivalence is present in all spaces of everyday life: at work among colleagues, with
superiors, with people who are close to us. It is easy to separate feelings towards those who
they are almost indifferent to us. But we cannot avoid the overlap of our feelings when
we are united with the person, when they are not essential to us, when we want to have them always close
We. Ambivalence is the illness of intense relationships, and the stronger and more solid the bond,
But it is more painful. The suffering is proportional to the total role of the object.
The only emotional bond incompatible with ambivalence is friendship. In dating, we can
to hate the loved one. We can be ambivalent towards parents, children, and colleagues, but not the po-
we should be with respect to friends. It is inevitable that continuous coexistence creates reasons for...
feeling, small things that can acquire importance. Coexistence tends to consolidate the
affective relationships, but at the same time divide. The partners choose this path and take on
this risk because they tend towards fusion. Friendship tends to renounce fusion in favor of encounter. The en-
Control is always positive. That is why we experience a feeling of intellectual and emotional liberation.
The friend is not double, but transparent. It is impossible to live day by day without ambivalence. It is
product of the existence of stable relationships with objects. But they can also be minimal.

Envy also dominates daily life. It is certainly one of the strongest feelings of
human being. It was highlighted by Freud, Melanie Klein, and others. Girard says that man is an animal
mimetic. His great ability to learn lies in placing himself in the shoes of others and wanting what the
The children learn good cultural things through identification with their parents.
But children also identify with their peers. To want something is to want someone with
to which we are identified. Desire and envy are born simultaneously. Desire exists because
Is there anyone else who desires, and their desire awakens in us the desire to have that same thing instead.
from the other to have it and, therefore, to take it from him. Mimetic envy, for Girard, is the basis of almost all
human relationships, including dating.
Envy is made up of several components: identification with the other, the desire for that
that he possesses and the resentment because he has it and we do not. Sometimes the feeling of
injustice and the desire to take from those who have and make them suffer. That is why envy happens so frequently.
mind in daily life. Envy is a petty, painful feeling that poisons our relationships.
social actions and makes us suffer in silence. The envious is happy when others suffer, when they are
unfortunate, when things go wrong. It is unhappy when others are happy and doing well. Therefore,
envy is the antithesis of love. Love wants the happiness of the other; envy wants their misfortune. Envy is
one of the ways in which hatred, aggression, and the pleasure of damaging and causing suffering manifest.
Between siblings, jealousy often coexists with a tenacious love.
In a relationship, there is no envy. There can be hatred, resentment, a desire to destroy the person we love and
that does not reward us with its love, but there can be no envy. The lovers have experiences
very different. Each one is, in the eyes of the other, either a deity or a demon and we cannot
envy neither demons nor gods. Envy is a feeling that arises among peers.
19
 Friendship is the most evident exception to mimetic jealousy. Friends are equals, they are similar.
They often have the same values. Each one learns from the other what should be done and what should not be done.
you must wish. The wish of the friend remains your wish and we put ourselves at your service
satisfaction. We do not confuse ourselves with it. In the meeting, we came to know our true selves.
wishes, first identifying ourselves with it, and then differentiating ourselves from it. Differentiation is
condition of our identity. He is not jealous because he continues to be himself and we continue to be ourselves.
to ourselves. In friendship, renouncing a friend's desire is both natural and pleasant.
When we do it, we have a clear impression of feeling better and more ourselves. That's why we do not
we can wish the person that our friend loves. If he loves her, if he desires her exclusively, then
ceases to be the object of our desire.
Friendship interrupts and transcends daily life. Daily life tends to seep into
friendship, to capture it and impose your rules on it. This is evident in the relationships of couples and in relationships
friendly. The couple is exclusive; they intend to control everything, leaving no empty spaces. There are post-loves
possessive, anxious, who are almost exclusively limited to the physical and mental control of the other. They are
loves-hate, loves-power in which the lover is the jailer of the beloved who only cares about the
the idea that the other may flee. Friendship is esteem, respect. One way to attack it is to insinuate
doubt due to criticism and "gossip", characteristics of envy. But there is no envy in friendship.

What are the enemies of friendship? Jealousy, ambivalence, and the po-
But they are also great enemies of the large social structures based on utility.
organization and the market. Organization is a social structure built in such a way that it enables
the accomplishment of your objectives independent of the ends and desires of those who work in it.
No one works in a certain factory because they have a special passion, but because of the
salary. Higher salary makes you change jobs. Working with enjoyment increases productivity. But this
does not mean agreeing with the company's goals. The company aims for profits and benefits. The
organization manages different personal motivations to achieve a single goal. The organization
use people as means and not as ends. This does not mean that there are inhuman relationships; while
on the contrary, people treat everyone as kindly as possible. Among colleagues, relationships are created.
friendly. The law of organization is efficiency. Work life is almost always tiring, hard, and frustrating.
It is not physical fatigue that matters, but moral fatigue, always being a means and never an end.
Most of the time, friendship emerges as a foreign body within the company. The company
needs friendly relations, of obedience. Friendship relations adapt poorly to competence.
business, above all between superiors and subordinates, between directors and subordinates. The linkage
The relationship between a politician and a voter can be friendly, as one needs the other. There can be friendship between the ad-
lawyer and his client. Each can estimate the other by their personal qualities and at the same time
to render you a service. On the contrary, in companies, personal qualities sooner or later become necessary.
without leaving your place to the harsh objective needs, to the inexorable logic of efficiency.
Nomercadocada vigil only for its own economic benefit and must do more calculations
cost-conscious and utilitarian if one wishes to survive competition. The market ignores all criteria
of value that is strange to you. It is also incompatible with friendship. But he consents. The maior-
the people who operate in the market compete with each other, of course, within the same sector and
not with very different goods. The market creates common interests and a strong solidarity
of corporations. It also creates numerous opportunities for personal encounters on an equal footing.
of what friendship prefers. Therefore, friendship among doctors, bakers, is very common,
lawyers, etc.
There are societies that place little importance on friendship and love, and live obsessed with
the problem of human relations and interpersonal conflicts. This is exacerbated because the human sciences
and social networks have suffered from the logic of the market. It is a serious mistake to believe that we can explain our dis-
the deeper aspects with the logic of the market or the organization. The deeper human reality
20
it is made of encounters during which those who meet do not know who they are or what
I don't find them asking about who they are and what they want. The value of things is not given to us.
he is presented to us.
Modern society transforms virtues into payments, and ideals into services. The values
and the dreams of humanity, in the age of technology, only come true if they are regarded as means and
not as ends. Every organization requires that men transform into roles. The industrial era
always imagined the substitution of people by inanimate means. The fundamental virtues of
organization–obedience, precision, patience, resilience–are perfected from the maté-
inert river. Even the most worthy virtues like impartiality, kindness, solicitude... are hidden
they rely on electronics, as they provide safety in their calculations.
After eliminating the obstacle that man represents, we need to reconnect.
bring it. The technique only makes sense as a means, in relation to free human beings and therefore,
they contradict us. Moral is not a state, but a relationship with an obstacle. The robot does not have
virtue, for that, would need to be able to feel the opposite. We need to free ourselves from a psychology and
a sociology that reproduces, within us, this market and this organization. The language of
love is not about cost-benefit.

How can friendship continue in a modern world dominated by utilitarian relationships?

Is true friendship a refuge-friendship? No! Friendship can flourish well where the activity
it is more intense, where the relationships between people multiply. When we are full of fervor and
we are more active, we seek others to walk the path together. In these situations we go out
in search of meaningful encounters, and if we recognize someone who seems like us, we feel
happy. It is in moments of great scientific, economic, or political activity, in times of
great collective creativity, that we need to speak and compare our ideas. It is in this period-
where people do projects and collaborate with enthusiasm, without envy or rivalry,
because there is a great vital intensity, and one has the impression of easily overcoming obstacles
In this situation, friendship presents itself as an option that empowers the individual and transcends them.
Great creativity needs a community in motion, driven by great proje-
to deep passions, by violent rivalries and close solidarity. Friendship, as we
businesses and ideologies, is also the product of this intense social life. The significant encounters
you produce during these periods. That's why the center has so much importance. The center is the metropolis in-
international culture in relation to other cities, but also the city in relation to the village, the square
of the people in relation to the isolated house. People who want to do something go to the center.
Whoever wants to know, goes to the center.
In dating, the object is everywhere. When we feel like dating, the
the emerging state takes hold of the first person it encounters, even if it is the most foolish being
It is inappropriate, whenever it is the exact moment and this being makes a minimal appropriate gesture. A
Friendship, in turn, seeks a special type of person and if it does not find one, it does not come to life.
Therefore, people endowed with great intelligence and great talent may not come to encounter
never betray in your life those who are on your same level, who can understand you, who can
They help him. Elective affinities lack importance in dating; but they are essential in friendship.
Zade. Only those who live in the same environment, who speak the same language and who belong
in the same world, they have a concrete chance to meet.

There is a need for competence in modern economic, scientific, and cultural life. The same im-
importance friendship has. Friendship as an option within the field of solidarity, as a preference
hi, as a company of those who head towards the same goal, have in common with love the
amazement and the happiness of finding those who correspond to us. We always waver. The world is full
of rivalry, obstacles, and envy. In general, people do not pay attention to us or do not understand us.

21
end. Even we understand little of each other. That is why the desire for friendship is the desire that appears-
that someone appreciates us for what we do, that understands us. When we find someone
that can teach us something, that can help us, we feel happy, but we fear not having
to give you. The reason for reciprocity is a 'grace', equal to the response of the beloved. The quality of the
feelings are different and the process that follows is diverse. But the experience of happiness, of miracle,
is identical. So we see the stunning and lush world.
In periods of great social intensity, at the center of social systems, there are also illusions.
are frequent. Rivalry and envy are also present. We have already talked about envy. We need to
to resume, differentiating two types of envy. The first one leads us, through identification, to be like
the one who is better than us. We want to be in his place. We appreciate him, we cherish him, we desire
that which one possesses. Through this person we notice what is important and what our true desire is.
Yes. Envy is the tool that reveals our desire. From this situation, envy can give rise to conflict.
joso, violent omimism. The friendship that arises in a climate of effervescence is often like this.
We can befriend the person we might envy and fear, as we would have to compete.
because we felt superior. It could be that she feels the same way about us, if not in the same
Plan, it can be in a similar way. One becomes a friend to one who could have made our path difficult.
of love, success, and recognition, and did not do it. When we put our lives at stake, we find,
finally, the friend. We had some fear of inducing him to be beneficial to us. He was generous and
noble. He was powerful and did not take advantage of his power. He even loved his enemy, that is, us, and we now
we love.
The second type of envy is one that destroys its object. It is an envy that does not admire, does not
exalts, but belittles and humiliates. We wish for the downfall of others, convincing ourselves that they are incapable, ex-
We apply your successes invoking petty motivations. That envy (above) glorifies and beautifies.
This is the opposite. The envious person in the first case is filled with admiration, suffers, and wishes to be me-
worse than it is. That of the second type is bitter, criticizes everything, is skeptical and cynical. The first type of
envy reveals to us the real and deep desires; this other one hides them from us and blinds us. From the first...
Friendship will arise from the second, no.
Sometimes we talk about 'trusted men'. We cannot move forward alone.
We turn to such people when someone can be in our place without our presence,
someone we can trust as we trust ourselves. This makes us think of the people with whom we
which we worked on in the past and if it awakens the desire to see them again. All the companies re-
they want a boost of life, they are hungry for life. Friends are not indispensable to achieve this.
vital force, to constitute the critical matter capable of waiting, believing, and triggering action. With them
we can rediscover a momentum experienced before. That's why we gathered the friends with whom we had
carried out other ventures.
Life is characterized by a deep, incurable conflict between personalization and impersonality.
fathers, between anonymous benefit and benefit coming from a person of value. The gain can come from
someone without value. One person negotiates with another, often not out of esteem, but to obtain their
money. Today the issue of merchandise is strong, but today as yesterday, utility and value are two
parallel worlds. Only the world of value brings us the deepest joys and the greatest pains.
bitter. If we personalize relationships, if we put self-esteem at stake, the need to
recognition, we will face frustrations that would not exist in market relations. In the ami-
we hope that they give us something without needing to conquer it through deception or fraud,
more in line with our value.

Friendship is closely linked to action when friendship translates into some action done.
together, one cannot expect that there will be only pleasure and nothing else. There will also be frustrations,
bitterness. A professional relationship, a collective task creates divergences, different points of
View. One cannot understand friendship if it is not kept in mind that it always implies overcoming.

22
of these contrasts and these difficulties. It is a mistake to say that if friendship does not bring pleasure, it
it will end soon. In concrete friendly bonds we find a certain dose of pity. The friendships pro-
Professionals may be sprinkled with episodes of doubt or anger. When we want to love and...
But those we work with, we soon become more vulnerable. This is stronger in
generally, in the artistic and scientific field. Therefore, friendship is more often talked about in this context, but also
well many cynical statements, fruits of disappointment.
It is true that every friendship, including active friendship, aspires, at its deepest, to serenity.
limpically, the serene encounter, without obstacles. Therefore, the activity constitutes the obstacle-organ of the ami-
'zade', with which one must confront and despite which one must achieve.

In almost every book that deals with friendship, the great pairs of friends from ancient times are mentioned.
guided. They are heroic and warrior friendships that can no longer be found in our time. Nowadays,
If we wish to seek exemplary types of friendship, we cannot think of warriors. If we want to
to know if there is friendship nowadays, we need to abandon all comparisons with the myths of the past, and
to look at reality with attentive eyes and without prejudices. Marx and Engels are an example of great
modern friendship, a spiritual friendship. There was a reciprocal enrichment between them, a
complementarity. A similar phenomenon has often repeated itself. What surprises in these friendships...
of the spiritual is that each of the friends feels profoundly different from the other and admires in
another that has something different. Therefore, in spiritual friendship, virtue is also areté (virtue
or kindness, the quality of a good citizen, a good father, etc.), superiority. Each one of the
friends are fascinated by the superiority of the other. In this way, it makes the recognition that both
to be appreciated and understood by those who are qualified to do so. Because he is qualified-
left for such? We wish for the recognition of those who are endowed by the institution with the faculty-
judgment day. The child wants the teacher or parents to approve of them. Little by little we find in the
life other qualified colleagues to judge: hierarchical superiors, art critics, committees of
contests. Even the audience and the market are valid judges. Those who have
prejudices against us. The friend is the only one who is able to judge because only he is objective
The innovator, the hero, is alone. Every time we do something exceptional, either we are not understood.
you do not believe. Even the one who thinks they can understand generally does not understand and
disappoints. The extraordinary is incomprehensible, presenting itself as something that is below the acceptable.
The innovator advances through constant difficulties, coming from both outside and within.

We talk about spiritual friendships. But there are other friendships that last a lifetime and that do not
they are characterized by a common creative activity nor by the intensity of the meetings. They are friends
whom we always tend to trust as if they were our family. Even the children call them
I have uncles or aunts because they learned this since childhood when it could not be explained the difference
the difference between uncle and friend. If great spiritual friendships can continue even at a distance because
they are completely indifferent to distance, other friendships thrive and grow in proximity. It is
necessary to live close, have the opportunity to see each other, do favors for one another, ask for mutual help and
even going to the movies together or going out to talk. These friendships generally rely on some
periodic occasion for meeting. If spiritual friendships are strictly individual, friendships
such kinds can be shared with other family members. The friend, in this case, is a friend
of all of us. If it is about a couple - and possibly with children - one can truly speak
from a friendship between two families. To understand this type of friendship, it is necessary to know the
history, how they emerged, what phases they went through and how they ended, then, in con-
turn into family friendships. In general, there was a great emotional intensity. Often you have
they had found themselves together side by side in the fight, they had walked together in search of themselves and of
your personal project. If they were of different sexes, at a certain moment they felt a strong attraction

23
reciprocal. Who knows, for a moment they might have thought about dating or were dating.
The encounter between the two sexes often has erotic tones that resemble dating.
There is no lasting friendship that arises solely from habit and convenience. Stability, the s...
Unity, the deep mutual faith, and the trust of family friendships are based on the fact that there-
There was a moment in the past when each of the two friends settled into the vital orbit of the other.
Family friendship arises, therefore, from the meeting and at times may return. But
they do not stabilize solely through the encounter. They are practically part of the family, and not
It's just a custom or a meeting. Habit is not enough to create this feeling of belonging. The experience
what serves as the basis for family friendship consists of the attempt to bring to life something that already exists and that
remains alive. The typical situation in which we struggle to bring life to things that already exist is the daper-
yes, to the danger of losing what we love. Much of our life goes by as if it were
little real, a semi-dream or a semi-truth. We live off habits and conventions, of beliefs that
the others reported to us, about opinions, about good manners, about small and large lies. Neither did they
let's see if the task we perform truly pleases us, if we feel a sincere calling for it
Gum. Animals follow nature to find themselves. We, humans, have lost our nature.
Perhaps this is the original sin. The loss came when, over the other archaic brains...
received the neocortex. And since we have lost our nature, we have fabricated one, social and cultural that, of
in some way, it always becomes arbitrary and artificial. This leads to the impression of unreality, of being-
my-dream, of semi-truth. In general, reality presents itself to us in loss, in the form of catastrophe-
For example, when parents lose a child, they ask themselves: 'Where did it go? What happened?' The peri-
the real is real and the world is not a convention, an opinion, but is here, terrible and relentless. The bus-
it is desperate because it must separate us, us and the child, to the terrifying region of the real that es-
the skin of our hands.
The same happens with the value of our body, health. One day, when we least expect it,
We are sick. It could be an incurable illness. We try to continue being normal, kind, and convenient.
Naturally. Our nature does not reveal itself solely in loss. In other situations, it externalizes.
in the form of intuition, feeling, happiness. It is likely to be the moments in which
we behave according to codes beyond cultural conditioning. Thus, the father or the
mothers embrace the son who is afraid of the night. In the experience of loss, we recognize ourselves and establish-
we tie our objects of love. At that moment we understand that they are essential and that we cannot
to disregard him.
Returning to the question of the lost child, the world is divided into two well-defined parts.
on one side, the lost child and how much one can help to find them; on the other, the immense world,
indifferent, aloof. At this moment we find friends alongside us. Friends are those who
they help us in our search, they share our anguish, they fight with us, they are with
our side, who have our same objects of love. The true friend is the one who remains
by our side and helps us when everyone else disappears. He is true who resists to
test of the fight, because the fight implies decision. He chooses us and not the others. There is no amiza-
of without choice. Loss dramatizes the option, makes it irreversible. It is not us who choose ourselves,
but they choose us. A friend is the one who chooses us, chooses our cause. We first address ourselves to
Friends, we hope for your help. Some choose to come with us, others do not. Every loss acts as a selection.
Natural selection: determines what is destined to survive and last. Spiritual friendship transforms
in familial friendship through loss. Made our objects of love his.

Can the father be a friend of the son and the son of the father? Can siblings be friends? And can two spouses...
Is there? There is no consensus on this. In general, it is considered that relationships with blood relatives...
are different from those of friends. When two people, regardless of their social contacts,
they estimate each other, feel comfortable together, treat each other as equals, it's because they are friends.. Until

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Two lovers can be so and are so when, having forgotten erotic passion, each desires the good of the other.
too, with disinterest, without suspicion, with serenity. When two friends share all things
of life, for better or for worse, we say that between them there is a fraternal friendship. All relationships-
actions, whether between parents and children, between siblings, between spouses or among friends have an ideal model to
which are suitable. These ideal models are partly similar and partly different. Once that
everyone asks for love and affection, they will have in common as much as it is characteristic of love, such as the desire for
that the other be happy. But there are also differences we cannot overlook. The ideal model of
the relationship between parents and children differs from the model of the relationship between siblings. In front of the child, the father has to
they, as a guide and as an authority, that in general the brothers do not have reciprocally. In relation to
Friends, the difference from the ideal model is even greater. Friendship needs equality. The father-son relationship.
it includes an inequality, even if it is potential. At certain moments, the father feels ami-
go to the son, put your authority in parentheses. But if the son behaves badly, he must remember his
specific paternal duty. Also, the relationship between siblings can be friendly: working together,
to have fun together, to spend life with each other, like two friends. But siblings have obligations.
reciprocal obligations that two friends do not have. If one brother commits a crime, the other must help him, even if
with the danger of committing perjury to favor him. The law provides for this and for this reason
the testimony of two blood relatives lacks validity. The ideal relationship between siblings is not pre-
conditioned by morality. It is moral in itself. If our brother steals or deceives us, the ideal model
He tells us that we should forgive him and stay by his side. But it is not always like this. There are brothers
who hate each other, who do not exchange a word. But this does not reach the ideal model and therefore the form con-
the act of acting does not irreparably compromise your relationship. Friendship cannot bear these alternates
waves of approaches and separations. It also does not tolerate so much injustice. In friendship, the behavior
The real can never distance itself too much from the ideal model. We cannot ask a friend to do
something wrong, like giving false testimony. A true friend should behave with us co-
I love the brother, the father, the mother, and the lover. One must love and love always without ever asking for anything. In this ideal

Christianity was inspired. Christian charity in this total, heroic love that is professed through the
lepers whose sores kiss each other. The imperative of charity universalizes love for parents and for the Ir-
hands: "Love your enemies; do not judge them." The ideal model among brothers is very high: the
brothers must always love each other, always forgive each other, always help each other. But in concrete reality, the
brothers hardly apply this ideal. If we move on to the heroic ideal of charity, two thousand years of
The history of Christianity shows that reality is often the opposite of the values it proclaims.
two. Even some great saints like Saint Dominic, Saint Ignatius of Loyola spoke a lot about the cari-
father, but in their relationships with humanity they were harsh and merciless. If God is everything, the ho-
men are nothing; if God intends everything, men have no right to anything.
The ethics of heroism always oscillates between fanaticism and commitment. If we propose as
ideal total charity, then, in daily life, we need to find a thousand subterfuges. Ocatolicismose
is characterized by this difference between the ideal and reality, between the abstract model and daily practice
day. That's why it understands little of friendship, which wants less, but does not accept compromises.
The ancient world, especially the Greco-Roman, did not believe in abstract, distant, and unreal ideals.
She feared fanaticism. She was suspicious of sentimental excesses. That's why she placed so much importance on
importance of friendship. Because in friendship there should not be too much distance between the ideal and the real. In friend-
Buddy, we cannot proclaim one thing and do another. In friendship, pacts are respected, and one earns the...
trust. Friendship must be loyal, sincere, transparent. A friend must wish well for the friend,
not in words, but concretely. One cannot deceive in it, do harm, never, not even
Once. In friendship, it is necessary to discover the other's virtue and value it. A friend must be open,
full of life and not to disturb. Nor should it be too generous, filling with gifts for-
what is done raises the need to reciprocate. Friendship, in its ideal, does not mean giving everything, or
to lie in court, even if living under the same roof.

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 It is likely that there is no other human relationship like friendship, in which the real has
that is always so close to the ideal. It is the relationship that tolerates exaggeration and wordiness the least. The ami-
zade is solely an ideal model that demands to be respected. As we follow it, the
the world is filled with friends and they, seeing us, smile at us.

Synthesis of: Paulo Dullius

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