Comments on: If not our friends then who? http://www.nextyme.net/blog/2003/12/26/if-not-our-friends-then-who/ The personal blog of Me (and some other random people I've met). Wed, 07 Jan 2009 06:14:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: el jefe http://www.nextyme.net/blog/2003/12/26/if-not-our-friends-then-who/#comment-8 el jefe Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.nextyme.net/blog/?p=41#comment-8 Part of the reason I have few friends is my own abrasiveness. I pride myself on not saying things about people I would not say to their face (perhaps not word for word, but the content would be the same). But sometimes I don't know where to draw the line between honesty and frivolous opinion. But truth is truth, right? Yes, truth is truth. And some of us out there appreciate when it's said to us, to our faces. I happen to think it's one of the author's most endearing qualities. That, and he likes "The Simpsons" a lot. Part of the reason I have few friends is my own abrasiveness. I pride myself on not saying things about people I would not say to their face (perhaps not word for word, but the content would be the same). But sometimes I don’t know where to draw the line between honesty and frivolous opinion. But truth is truth, right?

Yes, truth is truth. And some of us out there appreciate when it’s said to us, to our faces. I happen to think it’s one of the author’s most endearing qualities.

That, and he likes “The Simpsons” a lot.

]]> By: John Avelis Jr. http://www.nextyme.net/blog/2003/12/26/if-not-our-friends-then-who/#comment-9 John Avelis Jr. Wed, 31 Dec 1969 16:00:00 +0000 http://www.nextyme.net/blog/?p=41#comment-9 The difficulty in how people regard friendship depends on what is meant by that word. At one time, there was a clear distinction between friends, and what I shall call for lack of a better word "acquaintances," which these days seems to mean a situation like forced-proximity, adjoining airplane seats, someone you never saw before and expect never to see again. My view of friendship is the older one. I will be 60 this coming April, and I have had friends in my life to the number five. Two of those are a brother and my wife of 35 years. I have been extremely fortunate particularly in this latter case, as I have had the great good fortune to be married to someone with whom I can actually be friends. The one who was the friend of my youth, and the closest to me in the old sense of tamquam alter idem ("as if another self"), died in May '02, the week I retired from teaching....and recollecting him after reading the original post is what prompted me to write this comment. He was a friend I somehow intuitively knew could never be replaced, even many years before his death. And the year and a half since he was found dead on his kitchen floor has only served to confirm this opinion in me. He also is the example of the old saying that "You don't choose your friends, they are chosen for you." Whether by some cosmic clearing house or some other unfathomable mechanism all the ups, downs, arguments and confrontations over the years were insufficient to ever end it....even though we could not have gone more separate in our ways, and even though the friendship was not what it had been in our salad days. Forty-three years as his friend make me realize the truth of Tennyson's line from Ulysses, "I am a part of all that I have met." I find that the words above are still inadequate to what I mean, and will refer anyone desiring to investigate the phenomenon further to Allan Bloom's Love and Friendship. The difficulty in how people regard friendship depends on what is meant by that word. At one time, there was a clear distinction between friends, and what I shall call for lack of a better word “acquaintances,” which these days seems to mean a situation like forced-proximity, adjoining airplane seats, someone you never saw before and expect never to see again.

My view of friendship is the older one. I will be 60 this coming April, and I have had friends in my life to the number five. Two of those are a brother and my wife of 35 years. I have been extremely fortunate particularly in this latter case, as I have had the great good fortune to be married to someone with whom I can actually be friends.

The one who was the friend of my youth, and the closest to me in the old sense of tamquam alter idem (”as if another self”), died in May ‘02, the week I retired from teaching….and recollecting him after reading the original post is what prompted me to write this comment.

He was a friend I somehow intuitively knew could never be replaced, even many years before his death. And the year and a half since he was found dead on his kitchen floor has only served to confirm this opinion in me. He also is the example of the old saying that “You don’t choose your friends, they are chosen for you.” Whether by some cosmic clearing house or some other unfathomable mechanism all the ups, downs, arguments and confrontations over the years were insufficient to ever end it….even though we could not have gone more separate in our ways, and even though the friendship was not what it had been in our salad days. Forty-three years as his friend make me realize the truth of Tennyson’s line from Ulysses, “I am a part of all that I have met.”

I find that the words above are still inadequate to what I mean, and will refer anyone desiring to investigate the phenomenon further to Allan Bloom’s Love and Friendship.

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