Friendship is one of the most humanizing aspects of life. These are relationships we choose with kindred spirits. Other than our choice of spouses, there aren't so many of those: not colleagues, not family, though these people may also be friends. These are people with whom we can share who we really are, with whom we exchange loyalty and caring and intimacy not out of necessity but simply from our hearts, because we cherish one another.
The world we live in is, in too many ways, a dehumanized one. That's a point that, I suspect, requires no elaboration here.
In that context, the affirmation of the value of friendship is in itself a potentially healing action. For too many Americans, and particularly, I believe, American men, friendship is one of those "good things" for which there's regrettably just not enough time or energy left after pursuing all the goals that are more strongly enculturated in us to pursue.
Friendship matters. It's my guess that if people in our society oriented their hearts more toward the humanizing dimension of friendship --to the idea of caring about one another simply out of a sense of the kindredness of our souls-- the whole tenor of our society would change. It would have more heart in it. More soul.
It would become more whole.
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