Friendship 2
Friendship 2Human beings are social creatures. They strive for companionship with others. Although there are some people that might find pleasure in solitude until they reach the state of insanity, it seems clear that the majority of people do seek companionship if possible. Central among these companionships are friendships. For some people, this is what makes life worthwhile, the presence of friends. Aristotle found friendship important. Friendship is a sort of goodness, or at the least implies it. The good life finds its high point in the virtue of friendship.
Friendship is what really measures a good man. With friendship one is not following laws, he is naturally giving and receiving, a mutual sharing of things in life. Wanting friendship is natural instinct, and for the most part there is no escaping friendship in some form or another. If one is involved in community life, marriage, or plainly has a family in general, friendship will cross the path.
Throughout our life we get into different kinds of relationships. Some relationships we cannot choose like family ties. These are relationships we are born in, and we cannot break them anymore than we can stop breathing. Even denying their existence does not change the fact that your mother and father, brother and sister, are who they are. Other relationships are not forced upon us but we do not have complete control over them, like who we fall in love with. We do not choose who we want to fall in love with even though we do choose the situations that makes it possible for the feelings to appear. The third kind of relationships are friendships. Friendships are the most important kind of relationships you can be involved in. One of the reasons is that you can choose your friend, unlike your family. But what kind of friend you are, depends solely on your character. Friendships bring out the best in us, and a man without friends could never find out the best in himself. A true person would never choose to live without friends even if he had all the other goods of life.
We tend to consider people friends, even though they are not close and do not spend much time with them. Examples of these might be colleagues, fellow students, neighbors and even your mailman. They might not be close friends, but they are friends in some sense of the word. Although they are friends that are here today and gone tomorrow, they are important because they are your connection to the rest of the world. Sometimes there is an inequality, and a way of balance must be found. Just as money differs on various kinds of products, qualifications and contributions differ in most friendships. To Aristotle a true friend is a semi mirror image of oneself. True Friends share more than just mutual enjoyment of each other’s company. They are also soulmates. Only the true man can become...
To view the complete essay, you be registered.