Friendship
By Argie May Aprueldo
“The essence of friendship is entireness,
a total magnanimity and trust.”
One of the most beautiful human attachments is friendship, friendship between a man and another man, between a woman and another woman, and between a man and a woman. Its springs from one’s need to share his activities, his thoughts, and his feelings with another whose interests and sympathies are akin to his. Friends are really birds of the same feather, which can fly together towards the same beloved heights of thoughts, imagination and fancy. Over cups of coffee such flight may be made. Others more physically inclined would swim together and even fight together. If friendship was born in childhood, its bonds with common interests in the men is gorged deeper or stronger with the poignancy of common memories built thru the years and summoned by such magic words as, “Do you remember…?” there is nothing would not do for or give to a friend. Nothing in the last piece of bread to his own life would a true friend not offer to his friend.
True friendship should not be mistaken for what it is not. It is not true friendship that one sees in flattery and cajolery whose ulterior aim is gain or favor. It is not true friendship that the mouth of professes but the deeds belie. It is not often not true friendship that is avowed with great profusion of words and gestures, for sincere affection is deep and silent, not even needing words to convey itself.
Like all other human attachments, friendship is often sinned against. The first of such abuses is the imposition by one party on the other of demands that, on account of friendship, may not be refused. It is a virtue for a person to give whatever he has to his friend, but it is not a similar virtue for one to make on his friends’ excessive demands especially if such demands would entail pain and sacrifices from the giver. It is no great love that cares not to hurt knowingly; no great love that would receive rather than give.
The gravest sin one may commit against a friend is betrayal, the betrayal of sacred confidences. A person is disposed to tell all his secrets to his friend, to open all his heart and soul to him as he would to no other, even his wife, perhaps. Should the friend who has been allowed to enter such secret chambers come out of them and tell the whole world what he has beheld therein? Of course not, and yet many have acted otherwise and violated such sacred trust.
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a total magnanimity and trust.”
One of the most beautiful human attachments is friendship, friendship between a man and another man, between a woman and another woman, and between a man and a woman. Its springs from one’s need to share his activities, his thoughts, and his feelings with another whose interests and sympathies are akin to his. Friends are really birds of the same feather, which can fly together towards the same beloved heights of thoughts, imagination and fancy. Over cups of coffee such flight may be made. Others more physically inclined would swim together and even fight together. If friendship was born in childhood, its bonds with common interests in the men is gorged deeper or stronger with the poignancy of common memories built thru the years and summoned by such magic words as, “Do you remember…?” there is nothing would not do for or give to a friend. Nothing in the last piece of bread to his own life would a true friend not offer to his friend.
True friendship should not be mistaken for what it is not. It is not true friendship that one sees in flattery and cajolery whose ulterior aim is gain or favor. It is not true friendship that the mouth of professes but the deeds belie. It is not often not true friendship that is avowed with great profusion of words and gestures, for sincere affection is deep and silent, not even needing words to convey itself.
Like all other human attachments, friendship is often sinned against. The first of such abuses is the imposition by one party on the other of demands that, on account of friendship, may not be refused. It is a virtue for a person to give whatever he has to his friend, but it is not a similar virtue for one to make on his friends’ excessive demands especially if such demands would entail pain and sacrifices from the giver. It is no great love that cares not to hurt knowingly; no great love that would receive rather than give.
The gravest sin one may commit against a friend is betrayal, the betrayal of sacred confidences. A person is disposed to tell all his secrets to his friend, to open all his heart and soul to him as he would to no other, even his wife, perhaps. Should the friend who has been allowed to enter such secret chambers come out of them and tell the whole world what he has beheld therein? Of course not, and yet many have acted otherwise and violated such sacred trust.
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