Friendship

Some bits and pieces from a conversation between two characters in Identity by Milan Kundera(translation by Linda Asher). The guy (Jean Marc) is talking about a childhood friend he lost because of his unforgivable actions in a situation where instead of protecting Jean Marc, his friend chose to speak against him. The conversation comes up over the news of his death. I have further edited the conversation leaving out unnecessary parts.
Jean Marc: ‘At the end of my hospital visit, he began to reminisce. He reminded me of what I must have said when I was sixteen. When he did that, I understood the sole purpose of friendship as it’s practiced today. Friendship is indispensible to man for the proper function of his memory. Remembering our past, carrying it with us always, may be the necessary requirement for maintaining, as they say, the wholeness of the self. To see that the self doesn’t shrink, to see that it holds on to its volume, memories have to be watered like potted flowers, and the watering calls for regular contact with the witnesses of the past, that is to say, with friends. But I don’t care a damn about what I did in school! What I’ve always wanted, since my early adolescence, maybe even since my childhood, was something else entirely: friendship as a value prized above all others. I liked to say: between the truth and a friend, I always choose the friend. I said it to be provocative, but I really thought it. Today I know that maxim is obsolete. It might have been valid for Achilles as Patroclus’ friend, for Alexander Dumas’ musketeers, even for Sancho Panza, who was a true friend to his master, despite all their disagreements. But for us it isn’t anymore. Friendship for me was proof of the existence of something stronger than ideology, than religion, than the nation.’…………………………..’How is friendship born? Certainly as an alliance against adversity, an alliance without which man would be helpless before his enemies. Maybe there’s no longer a vital need for such an alliance’
Chantal: ‘There will always be enemies’
Jean-Marc: ‘Yes, but they‘re invisible and anonymous. Bureaucracies, laws. What can a friend do for you when they decide to build an airport outside your windows, or when they fire you? Friendship can no longer be proven by some exploit. The occasion no longer lends itself to searching out our wounded friend on the battlefield, or unsheathing your sabre to defend him against bandits. We go through our lives without great perils, but also without friendship.’
.
.
Well, my initial opinion about the writer’s idea above was that it was unique but correct. Its true and the protagonist is justified in having his opinion, based on the fact that his ideal was a friendship prized above all other values. I also agree that a friendship like that is obsolete in the modern world, but the circumstances have changed too. Today one also doesn’t need a friend to stand by one’s side in the battlefield. Today we are surrounded by so many frustrations, depressions and emotional turmoil in daily life, that a friend who can soothe us, listen to our bitching patiently and be there to hold and hug us when we need it, is quite sufficient. And even such friends are hard to come by.
Friendship is indispensible to man for the proper function of his memory. Yes, quite harsh but true. And sometimes we try to forget those friends who do just that, i.e. remind us of our past, the past we are trying so hard to forget. I don’t think that’s such a good idea really. Trying to forget the past, only changes us to someone who we aren’t. Maybe we don’t want to be who we used to be, but is that something we can do. We can’t change who we are, the heart inside us. Trying to forget who we are, just because something bad happened to us, is just the coward’s way out. We don’t really change; we just become better or worse versions of ourselves. The events in our lives make us, break us and change us but at the core of it all, people stay the same, no matter how much they try to change that. Friends who remind us of earlier versions of ourselves, is that really a bad thing? I mean whichever case its whether we change for better or for worse, those friends show us the difference in us, and analyzing that very difference should be able to help us figure out ourselves.
That’s pretty much all I have to say about friendship, in the light of the above passage. Dedicated to my friends, both in the past and the present.