C.S. Lewis says companionship becomes friendship when they see the ‘same truth’. A friend is the other self, a self that serves as mirror of the soul. Friends need not share all of each other’s traits or values, complimentary ones can be just as revealing. Privileged role of friends in self-knowledge invites further self-examination. Intimate self-disclosure enables friends to gain better insight to themselves.

I always regard work of fiction, or philosophy, or psychology as friends, really. C.S Lewis too notes that ‘the chief value of literature is that it satisfies our desire to see with other’s eyes, to imagine with other’s imagination, to feel with other’s heart, to become these other selves.’ These works of art have reflected my values and perspectives, thereby allowing me to see myself in vivid and unexpected ways. They can portray values that complement and challenge my own, inviting me to examine myself, sometimes in quite dramatic and unpredictable fashion. Friendship, provides that continual self-awareness, self-examination, that comes from active communication and interaction with people who share a life. That is why communication of friendship, more than any other, ‘maketh daylight in the understanding, out of darkness and confusion of thoughts’, says Bacon. When we meet someone who shares our values, who responds to the world as we do, and responds to us in consonance with our self-concept, we perceive ourselves reflected in that person, and achieve a more vivid sense of ourselves. Friendship increases our knowledge of others through our identification of one another. Together learn to look at things, from different points of view, to understand and feel in new ways, and thus realize the immense potentiality for different forms of experience. Indeed literature offers more opportunity of becoming ‘other selves’ than friendship does, but once again, friendship offers something literature cannot; friends are not just objects of contemplation, or analysis, but other selves who interact with us, responding to us, and requiring us to respond to them in appropriate ways.

Friendship is the least jealous, shunning the exclusivity of eros. (C.S.Lewis) No one person can bring out all the facets of a person's character: to see my friend, in all her/his complexity, I need to see her/him through other friends as well.

http://www.boundless.org/1999/departments/beyond_buddies/a0000051.html
This is an article on friendship. A.K asked for my opinion. >.<>

posted by Graciana@Home at 4:31 pm