Friendships

Friendships, are all important in life, but they should be cultivated like a flower. This applies specially to one's life-partner.
In all cases friendship depends on the love one can give to the other. Differences in character and taste need to be bridged, a compromise reached in mutual respect.

On the other hand be careful in your choice of friends. You might easily become their victim, object of their projections, infected by their ideas. Many a so-called friendship is based on how one can profit from the other. The acquaintance may be merely used as a means of introduction to a social circle of influential people. Other friendships may be clung on to for warmth, to flee from one's isolation, to find a willing ear, to borrow things/money, to lean on, etc. But if a friendship has no other basis it becomes shallow as it is, based on dependence and serves as a crutch. It should not be a one-way street, unless the relationship is consciously sustained for other reasons as an act of compassion.


Insight in human character makes for true friendships. It means that one should know how the other person functions so that disappointments may be avoided. Only if one is prepared to accept the other for what he/she is and show some form of appreciation will a lasting response grow. So often one projects an image of the ideal person on to the other, expecting responses not in line with his/her character.

Thus good friendships can be made if one has also something to offer, be willing to listen to the other instead of using his/her presence to vent opinions he/she is not interested in. Everybody capable of forgetting himself, if only for a brief moment, can be a good friend, mean something to the other. If there is a true rapport one may say things unknowingly which are important to the other.

True friendships are beyond time. One does not need to see each other often. The thread may be picked up instantaneously, even after many years.