An Ode to Friendship - II

Aristotle says that friendship is one soul dwelling in two bodies. One wonders then if one has more than one friend, does it mean one is constantly inhabited by a number of discrete and different souls, each dear to us? It is an endearing thought that one is bound to one’s friend(s) by a bond far greater than that of time, for whilst time moves on, the soul is immortal (and my apologies to any skeptics out there).

To my mind, when one befriends someone, one unconsciously gives that person a piece of oneself, a small token of one’s being, a part of one’s soul, and in turn receives, equally unconsciously, a similar token of love and amity. One doesn’t keep such tokens locked away in some armoire in one’s room, or in some bank locker; these tokens simply melt away into our being, becoming one with our soul. When we give away a part of ourselves, our soul experiences a momentary fracture, but on receiving someone’s love, the void is made complete, as if it never existed in the first place. Each soul, each heart is so made up of not just one soul, or of different souls, but of a love shared between multiple souls.

You may opine then how does one differentiate between a mere friend and a lover? To that, I respond, can one really love someone without befriending him/her before? You retort, what about love at first sight? Coming from a culture of multiple rebirths, I imagine souls remember a kindred soul across the ages, and once you befriend a soul, you befriend it for eternity. Coming back to how one differentiates between someone who is merely a friend among other friends, and someone who is primus inter pares, it would seem your heart seeks out this soul more fervently than it seeks the others, drawing closer and closer to its presence however and whenever it can. After all, not all friends are created equal, are they?

Have you ever experienced a gut-wrenching anxiety, a pain in your chest, uneasiness, when you quarrel with a friend? It is little to wonder that one feels such torment; after all, aren’t parts of your soul quarrelling with each other, a sort of civil war, and who would deny that a civil war is anything but painful? When you separate and try to move on, you wrench your soul and cause it to fissure, taking apart that which you no longer hold dear, and receiving in turn that of yours which is no longer held dear. Unlike when you create a friendship, when you give a part of yourself voluntarily, detaching a part of yourself in rage is an act of destruction, a moment that grievously wounds your heart and soul. Such wounds take time and patience to heal, and the healing is rarely if ever painless.

Friends are those who care for us, and who we care for, unbidden and even when we and they would rather no one cared for us. And considering we are one soul, do we wonder why?