From Essays After Montaigne
For generally, all those amities nourished by voluptuousnesse or profit, publike or private need, are thereby so much the lesse faire and and so much the lesse true amities, in that they intermeddle other causes, scope, and fruit with friendship, than it selfe alone: Nor doe those foure ancient kindes of friendships, Naturall, sociall, hospitable, and venerian, either particularly or conjointly beseeme the same. That from children to parents may rather be termed respect: Friendship is nourished by communication, which by reason of the over-great disparitie cannot bee found in them, and would happly offend the duties of nature: for neither all the secret thoughts of parents can be communicated unto children, lest it might engender an unbeseeming familiaritie betweene them, nor the admonitions and corrections (which are the chiefest offices of friendship) could be exercised from children to parents.
As for the rest, those we ordinarily call friendes and amities, are but aquaintances and familiarities, tied together by some occasion or commodities, by meanes whereof our mindes are entertained. In the amitie I speake of, they entermixe and confound themselves one in the other, with so universall a commixture, that they weare out and can no more finde the seame that hath conjoined them together. If a man urge me to tell wherfore I loved him, I feele it cannot be expressed, but by answering; Because it was he, because it was myself. There is beyond all my discourse, and besides what I can particularly report of it I know not what inexplicable and fatall power a meane and a mediatrix of this indissoluble union.
This hath no other Idea than of it selfe, and can have no reference but to itselfe. It is not one especiall consideration, nor two, nor three, nor foure, nor a thousand: It is I wot not what kinde of quintessence, of all this commixture, which having seized all my will, induced the same to plunge and lose it selfe in his, which likewise having seized all his will, brought it to lose and plunge it selfe in mine, with a mutuall greedinesse, and with a semblable concurrance. I may truly say, lose, reserving nothing unto us, that might properly be called our owne, nor that was either his or mine.
To compare the affection toward women unto it although it proceed from our owne free choice, a man cannot, nor may it be placed in this ranke: Her fire, I confesse it... to be more active, more fervent, and more sharpe. But it is a rash and wavering fire, waving and divers: the fire of an ague subject to fits and stints, and that hath but slender hold-fast of us. In true friendship, it is a generall and universall heat, and equally tempered, a constant and setled heat, all pleasure and smoothnes, that hath no pricking or stinging in it, which the more it is in lustfull love, the more is it but a raging and mad desire in following that which flies us... As soone as it creepeth into the termes of friendship, that is to say, in the agreement of wits, it languisheth and vanisheth away: enjoying doth lose it, as having a corporall end, and subject to satietie.
There are few ideas in our cultural history that are surrounded by as much confusion as is friendship. Some languages are more precise in distinguishing relationships, but in English, the word "friend" can safely be applied to almost any relationship without a legal definition, from acquaintance to (with the addition of "boy-" or "girl-" as a prefix) lifelong romantic partnership. And even some of those relationships with a legal definition aspire to friendship. How many parents seek to be friends to their children? How many happily married spouses refer to each other as their best friends? The idea of friendship is applied so widely and so frequently that it's in danger of losing all meaning, much as the idea of heroism came to have much less meaning in the fall and winter of 2001 and 2002.
On the other hand, religion consistently favors love over friendship, from the admonitions to love to the metaphors of God as parent or lover (but never friend). A great deal of scripture is dedicated to the treatment of family (including spouses), neighbors, and mankind as a whole, but it's very rare that attention is given to friends. Are we to understand that such preferential treatment toward a small set of our neighbors or of mankind is inappropriate? Are we to love all outside of our family equally? I suppose we could aspire to that, so long as we're comfortable with falling far short most of the time.
Yet whatever religion may counsel on the matter, most people view friendship as the ideal relationship in practice. I suspect that, if asked, most people would say that they would prefer a single lifelong friend to a single lifelong lover. Love is seen as too powerful and volatile, a rash and wavering fire--like happiness, a fleeting state. Freud even goes so far as to describe love as a generally (though not always) benign form of madness. Though friendship may lack the thrill of love, it also lacks the danger. It would be easy to attribute the current celebration of friendship at the expense of love to the notion of romantic relationships as adversarial projects that now pervades popular culture, but Montaigne's thoughts suggest that the roots of the phenomenon are far older than current popular culture.
Friendship is a very fine thing, and I'd love to have more of it in my life. But is it the ultimate relationship? Certainly, parents do their children no good by trying to be their friends. It's important that children have friends beyond their family. What they need from their parents is guidance and support, and if they don't get that guidance and support from their parents, they'll look for it elsewhere and grow up anxious. If, as adults, the children have the great good fortune to still have their parents and to be close to them, then they can become friends.
I'm one of those husbands who would describe his wife as his best friend, but that would hardly be the end of my description of her. Being friends is only one aspect of our relationship. We aren't friends to the point that we can no longer find the seam that has joined us together. As Dion has quoted his wife, "If you agree on everything, one of you is superfluous." The trust and stability of friendship are absolutely necessary to a marriage, but so are the passion and irrationality of love.
Since starting this Weblog, I've learned much about friendship. More than anything else, I've learned that genuine friendship can begin only from vulnerability and honesty. You can't call someone your friend if you're seeking to protect or hide yourself from them. By striving to be honest in this Weblog, and by making myself vulnerable in the process, I (like the Preacher, though on a smaller scale) have made friends. That's pretty cool.
8:20:01 AM 
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