“Is that the basis of friendship? Is it as reactive as that? Do we respond only to people who seem to find us interesting?... Do we all buzz or ring or light up when people press our vanity buttons, and only then? Can I think of anyone in my whole life whom I have liked without his first showing signs of liking me?” (Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety, 20).
Friendship does not begin without an interest in the self. Even a deep and true friendship begins with one person tickling the other's selfish bone.
Take a minute and honestly answer this question: Why do you have friends? Not, why do you love your friends or why are they a good person; but why have you chosen to make that specific person a very good friend?
Did you answer using any of these words: I, me, myself, mine? Try as you may, it is hard to avoid answering that question without expressing some way your friend fulfills your desire, your need. You are friends with them because you find enjoyment, acceptance, love, or someone who listens, helps, corrects, likes you.
Let's find some examples of this in everyday life.
Philosophers and theologians like Lewis, Aelred, and Cicero would claim that friendship begins with a common interest. I agree. But I would say the common interest of two people beginning friendship is one person in the other and vice versa. Camaraderie, companionship, colleagues, and coworkers share an interest in something else which sparks their relationship. Friends share an interest in each other. "There is no glue in [friendship] but mutual liking” (Stegner, 96).
It is selfishness that propels a friendship deeper. After meeting someone with whom you would like to be friends, you want to spend time with them again. This desire is for one's own enjoyment. You want to enjoy time with them, delight in it, know more about them, and interact with them for your own pleasure. What takes two people from acquaintances to friends is not selfless interaction, but selfish invitation. It is interesting to note that most who would say friendship and selfishness are opposites would not mind a friend’s desire to be with his friend.
The opening quote of the first post in this series comes from a scene in a great book about friendship by Wallace Stegner that most reveals the selfish humility of friendship. When the Morgans receive bad news and need some space to get their life back together, the Langs offer them a place to vacation in their Vermont house and are ecstatic when they accept. It is then that Charity Lang states, “As for repaying… friends don’t have to repay anything. Friendship is the most selfish thing there is. Here we are just licking our chops. We got everything out of you that we wanted” (140). Charity admits that they offered their house out of selfishness and the Morgans should accept the offer out of selfishness. That is the freedom found in friendship based on selfish humility.
Indeed, there is a mysterious intermingling of lives that happens in friendship, which provides a clear way to see the connection between self-love and friend-love. When lives become shared and souls become intertwined in this deep friendship, love of self does not oppose love of friends. In fact, the two loves don’t simply play off one another. They become the same love. Love of self becomes love of friends. More on this later.
Before we take selfishness too far, we must remember that it is not simply selfishness that propels friendship, but a selfish humility. There is a sense in which every friend is humbled to be a friend and exalts his friends in that time. Lewis describes it this way, “In a perfect Friendship this Appreciative love is, I think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before all the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company” (The Four Loves, 104). But even in this humility, there is a selfishness. As Lewis continues to explain, “Life--natural life--has no better gift to give” (105). This is where we begin to see the true nature of a friendship grounded in selfish humility. It is a humility that selfishly delights in the exaltation and joy of a friend. Our ultimate example of this is found in Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment