What is friendship?

This is perhaps a question that comes up often, but never gets answered…today it’s the Friendship Day..a day that was first proposed by the founder of Hallmark back in 1930 and the fact that it was initiated by this person shows what its true purpose was. This also goes on to say that we do not need one day in a whole year to celebrate a sentiment called friendship — a sentiment quintessential of being human — it should be celebrated as often as possible by friends. 

So, what is friendship?

To answer this we must start with what is a friend — a friend is a person with whom you can be your deepest self without the risk of being judged; a someone who would stand by you, help you, encourage you in some of the most difficult times of your life; a someone who will share happiness and a laughter with you; a someone with you can fight heatedly and come back to being a friend each time, without fail, and someone with whom you can start a conversation without any hesitation, even after a long hiatus. Of course, this someone isn’t a family member but many a time, more important than family. And, friendship is a common sentiment shared between friends that emanates from all the above acts, when amalgamated — albeit the sentiment may have different connotations for different people. However, we all know that friendship comes in many layers — friend, good friend, great friend and then there is the best friend(s). What do these different layers signify? I guess, the adjectives used with the noun here show the quality of the friend in question, but the user is in fact revealing is the level of intimacy they share with the said friend. The progression from a “mere” friend, to “good”, to “great” and finally to the “best”, tells the progression of the said friend on the trust scale and as a corollary how much of the person’s core self is revealed to the person. This last bit is very interesting — as one progresses from being a “mere” friend to “best” friend, they increasingly reveal their core self to the person or persons in question and therefore having best friend or friends helps one to discover self too,  more through revelation, than self-discovery. And we all know, one of the key purposes of human life is to get connected to self and now we know friendship can help in that quest. And, that’s divine!

Happy friendship day!