The Essence of Friendship

I was always a firm believer that truth always would be triumphant in any situation. I wanted to be as truthful as I could in a distorted mirror full of lies and cracks called ''our world.'' Everyone lies, no exception. Everyone lied at some point in life, still lies and will lie as life goes on. Surely there are people who lie less than the average but a lie is still a lie no matter what reason there may be behind it, important or not, a lie is still a lie. The same can be said for many things such as death for example. You don't how somebody died. You care that they did and they are no more in your life. You may say that you care about the cause of death and there can be extreme cases but the final result is the same and that's what hurts the most. They are gone. Same with relationships or any other kind of social interaction. When something is missing, you don't care how it went away, you care that you can't have it anymore. In the case of lies, the thing missing is trust. Trust is a pivotal foundation for friendship and relationships in general. Some people believe that friendship is a ''holy'' thing to have. Something that must not be broken in any way because friendship is THAT important to them. They also think that every single human being they meet thinks the same way as them. Especially their friends. They firmly believe that their friends have the same point of view as them, just because they are friends.

It can be argued that the more you have in common with someone, the better the relationship. I always disagreed with that opinion as I thought that the things you don't have in common challenge each other's minds and make you a better person. Friendship is about challenging times, sad moments and tornadoes. Everyone can be good while everything is nice and sunny. True friendship is a test of time and hardship. It's the fact that you can accept all the bad behaviours your friend has and truly love him for who he is. Of course this is a statement that should never exceed normal situations. Extremely bad habits are no good.

I for example can't be with someone else for long periods of time and that is why I never went for a holiday trip with a girlfriend or friend. This is my bad habit which is not extreme but can be somewhat annoying. Obviously, this habit prohibits me of having too many friends thus making me not so popular. Yet, I got like 10 and that's enough for me. Ten people who accepted this habit and other stupid things and became friends with me throughout my life. That's what friendship is in my opinion. To know that someone has a certain problem yet accept that problem and make him a better person through your friendship. The sole fact that my best friends does not have this habit makes him quite different from me, illustrating my second point. When you have less things in common with someone yet you work well together it's better than you being 90% the same with your friend and working well together. For when hardships come, that supposed good friendship is going to be destroyed for no reason at all. But, I don't wanna be completely biased here and say that every single friendship like the above is not a real friendship. I've seen many people who are almost twins concerning their behaviours and they are doing quite good.

I believed that friendships were a ''holy'' thing to have in your life. Until everything crashed and reality kicked in. No friendship is holy, people will come and people will go until at some point some will stay and that is it. Nothing more, nothing less, just a simple term defining that some people will be there. Everyone has their own reasons when they leave or stay. They may like you for what you really are or run away when they actually see the real you. There is a saying about relationships in general. ''People have 3 masks. One of them is for their family, the second is used for their friends and significant others and the third one is for them to use and them alone." I believe this saying to be true. There are secrets that we keep from our family that only our friends or romantic relationships only know and the opposite and behaviours we only express while being with these people. Yet, there is this third mask or secret or however you want to call it that only we know. Only we know who we truly are. Everyone else might know a good percentage of it or others may know nothing but only we know what light and darkness we hold inside.

But how could someone know 90% of who we truly are?  Through the hardships and tests I stated above obviously. The closer you come to someone through hard times the more that someone knows about you and the same can be said for you. They are more knowledgeable about you and you are more knowledgeable about them and you know what they say. ''Knowledge is power.'' Friendships is basically you, giving power to someone else while they do the same. You hold power over them and they hold power over you. The specifics of the power are determined by who knows more about the other. If I know nothing about my friend but he knows everything about me I hold no power over him. While the term of friendship could be explained by two people going through bad times together and smiling the essence of friendship is far more dangerous yet captivating.  The essence of friendships is holding this tremendous amount of power over someone's life and feelings yet choosing to do nothing to hurt them but to use the power you have to create a better version of that friend you met long ago and develop along with him or her.  

I'll leave you with a question that always haunted my mind. Almost everything we do holds a risk. When you pick up a glass for example it might slip and fall thus breaking in pieces. It is a risk but it is not a huge one. The question is:

Is giving that much power to someone worth the risk?