Friends

Attraction versus Interaction

Is it really so?

Will my life go colorless, or say less colorful, if I am bereft of all my allies on earth?

What do they do to us that simply turns us on?

And why are we otherwise off?

What is the quality or color that my life enjoys living with?

Interaction!

Someone listening to us; and in turn we listening to someone!

And then, both act together - not essentially for achieving a goal; just for the heck of it!

Interaction with our fellow human beings is one of the basic instincts we have been designed to live our life on earth with.

Of course at a much deeper level than animals do!

We have an added dimension of gray matter that takes us deeper into our interactions with one another.

We play the game of interaction together.

And it is the joy of playing this game together with our fellow human beings on earth that turns our life bright with a sparkling shine of colors in it.

Interaction holds the key!

A friend is a lover, literally.

The relationship between Latin amicus "friend" and amo "I love" is clear, as is the relationship between Greek philos "friend" and phileo "I love".

In English, though, we have to go back a millennium before we see the verb related to friend.

At that time, freond, the Old English word for "friend", was simply the present participle of the verb freon, "to love".

The Germanic root behind this verb is *fri-, which meant "to like, love, be friendly to".

Closely linked to these concepts is that of "peace", and in fact Germanic made a noun from this root, *frithu-, meaning exactly that.

Ultimately descended from this noun are the personal names Frederick, "peaceful ruler", and Siegfried, "victory peace".

The root also shows up in the name of the Germanic deity Frigg, the goddess of love, who lives on today in the word Friday, "day of Frigg", from an ancient translation of Latin Veneris dies, "day of Venus".

Why do I love you?

And why do I NOT love you?

Both are very pertinent questions which must be answered at the level of our own understanding of our own personal feelings, behavior and actions vis-à-vis others in interaction with us.

Why do I love you?

• Is it because I am attracted (not essentially sexually, but personality wise too!) toward you?

• Or is it because I identify myself with you?

• Or is it because you have two eyes and one nose - that is, you are my fellow human being on earth belonging to the same batch of life that I do to?

If it is the first case, I will try to add you up to my list of allies and side with you in your wrong and your right - in effect making up a gang with you.

If it is the second, we'll no more be allies but relatives - all Americans are related to me if I am an American as my national identity - I will again gang up with you against non-Americans or at least against anti-Americans.

If it is the third, we'll neither be allies nor relatives - we'll only be in love without any personal attraction or relation between the two of us.

Why do I NOT love you?

• Is it because you distract me personally?

• Or is it because your identity is antagonistic to mine, and the two are in a hostile competition with each other?

• Or is it because I am the least bothered about your two eyes and one nose - I am only bothered about mine - in other words, I am only bothered about my existence on earth along with the existence of those who I have ganged up with whether through alliance or through relationship?

In the first case, I will avoid interaction with you developing a personal dislike for you and thus generating a psychological hole (that is, a complex) in my personality.

In the second, I will turn a fanatic - whether an Islamic fanatic, or an American supremacy fanatic, or a communist fanatic, or even a New Age fanatic.

In the third, I will turn an insensitive stone - a dead man walking - a draconian ghost or a modern day Dracula, searching for throats I can prick my itching canines in, barring only of those who are either my allies or my relatives.

Where do our allies take us to, in our life?

To nowhere broader than a narrow circle, of which the diameter is defined by the number of allies one has.

And then this circle must have its edges colliding and rubbing with the circles of other people's allies around.

Colliding causes hurt and rubbing causes friction.

Life is no more, smooth.

Just because it lacks the passion of love!

Love knows no boundaries.

Allies bind you.

Relations bind us too.

They limit the size of our passion.

When passion shrinks, it turns into emotion.

Emotion is always conditional and selective.

Passion chooses not!

It just loves.

I cannot love YOU.

I can JUST love.

If there is an object of love there, love is not.

I can love you only if I love all, including myself along.

Without any condition of making them my allies at all, not even myself!

No gangs of allies please; we are humans!

Do you feel things should change in life, on earth?

If yes, why sit passive?

Let's be in the active vanguard.

Let's try to change the world!

Even trying is its own fun in itself!

A story lived by you!

Why don't you give us a chance to read it too?

After all it is a real life story!

And every real story has all the seeds of becoming a classic in itself.

People may love you for what you have written - an enjoyable friends story of yours, or a short memoir of yours relating to your friends.

The world is eagerly waiting to listen to what you have kept inside till date. Act sharp!

Return from Friends to Best Friends

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