Notes on the nature of friendship

In the past couple of years, I made many changes in personal and professional life that made me look deeply into the question of friendship, collaboration, sharing of the life-journey. It has been at times very challenging and intense as there were misunderstandings, ruptures, strong projections and transference, lousy communication as well as great moments of contact, growing in shared clarity and intention, affection and beauty. Everything is in movement and continuous transformation of course as this is life and with this simple recognition arises a more compassionate way to go through whatever is happening.

Few nights ago, during a meditation, I realized that there is in my experience of friendship a specific aspect that needs more attention and courage from my side and alignment with my friends past and future.

The question here is: WHAT IS THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL BASE OF OUR FRIENDSHIP? Is it affection and shared experience? Are specific values and direction in life? Is it the belonging to a particular community? Is the sharing of actions, endeavors, work, interests, etc.? Is it nationality, religion, ideology, location? Is it how we create meaning in our lives and the perspective we take on what we come to call reality?

In different moments in my life, I would have answered choosing one or more of those options and probably few more (like sharing a holiday, a joint, a house....). However, it is very clear now that nearly all of them have some sort of merit and make me consider someone a friend. Being a Sicilian I definitely want also to add a tricky one: loyalty.

As I was sitting deeply involved with the moment and my question I reconnected with something that started taking shape more than twenty five years ago with some (only three) of my closest friends as we recognized, declared and shared that: WE WOULD IN ANY CIRCUMASTANCE TELL EACH OTHER THE TRUTH ABOUT HOW AND WHAT WE WERE EXPERIENCING IN RELATION TO THE OTHER.

To be able to do that we have, first, to recognize the truth that we experience as a RELATIVE TRUTH, not an absolute one and then follow four steps (and finding the courage to do that).

Four steps:

1.        Telling the truth about myself to myself.

2.        Telling the truth about myself to the other.

3.        Telling the truth about the other to myself.

4.        Telling the truth about the other to the other.

So, at this point, the most fundamental base of friendship has to do with how I recognize, handle and share the Truth. How Love and Awareness give me the passion, courage, intention, integrity to look into the eyes of my friend and communicate. And, even more difficult, how do I sustain and support my friend as he/she is telling me the truth of his/her experience of me. All the rest, values, morality, habits, differences, similarities, belonging etc. of course do not disappear and still play a big role in closeness or distance. However, they are not fundamental anymore as they continuously might change.

Love for the Truth is.