Seneca on True and False Friendship 2

. . . Indeed, I would have you discuss everything with a friend; but first of all discuss the man himself.  When friendship is settled, you must trust; before friendship is formed, you must pass judgment. 

Those persons indeed put last first and confound their duties, who, violating the rules of Theophrastus, judge a man after they have made him their friend, instead of making him their friend after they have judged him. 

Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship; but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 3, tr Gummere

I have caused myself much unnecessary grief because I have sometimes flipped the crucial order of this rule. Instead of choosing a friend carefully, and then committing myself fully, I have committed myself far too hastily and carelessly. I then foolishly sat in the ruins, confused about what had gone wrong.

The problem always lay in my own ability to decide upon a measure for friendship. At first, it was nothing but the appearance of beauty. I was that shallow. Then it was charm or intelligence. Then it was the illusion of being learned or educated.

I finally, after too many years, realized that there was really just one thing that mattered as the measure for friendship. You and I can have the most diverse of interests, tastes, preferences, or backgrounds. These things are all about externals. We can, and will, only be friends when we share a common sense of what is right and wrong, of the internals, guided by a moral compass.

To judge others does not mean to condemn them; it means simply to understand them for who they are. I must reflect upon how and why this person acts as he does, and I must make my trust and friendship flow in harmony with those values he employs to live.

Others will be as they are. Blame will never change that. The Stoic grasps that blame has no place in a sound moral universe, and the only solution is to take upon myself a full moral responsibility for myself. I should worry about what I do, and never what is done to me.

I could write whole volumes blaming others for being poor friends, but it would neither help me, nor would it help them. To do so would be the very antithesis of friendship.

To avoid grief, guilt, or resentment is to do nothing more than to be accountable for oneself. If and when I choose to love someone, and to be a friend, there will quite simply be no conditions, no requirements, and no contracts. Love and friendship do not admit of such limitations.

Written in 7/2009

Image: Giotto, The Kiss of Judas (c. 1305)