Seneca on True and False Friendship 4

. . . There is a class of men who communicate, to anyone whom they meet, matters which should be revealed to friends alone, and unload upon the chance listener whatever irks them. 

Others, again, fear to confide in their closest intimates; and if it were possible, they would not trust even themselves, burying their secrets deep in their hearts. But we should do neither. It is equally faulty to trust everyone and to trust no one. 

Yet the former fault is, I should say, the more ingenuous, the latter the more safe. . . .

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

Swinging between trusting too much and not trusting at all will quite often speed past the middle ground, where we learn who we should trust and why we should trust them. I may have attempted friendship, and I may have practiced it poorly, or allowed myself to be seduced by the externals. Perhaps the solution is now never to have any friends at all? Trust was broken, so shouldn’t trust be thrown away?

Our mistake is to assume that we should discard the things that don’t work, and replace them with entirely different things. We overlook the true solution, which is to make the broken things work again. It is entirely possible, and advisable, to find the right balance.

Though I may not understand why, I desire friendship, so I begin sharing my thoughts and feelings with anyone and everyone. I may also think that friends will benefit me by what they will do for me. I am that first sort of man that Seneca describes, confident, ambitious, and outgoing. I will very quickly be disappointed. I have discovered that I loved and trusted all the wrong people, and they, in turn, did absolutely nothing for me.

I may still not understand why, but I will begin to reject the very possibility of love and trust altogether. In a typical fight or flight fashion, I oppose or reject what has seemingly hurt. And I have now become the second sort of man that Seneca describes, who can no longer even trust himself.

And all that time, while going from one extreme to another, I have been neglecting a healthy sense of love and trust.

Instead of being everyone’s friend, or no one’s at all, I can recognize that the person worthy of friendship is someone who shares my own commitment to living with excellence. Only with that common goal can our thoughts and actions be ordered in harmony toward the same end.

Instead of expecting the benefit of friendship to be what I may receive, I can recognize that its true merit lies in our capacity to give, and through shared giving there is a double benefit. Only when I expect nothing from externals, seeing my own dignity and that of others in our internal character, will friendship become a blessing.

 Written in 7/2009

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