Seneca on the Friendship of Kindred Minds 1

When I urge you so strongly to your studies, it is my own interest which I am consulting; I want your friendship, and it cannot fall to my lot unless you proceed, as you have begun, with the task of developing yourself. 

For now, although you love me, you are not yet my friend. "But," you reply, "are these words of different meaning?" No, more, they are totally unlike in meaning. A friend loves you, of course; but one who loves you is not in every case your friend. Friendship, accordingly, is always helpful, but love sometimes even does harm. Try to perfect yourself, if for no other reason, in order that you may learn how to love well. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 35, tr Gummere

Seneca begins with the claim that a man must “develop” himself in order to be a friend. This may seem terribly snobbish, as if Seneca wishes Lucilius to be well educated so they can both travel in the same social circles. Now we’ve all met people like that, but Seneca is not one of them. If we are familiar with his views on the highest purpose of education, it is not to make men rich, powerful, or popular.  It is rather to aid them in becoming better, in practicing a life of wisdom and virtue.

The qualification for being a friend is not to be an important man, but to be a good man. This is because it is only when we are guided by a sense of right and wrong, and the dignity of both ourselves and others, that we can have genuine concern for others.

Seneca may sound like a snob again when he says that Lucilius is not yet his friend. Yet perhaps this is because we use the word so loosely. We speak of even the most distant acquaintances as “friends”, and we would be hurt and offended if anyone we knew said that we weren’t friends. Seneca understands, however, that friendship is a commitment not to be taken lightly, and it requires the right wisdom to be able to care so deeply for another person.

There is distinction between loving someone and being a friend. Much like all dogs are mammals, but not all mammals are dogs, so too all friendship is love but not all love is friendship. Friendship is not just love, but loving well, and only someone with a moral compass can do that.

In the spirit of the J. Geils Band, love can stink, precisely because we may care, but we simply don’t know how to care, and in the spirit of the Mills Brothers, this is why we can so easily hurt the ones we love. In one sense, the “friend zone” is so much greater than just falling in love. One is a promise, the other a feeling.

I remember a moment in my life when someone told me I would not only be loved, but also loved right, and I knew this was someone who thought just like me, a kindred mind. 

Written in 9/1999