Filter Coffee # 201

On Friends in Your Life

My readers acclaimed FC 200 as a commendable achievement. I have acknowledged them individually and thanked each one for the complimentary messages. 

Now, let me share some of the many comments :

• Tarun Kunzru: “Two essential ingredients to be kind and empathetic—detachment (it's not about me, outcomes and judgement) and universal love (see divinity/connect in everything). While these two may be seen as opposites at one level, they are two sides of the same coin.
  Teamwork inherently needs kindness. One must ask: ‘How can I make it easier for all my teammates?’”

• Ashvini Ranjan (the architect of Pratham Mysore): “To me personally, FC 200 on ‘Kindness’ provided me with a window seat on a train journey down memory lane. The question that gripped me was whether my twenty-two years of NGO work to better the education standards of rural poor children was materialistic or altruistic. The numbers spoke for itself. From incubating one school in Nachanahalli Palya slum educating sixty children in 2002 to rolling out 1200 schools providing academic education to two lakh children is altruism in its purest sense. The mission continues.”

• Abha (a first-time reader): “Can there be a distinction made between an act of kindness and a kind person, or whether both go hand in hand? In some instances, this definition can also be based on the disseminator and the receiver of such acts. A perceived need by the disseminator may not be of priority to the receiver, and therefore the act becomes one-sided then.” 

• [Yes, Abha. This is so true when people start off-loading old clothes and blankets for the flood-affected when in fact the affected need medicines, food, milk and other groceries]

• Lakshmi Raman: “William Wordsworth, in his poem ‘Tintern Abbey’ describes kindness as: ‘little, nameless, unremembered, acts of kindness and love.’ That, to me, is the hallmark of a kind person, someone who gives in so many different ways and yet may not remember any of them.”

• Geetha Prasanna (yes, my significant other half☺️) writes: “My mother, a doctor in the Railways, was an epitome of kindness. I recall one of her many acts of kindness which is etched in our memory. Way back in the '70s, a patient of hers died during childbirth and my mother brought home the newborn baby and told us that until a foster mother was found, we should be looking after the baby, which we did for a week and were sad to let the baby go. To be kind to people has been ingrained in us ever since then.”

Before we move on from the topic of kindness, I’ll leave you with one more quote that I found quite nice. It’s by America author Rebecca Solnit, from her book The Faraway Nearby:

“In [fairy tales], power is rarely the right tool for survival anyway. Rather the powerless thrive on alliances, often in the form of reciprocated acts of kindness - from beehives that were not raided, birds that were not killed but set free or fed, old women who were saluted with respect. Kindness sown among the meek is harvested in crisis”

🫂Friends in Your Life

There are friends, relatives, acquaintances and strangers in our lives too. You cannot choose your relatives, but friends you can. But who qualifies to be a ‘friend’? Is the test, ‘A friend in need is a friend indeed’ good enough? Will the friend whom you think of when in need feel that you think of him only when you need him? Does that qualify as true friendship? 

If a stranger appears in your life and claims to be your long-lost friend, do you get your guard up or feel awkward challenging his claim? Or would you engage with him, blaming it on your imperfect recollection? FC 180, on The House Guest, illustrates a similar situation. If you missed it, you can 🔗read it here.

Agreed, dependability is one of the attributes of friendship, but it may not be enough unless you establish a certain degree of interdependency. Not because one good turn deserves another, as a rule. But because dependability is a two-way street. Reaching out to a friend in need of aid without being asked is far better than waiting to be asked. Some friends may hesitate or feel awkward to seek your help. Reaching out at this time makes you a friend, indeed!

Proximity can be a factor that can either inhibit or facilitate access to a helpful friend. But it hardly matters if the friend can help you without having to be present, especially in today’s era of quick communication. Thanks to tech, you can always be present to talk or even provide tangible solutions to your friends’ problems, even from halfway around the world. That said, absence does make the heart grow fonder if the friend is someone whom you miss and you long for their companionship.

Integrity & trustworthiness are the other attributes of a good friend. If you seek your friend’s opinion about a decision that you are about to make, you are not expecting him to support you without circumspection. If he simply agreed with you and later your idea bombed, you are most likely to lay part of the blame at the doors of your friend.

Sharing and caring are also integral to friendship. Sharing is not about sharing something tangible. Quite the contrary. To have a friend who shares your moments of grief and joy alike is a blessing. A friend cares for you, cares for your reputation and is fiercely protective of your well-being, defending you in any given situation but counselling you in private if you have crossed the line.

Speaking of sharing, one has to repose a lot of trust in a friend before sharing personal feelings. They may be about your relationship with others or your feelings about others. Baring your chest makes you vulnerable unless you are supremely confident that your friend is someone whom you trust implicitly to keep your confidence. It is believed that men are less trusting than women when it comes to sharing personal feelings, but that isn’t always the case.

Friends are not always expected to fuel passion but douse them with wise counsel. They can be expected to display sage wisdom when it comes to putting a friend back on track if he has strayed emotionally or otherwise. In many cases, it’s best to avoid reinforcing an opinion or endorsing a view that a friend has about someone or something to prevent aggravation.

My own life experiences have shown that friendship is lost forever if it is made transactional. I misjudged the consequence of having a dear friend as a colleague who had to in some ways report to me. This necessitated interaction which at times meandered into disagreement, leading to resentment on his part. Never involve a friend (as you would not a relative) in business or any other venture. If ever one finds oneself compelled to do so, one should learn to manage the dichotomy of the relationship of a friend and a business partner, which is easier said than done.

Friendship is normally considered to be Phileo, a Greek word for sharing a strong bond or a platonic relationship. Acquaintance should not be mistaken for friendship. It is transient, but may morph into friendship if the concerned individuals interact and get to know each other better. Friendship is a very strong bond and yet delicate. It requires nurturing and should not be taken advantage of. You must choose your friends carefully. 

Ziad K. Abdelnour, a Lebanese-born American Investment Banker, says “You have three types of friends in life: friends for a reason, friends for a season, and friends for a lifetime.” While the first two categories could be termed as ‘fair weather friends’ the third category is what one should wish for.

As an anonymous quote goes: “We’ve been friends for so long I can’t remember which one of us is the bad influence.”

Let me end with a quote by Mark Twain:

“I don’t like to commit myself to heaven or hell—you see I have friends in both places.”

I am off to 🔗Pench Tiger Reserve. Tigers appear very reserved until you act friendly ☺️

Here’s a limerick to round off this post:

There was a young lady of Niger
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;
They returned from the ride
With the lady inside,
And the smile on the face of the tiger.

Until next week, take good care of yourselves. Ciao!