The Four Loves: Friendship

Some of us are read­ing through C.S. Lewis’ The Four Loves this sum­mer for the Chi Alpha Sum­mer Read­ing Project. Every oth­er week I’ll post some reflec­tions on the read­ings. 

First, I should men­tion that I was sup­posed to post this last week but got dis­tract­ed by some trav­el and lost my sense of which week it was.

Sec­ond, I should men­tion that I post­ed some thoughts on this chap­ter back in 2018 on a pre­vi­ous sum­mer read-through. My obser­va­tions here are slight­ly dif­fer­ent, so con­sid­er check­ing out that pre­vi­ous post (which includes a humor­ous video).

Today we’re going to look at Lewis’s thoughts on friend­ship (phil­ia / φιλία). This chap­ter is full of wis­dom, and it also includes some thoughts that might push you a bit. If you haven’t read it (or if you did and are hun­gry for more), the C. S. Lewis Doo­dle chan­nel has Lewis giv­ing the lec­ture upon which this chap­ter is based. The tran­script of his speech is also avail­able. 

With the pre­am­ble out of the way, here are some thoughts from this read­ing:

Some of the most strik­ing insights in this chap­ter revolve around the unique nature of friend­ship. Unlike oth­er forms of love, friend­ship is com­plete­ly option­al and inher­ent­ly cen­tered on com­mon inter­ests. As Lewis says:

Friend­ship aris­es out of mere Com­pan­ion­ship when two or more of the com­pan­ions dis­cov­er that they have in com­mon some insight or inter­est or even taste which the oth­ers do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique trea­sure (or bur­den). The typ­i­cal expres­sion of open­ing Friend­ship would be some­thing like, ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one.’

It can be almost any­thing that trig­gers a friend­ship: a hob­by, a fan­dom, a shared expe­ri­ence, or even a shared annoy­ance. Mov­ing from acquain­tance­ship to friend­ship usu­al­ly requires dis­cov­er­ing some com­mon­al­i­ty. Grasp­ing this explains why some peo­ple strug­gle to make friends (as opposed to com­pan­ions):

That is why those pathet­ic peo­ple who simply“want friends” can nev­er make any. The very con­di­tion of hav­ing Friends is that we should want some­thing else besides Friends. Where the truth­ful answer to the ques­tion Do you see the same truth? would be “I see noth­ing and I don’t care about the truth; I only want a Friend,” no Friend­ship can arise though Affec­tion of course may. There would be noth­ing for the Friend­ship to be about; and Friend­ship must be about some­thing, even if it were only an enthu­si­asm for domi­noes or white mice. Those who have noth­ing can share noth­ing; those who are going nowhere can have no fel­low-trav­ellers.

And so if you strug­gle with forg­ing friend­ships, find some­thing you care about and look for some­one who also cares about that thing.

This sug­gests that if you are part of Chi Alpha at Stan­ford, then you’re well-poised to devel­op great friends. You’ve already got your faith in com­mon, and on top of that you both have the expe­ri­ence of being a stu­dent at Stan­ford, and in addi­tion you have the expe­ri­ence of Chi Alpha. That may already be enough to trig­ger a friend­ship, and if you add to that mix even just one more thing like a cer­tain sport or a spe­cif­ic fan­dom or a shared sense of humor then the poten­tial for a sig­nif­i­cant friend­ship is quite high. 

There are, how­ev­er, bar­ri­ers. Lewis at one point observes that if the world ever makes “pri­va­cy and unplanned leisure impos­si­ble” then we will cre­ate a world “where all are Com­pan­ions and none are Friends.”

That is a keen insight, and it leads me to make this sor­row­ful obser­va­tion: Stan­ford stu­dents, you are play­ing on hard mode. The way we use our phones makes moments of true pri­va­cy hard­er and hard­er to find (social media is often a blight, and the way some of you share your loca­tions with each oth­er is a source of much need­less dra­ma), and the typ­i­cal Stan­ford sched­ule means that unplanned leisure is often noth­ing more than a dream. If you want to deep­en your friend­ships, rebel against the tyran­ny of your phone and also against the insane demands Stan­ford cul­ture puts upon your time.

Despite these chal­lenges, be encour­aged! As Lewis reminds us:

…we think we have cho­sen our peers. In real­i­ty, a few years’ dif­fer­ence in the dates of our births, a few more miles between cer­tain hous­es, the choice of one uni­ver­si­ty instead of anoth­er, post­ing to dif­fer­ent reg­i­ments, the acci­dent of a top­ic being raised or not raised at a first meet­ing any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Chris­t­ian, there are, strict­ly speak­ing, no chances. A secret Mas­ter of the Cer­e­monies has been at work. Christ, who said to the dis­ci­ples “Ye have not cho­sen me, but I have cho­sen you,” can tru­ly say to every group of Chris­t­ian friends “You have not cho­sen one anoth­er but I have cho­sen you for one anoth­er.”

So if you lack friend­ships, pray that God opens your eyes to see that poten­tial friends are already around you, and fur­ther pray that He bless­es you with self-aware­ness and wis­dom as you build those rela­tion­ships.

And if you have friends, thank God for them and be care­ful to con­tin­ue cul­ti­vat­ing those rela­tion­ships.

In either case, slow down (cre­ate space for unplanned leisure) and try to relate to your phones and social media in such a way that you’ve got moments of pri­va­cy.