Added to all of this, I have been trying to work out a blog post about friendship and it won't come together. So I am going to rant instead.
I came across a C S Lewis quote about friendship two days ago that I profoundly disagreed with. Here it is. It's bollocks.
This is not how I see friendship. Is this how you see friendship? I feel sorry for C S Lewis that he thought this is what friendship is.
I'm not going to deconstruct it today and say why it's bollocks, I don't feel well enough. My sinuses are full of snot and it's leaked into my brain.
But here's another thing. I hate it when people misattribute quotes. It drives me nuts. Have you noticed that all witty quotes - whatever the voice - are ascribed to Oscar Wilde? And how many wise and profound quotes are ascribed to C S Lewis? I was looking on the net to find out who came out with the wonderful "A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words" and guess what? People were saying the author was C S don't-understand-friendship Lewis. I ask you.
It was not him. The origin is unknown/unverified.
I've run out of rant. And just to give C S Lewis his due, I'd like to share something he DID say that I often find helpful:
I'd also like to share a photo from the generous Rosemary Mann. It was taken above Hawes in Wensleydale this last week:
6 comments:
gosh sue this is a hard hard question. I also disagree with C S Lewis BUT do agree with what he says in the last bit of the piece you quote: in that I agree that friendship adds value to survival. I have in my life had two close friends...and my goodness how greatly they differed from one another ..and from me! Neither read (s) the sort of book I read, had the type of marriage I have...and I could go on and on but what they had in common was a real acceptance of who I am and for me so important as well, they had a natural inclination to honesty , shied away from pretense. I write in the past tense but one is still very much alive even though she lives far away from me now but for 8 years or so we lived in very close proximity...would often see each other casually every day and still visit formally at least once a week and dined together in company with our spouses once a month. Now we write many many mails and when we saw one another a while ago it was as if there had been no distance , no time since we lived a short bike ride away from each other. So....friendship has to be soft., safe , welcoming but oh my also tough..able to withstand knocks and distance and a friend must sometimes tell you a home truth or two...and always fair exchange...giving and receiving in equal measure...
I knew I could depend on you for an answer, Marmee. Thanks for contributing.
Yes, honesty, acceptance and fair exchange.
I do think that friendship between men is sometimes like this. It can be very different from friendship between women. And must there be only one model of friendship?
Yes, part of the unwilling post, yet to be written, was about gender differences.
And I suppose that no, there does not need to be one model of friendship. However, and it is a big however, I think Lewis's description of friendship somehow debases it, just as the notion of "friending" on Facebook does. I am not on Facebook, but from what I understand, a friend can be someone who is not a friend as you or I - or even C S Lewis - would understand it.
Fair point thought Chrissie.
I personally think there are different kinds of friends and different levels of friendship, and if Lewis had been saying that one kind of friendship is THIS - his description - I would not have been appalled. His version seems to rest in the cerebral alone. Friendship involves emotion or it is worth nothing in my book.
gosh, I am being opinionated this morning!
Doing pretty well despite snot infused brain if you ask me! Jenetta
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