Can you find a real friend in this chaotically confused world?

[osho]

Spouses are also friends, no doubt and yet they cannot totally qualify for it though can in part. We have to strike compromises and there comes give and take issues between them. It is not mistresses or lovers for sex outside the matrimonial tie I am talking of. It is not gay or anything of that sort. It has nothing to do with gender. It is pure, uncontaminated human relationship, kind of dispassionate and purely built on human relationship.

I am in for absolute friendship. Is this possible?

[Jugon Seta]

Well I am telling you, yes we were living on a chaotic world but we can find our good companion that will be with us until the end of time. My friends were like that, we share laugh together, cry together, dream together and now our bond is getting stronger and stronger. Just remember to choose your friend; maybe your real friend is around you but an evil person pretending to be your friend was chasing them away. Friendship is will not be built for a night only it takes years to test its foundation.

[morto]

I hope so.

[Paulclem]

No...They find you.

[Ecurb]

No...They find you.

I was in Santiago de Campostela last October. In addition to being the financial center of Galicia, Campostela is one of the great shrines of medieval Christendom. When the Muslim hordes were victorious throughout most of Spain (in the 8th century), the last Christian stronghold was around Campestelo in Northwest Spain. Unfortunately for the Christian warriors, the Muslims had a talisman they believed rendered them inevitably victorious. It was the “arm of Mohammed”. Yes, it was an actual arm, that the armies toted into battle after battle with them.

The Christian warriors, after suffering defeat after defeat, needed a talisman of their own. Fortunately, a divine light led a hermit to the secret burial site of St. James, the apostle who had preached in Spain before his martyrdom back in Italy, and whose bones had been returned to Galicia for burial. Once St. James’ bones were exhumed and carried into battle, the fortunes of war quickly changed. Partly as a result, the Camino de Campostela de Santiago (“way of St. James”) became the most travelled pilgrimage in Medieval Europe, and to this day tens of thousands of hikers, hippies, and pilgrims follow the many routes.

I walked only four days worth of the route – but ended up in the Cathedral at Campostela, where a Bishop offers a “pilgrim’s mass”. Some of you may have seen film of the mass, where they swing a pendulum filled with burning incense around the cathedral, apparently of some olfactory value in the days when many pilgrims hadn’t bathed in weeks.

The bishop then gave his sermon (in Spanish, so I could understand it, in a vague way). He said, “Many of you have undertaken this journey, and are now at its conclusion. Some of you went for the exercise. Some have enjoyed the scenery or companionship of fellow pilgrims. Others may have had some notion of a spiritual quest, of having undertaken this pilgrimage hoping to find God.”

“I can tell those of you hoping to find God, that you cannot do it. Instead, you can only hope that He finds you.”

It was a heckofa sermon, and Paulclem’s comment reminded me of it.

[Desolation]

Because of recent events in my life, I'm inclined to say "No." But, that wouldn't really be too accurate. Some find it, some don't. Some get it for a little while and then lose it...I can't say if they'd have rather never been called at all (you know, Tennyson said "Better to have loved and lost"...He can get stuffed).

[Lykren]

... and Auden wrote, "If equal affection cannot be/let the more loving one be me." I think there's something to be said for that. At least it gives you an excuse to pity yourself and feel hard-done-by when you're alone, heh.

[The Atheist]

Spouses are also friends, no doubt and yet they cannot totally qualify for it though can in part.

If you think that, you picked the wrong spouse. There's not a living human I trust, admire, like and enjoy the company of more than my wife.


I am in for absolute friendship. Is this possible?

You'd need to explain exactly what you mean.

Does "absolute friendship" mean that you each put the other above everything else in life? or do you just mean lifelong friends?

I'd say that pretty well any type of human relationship is possible, in varying degrees of success.

[Shaman_Raman]

It's a noble idea...but I don't think it's realistic. I have good friends, who I share secrets with and vice versa. We'd do what we could to help each other, but at the end of the day were only human. Sometimes we let people down, and people let us down. Trying to find the perfect companionship is in some ways dangerous. If that "perfect" friendship is to suffer conflict of some sort along the way, you may never trust that person in the same manner again, which isn't fair.

And I agree with the Atheist to some degree. Your wife ought to be your best friend, other half, etc. There will always be friends of the same sex you'll want to stay in touch with, but if your value any friendship over the one with your life partner, I'd say there's a problem there.