I am a friend to forget about.
I sit in my room and imagine
everything that’s going on
outside of these four walls.
The movements of the people
on their way – to each other,
from each other, on their bikes,
walking, calling, ‘running a little
late’.
I wait.
*
Research shows that on average,
one loses two friends with each
‘life changing event’.
Things counted as life changing
events are: turning fifty, having
children or children moving out,
losing your job, getting married
and/or a divorce, accidentsillnesses-
death of a loved one (or
yourself, I’d like to add).
You lose so much already and
then two friends give up on
you too. How many friends one
gains after such an event the
researchers do not mention.
*
At what point do you call
someone a friend? Formulating
an answer to that question is like
balancing on a cord drawn across
an abyss just to prove to the ones
who are securing you with a rope
tied around their body that you
trust them. A balancing act that
might be disturbed just like that,
by a light breeze. And then you
are left alone.
In general the question isn’t
taken seriously, or, at most, up
to the level of a school essay:
‘Define friendship.’ No one
knows the answer, and no one
dares to sidestep Aristotle.
A friend is someone whom you
want to treat as a friend, that’s
about all one can say about it.
Tautological definitions are a
sign that nothing ever really
changes and this one indeed
sounds like it’s coming straight
out of Aristotle. ‘Virtuous is what
a virtuous person would do,
given your situation.’ A friend
is someone whom you treat as a
friend.
Still, tautological definitions are
in themselves good definitions.
They function; they immediately
conjure up what that might be,
who that would be. And they
can’t be reversed. A beneficial
situation doesn’t turn someone
into a virtuous person; someone
who is friendly with you isn’t by
definition a friend.
*
The follow-up question must
be: how do you know whether
you want to treat someone
as a friend? What does the
friendly treatment convey? This
expediently leads to the issue of
the demarcation criterion, as is
usually the case with ‘What?’-
questions.
The demarcation criterion I’ve
used the most – although I
must admit that the last time
I needed it lies far away in the
past, so far away that the corny
joke comes back to me: ‘the last
time I had sex the sax was still
hot’ – anyway, this particular
demarcation criterion was to be
employed as follows. Imagine
this sex/sax leads to conception,
then what do you do? Very rarely
have I thought: let it come, we
can handle this; more often I
thought: let’s get rid of it, we’ll
survive. If panic flew through
my chest, I knew well enough.
Leave and never look back.
Sex doesn’t necessarily lead to
text from Miriam Rasch, Shadowbook page 70-74
