Finding True Friendships: Lessons from Seneca and My Life

For what purpose, then, do I make a man my friend? In order to have someone for whom I may die, whom I may follow into exile, against whose death I may stake my own life, and pay the pledge, too.

… So said Seneca, some two thousand years ago. I’ve been reflecting a lot on friendship lately, in the context of my own life. In the last five years itself, I have gained several friends, gone through a phase where I took some for granted, a phase where others took my friendship for granted, lost a few friends and strengthened ties with few others. As I look back on these experiences and phases of my life, I ask myself what the meaning of true friendship is and how does one form and keep true friendships.

Seneca said, “If you consider any man a friend whom you do not trust as you trust yourself, you are mightily mistaken and you do not sufficiently understand what true friendship means”. John O’Donohue, in his beautiful book on friendship called Anam Cara (Anam is the Gaelic word for soul; Cara is the word for friend, so Anam Cara means soul friend.) expanded on what Seneca means in this beautiful excerpt:

In this love, you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of social acquaintance fall away… When you really feel understood, you feel free to release yourself into the trust and shelter of the other person’s soul… Love is the only light that can truly read the secret signature of the other person’s…