“Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
– Aristotle
I’m tempted to call this bullshit, in spite of my obvious admiration for Aristotle. I’m also tempted to give the guy a break on the translation (I’ve seen the quote as “one mind” elsewhere and that certainly doesn’t capture the ancient Greek notions and lingiustics on “mind/soul.”) I consider myself extraordinarily fortunate to have found a best friend in high school. Despite 20 years of military service and travel all over the world, moving away, moving back, marriages, kids, divorces, we remain best friends to this day. I also have a number of other close acquaintances/friends that I have made by virtue of a common background or experience, or even philosophical bent, based upon time in the military, service in combat, work colleagues, or even clients. It’s amazing the wide array of people I’ve been able to come into contact with over the years and develop a strong personal connection with.
But a “single soul…in two bodies?” For all of them? That would actually leave me about 1/64th of a soul, I think. Am I singularly close to all of them? No, of course not. Distance and time particularly prohibit one from having 50 “best friends,” but I’m certain that if I lived elsewhere, some of those people with whom I maintain a correspondence and deep connection, albeit over distance, might well become intimate confidantes and even “best friends.”
Would it mean abandoning the old one? Reclaiming my 50% of the soul we share?
Then I thought about what life would be like without that friend. I’m not given to being a morose person, but my best friend is a cop and part of a SWAT team. We were discussing a recent call of his and I guess my writing on here about death, longevity, etc., (and probably just by virtue of getting old) made me think about life without my best friend. Ick. Kind of a sickening thought. What would my life be like when we’re, I don’t know, 75 (and I fully intend to break 100, by the way) and he leaves before me…?
I can’t really go down that road too far emotionally. I’m not really capable of contemplating it, but intellectually I was thinking about other friendships and leading a life into my 90s. An article I read online about a man, Walter Breuning, who lived to be 114 got me to thinking about how he did it. How did he survive all of the passing that must have occurred to those close around him and continue to be optimistic and happy and find optimism and hope in getting up every day? This brief article here has some of the tips from an interview with Breuning on his 113th birthday.
One of his most important “secrets”? Having friends. From the article:
“Breuning… had lots of friends in the nursing home, and he considered them his family. His wife died many years earlier and Breuning never had children… A new study on baboons provides more evidence in support of the link between friendship and long life.”
After one particularly tough breakup, and even a few not-so awful ones, I’ve become familiar with that feeling of emptiness, that hole that’s left when you don’t have someone with whom to share those mundane daily details, those small inanities in your life, that talking about helps to make you laugh and keep you sane… and makes you feel somehow “supported” in what you’re doing. I’ve noticed my tendency in those periods to seek reconnection with friends and I think it’s because I’ve realized that those losses of “partners” are also losses of friendships, even the ones that aren’t “soul-splitting.” And the ones that are soul-splitting? Even more important to have those other people, holding onto the other 50% that Aristotle as talking about, to maybe give you back some of that percentage so you can lead a long, healthy life, a meaningful one, with people you love.
Just some food for thought.