Aug 11, 2005

Friend!

FRIEND is a beautiful word that we use it every day, such as my good friend, hi friend, miss you friend etc. But there is no written definition or regulation for friendship. There isn’t. You won’t find a single written sentence about principles of friendship. This makes it very difficult. Difficult! Because meaning of friendship varies from one person to another one. We all look for friends for different purposes. We try to make friends because they offer something that we don’t have. Because we are weak, we are limited and we can’t have everything by ourselves.

Some of us go after friends because of their money. The easiest thing that we may think of it, It doesn’t matter one pound or 100 pounds. We just go for it. We trade our time for money not for being with other people. Or they are looking for other things, CD, printer, paper, bicycle, accommodation, clothes etc. So will you call it “friendship”? I won’t. I call this group of people “low mind people”, people with low mind which are looking for things in this world.

Well there are other groups as well. A group of us looks for friends for not being alone. They are afraid of going outside alone. So they look for a company. They are more interested in talking about other people. They try to be centre of attraction by talking about others. I call this “Gossiping” not making friends. If we are strong enough and if we have strong character, then we don’t need to do anything to attract the others. Other people will come after us because of our ideas, personality and abilities. I called the second group “people with medium minds”. People who are goes after people for their own benefits. This group of people have lots of friends. It is better to say that they know many people, but few of them are true friends who care for them. I think they loose lots of their friends in time and they are always looking for new people.

And the last group, a group of people with great minds. This group of people are looking for ideas; they look for people with great ideas, strong personality and solid attitude. They usually have few friends, but true ones. They are not interested in abusing their friends. They just enjoy discussing ideas with them. They enjoy being with other people to know their world better. They help their friends by offering them their thoughts and feelings. They like to be with other people to learn from them. Learn to live better. They want to improve and develop their mind. They are true friends.

So at the end, I don’t like call everyone that I know a friend. Let’s read this poem together:

Around the corner I have a friend,
In this great city that has no end,
Yet the days go by and weeks rush on,
And before I know it, a year is gone.
And I never see my old friends face,
For life is a swift and terrible race,
He knows I like him just as well,
As in the days when I rang his bell.
And he rang mine but we were younger then,
And now we are busy, tired men.
Tired of playing a foolish game,
Tired of trying to make a name.
"Tomorrow" I say! "I will call on Jim
Just to show that I'm thinking of him."
But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,
And distance between us grows and grows.
Around the corner, yet miles away,
"Here's a telegram sir," "Jim died today."
And that's what we get and deserve in the end.
Around the corner, a vanished friend.