The Design of Friendship is to Multiply Joy

This is my second attempt at this article. I took the first one down, because I realized the approach was all wrong.  How we express something is just as important as what we’re expressing.  Thank you for the opportunity and thanks for reading.  With that in mind …      

In his book, Survival of the Friendliest, Brian Hare explores a powerful theory of human nature that suggests that our secret to success, as a species, is our friendliness.  Throughout the book, he makes a solid argument: The Neanderthals, the Denisovans, and Homo Erectus all had large brains, culture, and language, but from what archeologists have found of their remains, we learned that they were not very friendly.

This causes problems at the cellular level in terms of immunity.  Animal species with alpha males, the ones who fight for territory, pride, and procreation or even chimps who are just not friendly at all, have weaker immune systems, because of the negative stress. 

A large part of the reason we out-survived our counterparts is our ability to adapt, solve problems, and innovate and much of that comes from cooperation.  As a species, we developed the ability to see strangers as our group members, not threats that we had to fight and kill.  We helped each other and our technological advances grew exponentially. 

As your friend, I value you as a person; a human that I’m fortunate enough to have a relationship with.  I don’t want anything from you, but your true friendship.  Your authenticity.  Your truth.  Bad, good.  Whatever.  I love you.

Friendship isn’t about being superior, inferior, or even equal; it’s about harmony.  Nothing needs to be measured, compared, or judged in any way.  Respect, love, understanding, happiness, and cooperation.    

The design of friendship is to multiply joy.

To multiply misery is a crime against humanity.

It’s been snowballing for a while, but our current state of affairs within our species is quite volatile.  It’s taking its toll on all of us in different ways and on a sliding scale.  Some are dealing with it better than others and some of us have better days than others.  It’s understandable. 

Hell, I’m frustrated and irritated with the misinformation, the political use of race as a weapon against each other, fake organizations, the sensationalizing of tragedy, and masks.  Ugh, I hate the masks.  I want to see people’s faces again.

My hope is that all this turmoil is coming to a head, so that it pops like a zit, allowing the poison to drain out.  Real healing can begin our complexion becomes clear once again.

Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash