On Friendship

The story that you know as “your life” could not have occurred without the presence of suffering. To suffer is to experience yourself apart from the whole, and each experience of suffering affords you additional insight into your character. Without suffering, the 'you' that you know would not exist.



When another person lives out an experience of suffering with you, a kind of shared identity comes into being: this is the birth of compassion, which literally means “to suffer with.”



The truest friendships, then, emerge not simply from relating to one another at the level of personal liking, but through an appreciation of the strength and insight your mutually created story brings.