The idea of what a friendship means has been on my mind for quite some time (read: years). What friendships mean in abstract terms is fairly simple for me to put into words: being with someone and feeling that you know what they feel, think and desire without them saying a word. Or the certainty of reciprocal understanding in front of a given scenario. Or the "always us against the world" mantra.
In more concrete terms, it could mean being able to call someone and ask for advice in the middle of the night. Or a shoulder to cry on.
But these ideas are either too abstract or too simplistic/punctual to answer my question. From a recent conversation with my friend Daniel, a more structured answer emerged.
I am not an expert at how humans came to dominate most other species on our planet. Still, if I had to guess, being able to communicate, take collective decisions and 'use' each other in order to advance towards our goals would probably make the list.
Here, I define 'using' each other as exchanging ideas, knowledge and physical help with our peers. This can be classified as a positive relationship, a 'win-win' structure of sorts. [1]
Moving down a level from the collective to the individual, the 'give and take' mentality emerges. At a superficial level, this means I help you now knowing I can count on you later. Alternatively, it means I can ask for your help now with a promise of being there for you when you need it.
A couple of points emerged in our discussion about this (apparently) simple dynamic:
- Some people find this mentality inappropriate. For some, helping a peer should come naturally with no expectation of any sort of reward (this might be the case for philanthropy, but here we are talking about personal relationships). Yet, I believe it is the only way in which our innate nature encourages us to nurture one-to-one relationships over many years. It might manifest itself in different ways (for example, for a mentor the 'take' is simply the deep satisfaction of seeing the mentee succeed) and we all internalise it differently (see the next point), but it is still present in our lives nonetheless.
- We all make sense of it in different ways. If you are an entrepreneur or trader you might find yourself actively seeking / assessing if your relationships or friendships follow this 'give and take' patterns. Alternatively, I personally feel like I have always perceived the wholeness of a relationship through this lens purely intuitively, without ever consciously analysing what's going on. Although most people are somewhere in between these two extremes, I would guess the majority of us tilt towards the 'intuition' side. Even if you view your most treasured friendships from this lens or not, chances are they still follow the 'give and take' dynamic.
There is a clear break of this pattern, which is the relationship a parent has with his/her child. Beyond this, however, I cannot think of many examples from my personal life of friendships which do not ultimately boil down to such a dynamic.
In one of my favourite podcast episodes, theoretical computer scientists Cal Newport explains how our brains are wired to put social connections at the core of our existence [2]. They are what keep us alive, perhaps less obviously now, but definitely quite literally early on in our species' history.
Looked at through this lens, offering bits of our soul and energy to the people we care about and openly acknowledging that we might take some from them lies at the core of human progress. This applies for individual, as well as collective goals.
As a market-maker, you can grow your business by nurturing the relationship with clients and partners. But some of us see beyond the 'quotidienne'. The only way forward in our quest to progress humanity is to increase the richness of our social connections.
--
[1] Hard to imagine this in today's world, which is divided and where everyone seems to hate each other. Nonetheless, still truer than ever.