Friendship - a notion as elusive as truthfulness (by Johan Jaaffar)

The title caught my attention on a fine Saturday morning as I browsed through the newspaper. The moment my eyes read the sentence my mind immediately took me back to the time when I was still in college. My feelings went along with my mind as well. This article contains a deeper explanation of how and what are friends, and the meaning of friends.

I would like to fill this post with quotes from that article, as they are very firm words that would really pull anyone into a deep thought about whoever they are hanging out with.

"when you are in power, you choose your friends; when you're down, friends choose you."

"It is a brutal world out there for those who fall from grace. Friends simply disappear. Even those who have befriended you over the years will just disappear into thin air. The reason is obvious: Friends are not diamonds, they are not forever."

(Out of the many faces I have met, only a few I still keep in touch with. Ironically, they aren't the ones I spend most of my time with.)

"They say in politics there are no permanent friends nor permanent enemies. The higher you are in the heirarchy the more friends you will have. They come to you and show their presence for the slightest reason. They will be around you for as long as you matter."

"Politicians need them, partly to listen to their own "greatness" as narrated by these friends and to boast to these people of the little things they have."

"Friends are the first to disappear when you are a nobody. Many will even use the friendship against you later."

"True friends are hard to come by, truthful friends even harder."

"a man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. But one has to be extremely careful with his choice of friends (Oscar Wilde)."

"Someone said that true love is rare, true friendship is even rarer. I would like to believe that you are being defined by how many true friends you have in this world."

"the true measure of friendship will be judged when he is left on his own while the world moves around him. He will then realize even the arctic cold is less intimidating."

I would really like to mention how much I appreciate this piece writen by Johan Jaaffar. Besides being a wirter I have no idea who this person is, but this piece he wrote is pretty useful for pondering.