I rarely read books or essays multiple times, but this one was an exception. It’s called Completeness, Self-Sufficiency, and Intimacy in Seneca’s Account of Friendship, written by Carissa Phillips-Garrett.

Carissa takes us on an expanding and provoking journey, meandering through many contradictory lenses through which to practice friendship.

She explores at length the tension between self sufficiency and intimacy. The question is asked implicitly: What interconnections build a full life?

In my view, friendship is drastically neglected in religious and philosophical writings, which usually focus on romantic and familial relationships, as well as how to help those in need.

In stoicism, a true friend is someone who “activates our virtue.” The Buddhist idea that “there is no self without the other” is invoked here, as many of our expressions and principles cannot be embodied or enacted without another consciousness with whom to interface.

In Seneca’s account of friendship, as explained in this essay, there are three key ingredients to friendship: trust, self-disclosure, and attachment. These ingredients are what make individual relationships unique and irreplaceable.

Pondering the ideas in this essay and allowing them to colour the lenses through which I see and experience my own relationships has refined and defined, given a framework to, my beliefs and practices around solitude, reciprocity, sacrifice, and time spent within friendships while maintaining that “full self,” which is central to the stoic philosophy and imperative in a grounded, peaceful life.

I would love to hear what you think. The essay is here:

https://www.academia.edu/54211894/Completeness_Self_Sufficiency_and_Intimacy_in_Senecas_Account_of_F

https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3366/anph.2021.0052

https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/friendships-and-stoicism