Finding Friendship in a Broken World
By Michelle Katz
I have been contemplating friendship a lot lately. I attended a conference about the Adolescent brain in which Dr. Daniel Seigel spoke about the ESSENCE of adolescent brain remodeling, an acronym standing for Emotional Spark, Social Engagement, Novelty and Creative Exploration. All of these elements are worthy of discussion, but for the purpose of this post, I am going to focus here on social engagement. Dr. Seigel explained that social engagement is vital for adolescences because connection to peers, away from parents, helps create a sense of belonging and understanding through similar ideas, thoughts and experiences. He explains that at this age, feelings of death can emerge in the experience of not associating with peers. I recall being young and wildly upset when my parents told me I couldn’t meet my friends for any myriad of reasons. I can only imagine what it’s been like for young people during the pandemic.
A couple days after this conference, I had a meeting in which someone spoke about how children are going to friends to discuss problems they are having rather than coming to their parents or other trusted adults, implying that youth are not being raise by adults anymore, but rather raised by each other. I found myself growing curious about this. Is this developmentally appropriate? Is this a sign of growing into adulthood, of turning more strongly to those who we feel belonging with? Or even more so, those who we will inherit this new world with, those who we will come alongside to address today’s most pressing issues and hopefully offer an evolution for humanity?
Today’s young people face uniquely different challenges than pervious generations before them. Doesn’t it make sense for them to bond closely with those who face similar challenges, to share stories of overcoming difficulties or navigating situations with those who can relate deeply to those situations. Friendships have always offered me a foundation for understanding the world. I think there is a way to access and connect with the wisdom of our parents but the color of our lives, from adolescents onward, is painted by our friendships and that truly grows us into who we are.
This week, I started with a new mentee. We are in a state of inquiry about her life up to this point, collecting stories that help me see her in the context of her greater life. In exploring memories of significant events, friends have been central to her stories.
I recall reading a Guardian article about friendship and how the pandemic has effected these meaningful relationships. This article spoke about populations most vulnerable to loneliness (single people, folks with mental health challenges like anxiety or depression, those in the midst of major life changes, and very particularly, youth). The opportunity to make or cement friendships has been curtailed by this global event. A counselor cleverly named that lockdown brought folks back to a schoolyard dilemma of picking their one best friend to be in their covid bubble. She endearingly mentions the fear to ask and the fear of not being asked. The pandemic became the grounds to rank and order our friends or the grounds for rejection, putting a dent in our confidence. Now that things are opening, those who may not have felt lonely during lockdown, are suddenly struck with a deep loneliness. The pandemic has changes how we all do friendship.
I love that there are so many different words for love in the Greek language, one of my absolute favorites is Philia- intimate, authentic friendship with a focus on freedom, joy, and deep understanding and also wanting the best for the other person.
Throughout the pandemic I had a period of being single, experiencing some major life changes, and depression, making me wildly vulnerable to loneliness and the loss of friendship. At the start of the pandemic, I felt asked and did some asking in creating my covid bubble of close friendship. But, with ever changing circumstances, this bubble popped. In the months of a fully open world post-pandemic, I feel vulnerable to loneliness. I struggle to know Philia in friendships I once certainly classified as such love and meeting new friends seems harder then ever, all while I avoid the effort to explain my story to friends I lost touch with in the last two years. If I’m feeling this…I know young people are feeling it tenfold.
The loss of long term and meaningful friendship is hard, especially if friendship is the central crux of your life. The question becomes, where do we go from here? We must ask ourselves how do we truly honor ourselves by the people we surround ourselves with? Is the one we ask to be our best friend during the pandemic, still our friend? If the friendship ground below us sifting in order to best promote better growth for all of us? My mentee spoke about seeing changes in her friends and making the choice to lean on other friends in the face of those changes. What courage! I recall a similar experience in my youth and choosing to actually keep my own company over companionship with others who I felt didn’t truly see me. I remember turning to nature and finding the best connection to rivers, big oak trees and the stars in the night sky. Eventually, this led to me finding 2 of the best people in my life.
I believe in order to harvest our true selves we must find a fertile ground of Philia. I believe that in belonging to a nurturing group of genuine friends we certainly can grow each other into the people we are meant to be. Friendship, according to Aristotle, is central to a good life and what it means to be human.