On our way home, one of my teammates was sharing his experience from a recent trip he took with his schoolmates. I mentioned that I used to go on trips with my college friends a lot but have since lost contact with most of my schoolmates. He told me that his college days coincided with the pandemic lockdown, so he made fewer college friends and has more friends at work now. As a result, he either goes on trips with his schoolmates or colleagues. Of course, when it comes to trips, it doesn’t really matter who you go with, as we often travel with groups of strangers nowadays.
Last Friday, I was having dinner with a colleague who was visiting from our branch office. During our conversation, I asked him if he meets his friend (whom I also know as colleague) every time he comes to the main office. Although he visits almost every month, he admitted that he misses seeing his friend some months. He also reminded me that his friend was also his college mate and that they were roommates in the college hostel, making them very good friends. Interestingly, I watched the movie Uunchai today morning, which portrays three friends (aged over 60) making an Everest Base Camp trek to fulfill their fourth friend’s last wish. These recent experiences made me reflect on friendship in general.
As social beings, we need people to share and care for us. These connections come in various forms throughout our lives, and friendship is one of them, perhaps the best of them in a way. Before questioning whether friendship still exists, I wonder if long-lasting friendships are necessary. Perhaps it’s great to have one, but I rarely see it, see the need for it. I started thinking about my dad’s friends. I know he had some friends when he was in business, but he lost contact with most of them when we moved to a new place. Now that he is slightly older, he doesn’t visit them often (I mean, even in years). Of course, he has friends in our neighbourhood. I’ve observed three distinct periods of my dad’s life, and I haven’t seen long-term friends with him in any of those periods. I’m not sure about his friends before marriage. I don’t know how much he misses them, but from my perspective, I don’t see any indication that he misses anyone. I strongly believe he’s perfectly fine, as life keeps him busy with tons of other things. I agree it is nice to have a lifelong friend, but is it really necessary?
And do we really need friends nowadays? Many things that friendship once provided have been replaced by other aspects of modern life. In fact, technology can often fulfill our needs better than several friends can. It’s common to see groups of friends sitting together, and each connected to their devices. Tools and technologies can understand and respond to your needs more effectively than a group of friends. Android Kunjappan Ver 5.25 is far too primitive, as we are already living in a powerful digital world. You might have once relied on a friend to buy a ticket at a railway station, but now that’s no longer necessary (although you might still need a friend to book a ticket online!). Many things have shifted from active to passive; you no longer need a person to complete something you might miss. Just like my dad, I see many of my colleagues, who have come here from various places, have friends in their work environment and where they live. These close relationships help us get through our days. Should we call these friendships? If not, what then do we call friendship?
I don’t meet my childhood friends anymore as we have all moved to different places. Meeting on a random occasion after several years or months feels perfectly fine, even though they are the people who come to mind when I think of friends. We no longer require hours and hours of time together. Of course, the warmth of our relationships remains. In some way, I feel we live with our memories more than anything else, and those we call friends have surely left a lot of memories within us, regardless of whether they are close to us now or not. I even felt like going further, to say that friends are those who leave us with memory boxes which, when opened, allow us to relive our former selves — not just the incidents, but who and what we were in those days.
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