How is friendship an important part of love?
I believe that if there were a hierarchy of love, friendship might well be at the top. Real friends are people we are close to but who do not make demands, who have no expectation of something in return for the friendship. They give of themselves and of their time and require no reward or return. Friends are those we are able to share our lives with, people to whom we feel connected, people about whom we fantasize least and to whom we are willing to give without obligation. Too often in this culture we don’t give friendship the honor and respect it is due, the honor of calling it by its rightful name, although there are many stories of friendship in legend and mythology that indicate that friendship indeed may be the purest kind of love of all. In one segment, Dr. James Hillman talks about the shadow side of love. How can love have a shadow and how does it manifest in today’s world? In physics, we see the laws of opposites in operation, and we accept that, have to accept it, because it
