溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
How Do Friends Who Grow Me Differ from Those Who Undo Me?
What divides a friend who grows me from one who undoes me?
There are three kinds of helpful friends, and three kinds of harmful friends.
Confucius divided friends into three helpful and three harmful. The upright, the sincere, and the broadly learned are friends who grow you. The merely polished, the flattering, and the glib-tongued are friends who undo you. Whom you befriend divides who you become. The question carried on. Aristotle's view that true friendship is between the virtuous, and the maxim "who nears ink turns black," share the insight. But a question to be flipped hides here — am I a helpful friend to others, or a harmful one? The eye that chooses good friends is whole only when paired with the effort to be one.
In an age when pleasant words swarm in like an algorithm, the eye to tell an upright friend from a flatterer matters more.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
I usually choose friends by comfort — those who put me at ease, who echo my words. Yet by Confucius's list, flattery and polish are comfortable but undo me, while upright candor is uncomfortable but builds me. More stinging is turning the list on myself — am I an upright, sincere friend to those beside me, or one who says only pleasant things? Before wishing for good friends, I must become one; this question quietly reminds me. Today, too, I stand before it.
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