Friendship In C. S. Lewis 'Unstable Ground'

Unstable Ground

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.”-C.S Lewis. In the preceding quote by C.S Lewis; Mr Lewis explains what friendship does for a person. To paraphrase it in an understandable way, he seems to have said; Friendship is not necessary to survive, it only enhances life and makes life more interesting. This is my personal viewpoint exactly! Throughout life many people like to have other people close by them, parents have children, couples are married, teenagers have friends…. A lot of life is spent with friends and this many cause people to think that without friends they become nothing. This might be true, however friends often prove to be unnecessary. Friends can distract, they can hurt and they can be an annoyance to the greatest degree.
Friends can can distract: In today’s world most people use social media services.
For many teenagers that is how they make friends. Through social media teens can meet and engage with other people around the world. Although this sounds like a great way to make and have friends it can often prove fatal. For example, I could be doing school one day and a friend might message me through texting. This can outright cause me to drop whatever I am doing and get engaged with something that distracts me from my studies. I have had this occur several times to me in the past year and I am learning that it is not worth it. I struggle with my school and to have friends who constantly distract me can be a great hinderance. I have actually suffered because of my friends who distract me. In short, It's not necessary to have friends who distract and cause suffering in scholastic
studies.

Secondly, Friends can also cause many types of pain: Most people unknowingly can act rude and mean to people, this includes friends. When people I love act this way it can cause great emotional distress because it causes me to question their faithfulness and their true intentions. I have meet people before who have used me, they became my friend so that through me they could get something they wanted. This hurt alot when I found out about this. I also have another experience where I was really good friends with a guy, but one day I find out that he is lying to me about what he is doing. I was shocked at this and this hurt alot! In summary I found out from these experience that the pain suffered from these experiences, would not have been there if I had simply said, “No” when they asked to be my friend.

Finally, Friends can be an annoyance: Over my short little life, I have discovered, that friends can be downright annoying. They can say stupid things, they can act stupid, they can make other people around them feel stupid. When the people I know do these types of immature things then this causes me to feel shame and to feel annoyed. If my friend simply would just act mature, then I would not be annoyed at all. Since they do stupid things this causes stress which leads to annoyance which leads to, negative feelings about friends. My whole life I have always wanted friends but due to the constant annoyance that they become, I am left with the impression that they are unnecessary.

“Some people make cutting remarks, but the words of the wise bring healing.” -Proverbs 12:18-The following verse from proverbs brings many thoughts to my mind. Each year I go through the same thing, I make friends, have friends, lose friends. The reason why I go through this cycle each year is because each year I chose to reform my ways and try to be a better friend. Each year this cycle fails and after manys years I have come to have the mindset that friends will always be unnecessary. The only person that people need to survive is Jesus Christ all other people are optional. Throughout life people will often wish for friendship but if they have Jesus Christ that void is filled. Jesus Christ is the only way I have survived. His wise words of healing have been the only true friends I have ever had. I filled the friendship void with Jesus Christ, I encourage others to do the same.