1st : Write you own definition of friendship
2nd: Friendship always benefits; love sometimes injures. & Compare or contrast friendship and kinship
I decided to handle all of the three topics suggested. I'm going to define friendship in my own way first and then, move onto compare friendship and kinship. Lastly, I'll give my analysis about why friendship is more often beneficial than love.
As a person who have few but intimate friends, I firmly believe that friendship is all about understanding each other as he or she is; that is we should not force friends to fit into our standard. By accepting friends as they are, we gradually resemble each other (undergoing a kind of synchronization) and learn how to understand each other better. Think about when we first met our best friends. Did we want to become friends with them on specific purpose? We didn't. We just came to know each other and got closer and close as we got along. If we tried to judge and cut them out according to our own standard, we wouldn't have possibly made any friends at all. Also, by tolerating each other's personality, habits, ideas, and many other things, we're more committed to each other. A former Korean president Roh-Moohyeon once said, "A true friend is the one who stay with you when you're in difficulty". Can we expect something or be committed to our friends, if they have been rejecting "we as we are" and keep showing grievances and discontents for not meeting their values? I doubt we will.
Aforementioned is my definition about friendship (accepting each other as they are) and based on the definition, I'm now going to explore the difference of friendship and kinship briefly and answer why friendship is often more beneficial than love[1]. Relatives are people who are tied with blood and family tree. Kinship is mostly based on familiar relationship based on familiar love and responsibilities, but also it is defined and regulated by laws. At the other end of the scale friendship, however, is not something that is regulated or controlled by law or social traditions. Rather, it is a relationship that we voluntarily and naturally decided to get involved. Friendship is therefore, is a relationship which is easy to end (unlike kinship) but when we decided to devote to that relationship, it can be stronger than any other relationship, for it is based on our own autonomous decision and belief.
Last but not least, in the similar vein, I firmly believe that friendship is superior to love, just like it is to the kinship. Love is based on self-made decision, too. But often it entails physical relationship and jealousy that is detrimental to both side – a man and a woman[2]. We often find out a case in which one of the lovers get so jealous or tired of its partner and end up with broken relationship. But that kind of situation seldom happen in friendship. True friendship never bores us. It gets stronger as time goes by and it's always refreshing. We don't get jealous about our friends for not always paying attention on each other. We don't envy them for their success and we congratulate them. These are the reason why friendship is more advantageous than love.
I've covered three topics so far. In a nutshell, what I wanted to deliver is that friendship is stronger than and superior to other kind of relationships (such as kinship and Eros love) because it is based on our autonomous decisions and ideas. Just like diamonds are forever, so will be true friendship.
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