19.10.2026 Diary XLIX Philia: the weight of friendship

19.10.2026 Diary Page XLIX

Before it is a feeling, friendship is choosing to show up again and again.

Monday. Ankara is grey and cool. Coffee on the table, notebook open, and today's word is philia.

Philia means friendship in Greek, but it also carries the meanings of love and attachment. It comes from philos: beloved, friend. The word philosophia comes from here too: philos and sophia, that is, the one who loves wisdom, who is a friend to it. There is friendship inside the word philosopher. I wrote this down separately in my notebook today, because it's the first time I've seen it this clearly.

The older origin of the word philos is disputed. I'm not going where I don't know.

The word is easy. What's heavy is what the word asks me.

The eighth and ninth books

Aristotle devoted two of the ten books of the Nicomachean Ethics to friendship. The eighth book opens like this, not word for word but in meaning: even if they had all the other goods, no one would choose to live without friends.

I write this down to one side and look at it. Success, money, respect, all of it is there, he says. If there are no friends, it still isn't a life worth choosing.

Then he divides friendship into three.

The first is friendship based on utility. The two sides get something from each other: a job, support, an open door.

The second is friendship based on pleasure. People you laugh with, whose company you enjoy.

The third is friendship based on virtue. Good people wish each other's good for the sake of the other person. Aristotle calls this complete friendship, teleia philia.

The first two come apart easily, he says. Because when the utility or the pleasure ends, the reason for the bond ends too. The third lasts, but it is rare. Because such people are few and such a friendship takes time. Aristotle explains this with a proverb: two people can't be said to know each other until they have eaten salt together. I thought of our own "ekmek tuz hakkı", the claim that sharing bread and salt gives. The same idea, in another language.

Here I asked myself a question. Which of the bonds in my life is of which kind? I'm leaving the answer in my notebook, because if I wrote it here I would be placing people's names in a table, and that feels unfair to me. People are wider than the boxes in a table.

Another self

In the ninth book Aristotle looks at the friend as a kind of likeness of oneself. The friend is a person's second self. However a good person treats themselves, they treat their friend the same way, because the friend is another self to them.

I stopped while reading this sentence. I compared how I treat myself with how I treat my friends. It isn't consistent. I don't always show myself the patience I show others. I looked at this in the oikeiosis entry. The circles start from the self, and that is why friendship is also connected to how you look at yourself.

Aristotle takes one more step. A person feels something sweet in being aware of their own existence, and in being aware of their friend's existence too. Living together here doesn't mean being in the same house. It means spending time together, thinking together, talking together. Aristotle also notes that distance doesn't end a friendship, but if it lasts long, it leads to the friendship being forgotten. Reading this made my heart ache, because it's like a description of my delays.

A feeling or a state

In the fifth chapter of the eighth book there is a fine distinction. Philesis, the feeling of love, is a pathos, that is, something that happens to a person. Philia, on the other hand, is a hexis, a state. A feeling can come and go. A state is something built through choices and repetition.

When I go back to the hexis entry I see why this matters. Friendship isn't something felt one morning. It is writing to someone, calling them, wondering how their day went, and the repetition of these. The feeling can be the beginning of these. But friendship is the repetition itself.

This comforts me a little. Because there are moments when I don't feel anything, and in those moments I think my bond is over. According to Aristotle, the moment I don't feel doesn't have to be the moment the bond ends.

The message staying in my head

Why is friendship so heavy with ADHD?

Because friendship is made of small, regular actions, and these are exactly the kind of actions I struggle with. Writing the reply to a message in my head but not sending it. Thinking I'll call someone and that thought getting lost in the flow of the day. Because of time blindness, thinking last week was yesterday, thinking months were weeks.

Then the shame comes. The bigger the delay, the harder it is to come back. The sentence "What am I going to say after being silent this long?" makes me postpone the call one more day. With the delay, shame; with the shame, more delay.

This isn't a lack of interest. I need to remind myself of this every time. The interest is there, but the bridge that turns interest into action breaks very easily. I wrote about this in more detail in the article on feeling lonely with ADHD: the problem is usually not in the interest but in a system to sustain the relationship.

Aristotle's distinction is useful here. If friendship is a hexis, it can be built. A fixed weekly time, a one-sentence message, a postponed reply starting with "I'm late, but I was thinking of you." These don't lessen the love, they make room for it.

In good times and bad

Toward the end of the ninth book Aristotle asks a question: do we need friends most in good times or in bad times? In bad times we need help, that much is clear. In good times we need someone to do good to, to share with. Then he brings the two together: a friend's presence is sweet, whatever the day.

Reading this, I looked at myself. On bad days I close up, I don't want to be a burden to anyone. On good days I forget to share, because my mind is elsewhere. In both cases the friend is left outside. Part of carrying a friendship is being able to notice these two reflexes.

Many or few

Aristotle says that complete friendship can't be lived with many people. Because such closeness takes time and effort, and a person's time is limited.

This sentence can be read as a permission for someone whose energy is limited. You don't have to hold on to many people. Being deep with a few people is also a form of friendship. I wrote the same thing in everyday language in the social battery article.

But I could also use this as an excuse, and to be honest with myself I'm writing that too. Saying "deep with a few" can be a nice name for keeping it up with no one. In the parrhesia entry I wrote about the cost of speaking boldly. What needs to be said here is this: the few people want to be called too.

The weight of friendship

I'm going back to today's title. Where is the weight?

I think in three places. The first is sustaining itself, that is, the difficulty of repetition. The second is the shame of falling behind. The third, the quieter one: when someone really gets to know me, expectation comes along with it.

But this weight is a weight worth carrying. If we go back to Aristotle's first sentence, even if all the other goods were together, a life without friends isn't a life worth choosing. If I stop carrying the weight, I become lighter, but life becomes lighter too.

A piece next to the concept

Franz Schubert: An die Musik, D 547.

A short song from 1817, written for voice and piano. Its words belong to Schubert's friend Franz von Schober. Schubert stayed at Schober's house for a time, or so the sources tell it. The song thanks music; its first line is "Du holde Kunst", that is, you lovely art. In how many gloomy hours have you warmed my heart, it goes on.

The reason I chose the song is this: words written by one friend have come down to today with the other's music. The circle of friends around Schubert, with evenings when they gathered in houses and listened to music, is remembered as the "Schubertiade". From this song I understand that philia isn't just a feeling, it is something done together.

Toward tomorrow

Tomorrow is Tuesday. Eleutheria, freedom. Friendship is a bond, and a bond has a weight. Does carrying a bond lessen freedom, or does it give freedom a direction? Tomorrow I can ask this a little more openly.