Need more shared Values
Not all value-sets are conducive to friendship. The all-pervading spirit of competition and greed in current Western society reflects an underlying set of values that is not to my mind conducive to friendship. This value-set is powered by the lust for self-gain at the expense of others. It is the desire to take. It generates relationships in which one possesses the other in some way. One becomes a slave of self-imposed obligation trapped by the other’s crushing emotional dependence upon them.
Friends give and receive in a way that enhances the ability of each to develop freely as he or she wishes. Friendship has no regard for wealth or status. There can be no hierarchy of friends. Friendship can exist only between two who regard each other as equal peers and who share a mutually agreed part of their experiences, knowledge, wisdom and pleasures.
