Friendship
This theme runs through several big questions. Here are the ones where it plays out.
The questions that illuminate it
What lies at the heart of love: a lack, a gift, or something else?
To love, is it to want to seize what we lack, to give without expecting anything, to be played by forces that surpass us, or to build a chosen bond that is cultivated? Depending on the answer, love may last or die out once fulfilled, and it does not ask the same thing of us. To take a position is to say what we are really seeking when we say we love.
Where does our belonging lie first: with our own community, or with humanity as a whole?
Favouring our own gives us roots but can shut the door on the stranger; opening to all enlarges the heart but risks belonging nowhere. To decide is to say whom we owe something to first, when near and distant loyalties come into conflict.
What place should we give our own interest next to that of others?
Should I put myself first, leaving each to look after themselves, or place others' good before my own? Living only for oneself corrodes every bond; sacrificing oneself entirely dissolves the very self that loves. To take a position is to say what we owe ourselves, and what we owe others.