Episode 28: You've Got a Friend

Welcome to wisdom from the aerial view the podcast for those who wish to learn how to crush their anxiety and find meaning and purpose in their lives. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Hello, my friend. Dr. Klein mark. How are you today?

Good morning, Enid. I'm great. How are you today?

I'm good. I called you my friend because it's a very important thing to me because you are my friend and you have a chapter in your wonderful book on friendship. And I want to talk about friendship today. And I want to start by telling a story. And it's a story about friendship about Sandy and Arthur. They met while they were on their first week as students at Columbia University. A young man wearing an Argyle sweater and corduroy pants and blonde hair with a crew cut came over and said, hi. I'm Arthur. Every night Arthur and I would sing. He would play his guitar and I would DJ. The air was always filled with music. Still teenagers, they made a pact to always be there for each other in times of trouble. They were going to be friends. If one was an extremist, the other would come to his rescue, said Sandy. But they had no idea that their promise would be tested so soon. Just months later, Sandy recalls, I was at a baseball game and suddenly my eyes became cloudy and my vision became unhinged. Shortly after that, darkness descended. Doctors diagnosed conjunctivitis, assuring it would pass. But days later, Sandy went blind and doctors realized that glaucoma had destroyed his optic nerves. Sandy came from a family of Jewish immigrants in Buffalo, New York and they had no money to help him, so he dropped out of college. He gave up his dream of becoming a lawyer and plunged into a deep depression. I wouldn't see anyone. I just refused to talk to anybody, said Sandy. And then unexpectedly, Arthur flew in, saying he had to talk to me. He said, you're going to come back, aren't you? I said, no, there's no conceivable way. He was pretty insistent. And finally, I said, look, I don't think you get it. I need you to be back there because we made a pact together. We said we would be there for each other in times of crisis. I will help you. Together they returned to Columbia University where Sandy became dependent on Arthur's support. Arthur would walk Sandy to class, bandage his wounds when he fell, and even filled out his graduate school applications. Arthur said, call me darkness, in a show of empathy. Sandy said he would come in and say darkness is gonna read to you now, and then he would take me to class and back. He would take me around the city. He altered his entire life to accommodate me.

Guiding Sandy through New York one day as they stood in the vast forecourt of the bustling Grand Central Station, Arthur said he had to leave for an assignment and he abandoned his blind friend alone in rush hour traffic. His friend was terrified, stumbling and falling. I cut my forehead, said Sandy, I cut my shins, my socks were bloodied, I had my hands out and I bumped into a woman's breasts. It was horrendous feeling shame and humiliation. I started running forward knocking over coffee cups and briefcases. And finally I got to the local train to Columbia University. It was the worst couple of hours in my life. Back on campus, he bumped into a man who apologized. I knew it was Arthur's voice. For a moment I was enraged and then I understood what happened. This colossally insightful, brilliant, yet wildly risky strategy had worked. Arthur had not abandoned Sandy at the station. but had followed him the entire way home, watching over him. Arthur knew it was only that I could prove myself, that I could do it, that I would have independence, said Sandy, and it worked. Because after that, I felt I could do anything. That moment was the spark that caused me to live a completely different life, without fear, without doubt. For that, I am tremendously grateful to my friend. Sandy not only graduated, but he went on to study for a master's degree at Harvard and then Oxford. And his friend Arthur? Well, he went on to become a songwriter. He wrote a song that'll go down in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The opening lines tell it all. Hello darkness, my old friend. You see, Arthur is Art Garfunkel, and they remain close friends for over six decades. That's what friendship's all about. Isn't it?

That's a powerful story. There's so many things I like about that story. It was a perfect introduction to what we're going to talk about today, to what friendship is, what being a friend means. As an aside, I... I always wondered about Art Garfunkel because he was kind of like the other guy, right? Paul Simon did all the work, wrote all the songs and so on. So this was actually, Art Garfunkel just went up a couple of notches in my view and I'm sorry I didn't know the story sooner. But anyway, yeah, so that is a true friend. And how many of us can say we would do that? That's really the crux of the matter. What is it to be a friend?

Yeah.

I know, I know.

Yeah, right. Right. And you have a whole chapter on friendship in the book and I think that you put it in there for a good reason because it's really what it's about, isn't it? And you talk at great length in that chapter about the difference between being a friend and actually being married. Tell me a little bit about that.

You know, marriage is obviously the, if not the ultimate commitment, it's right up there. And every marriage, first of all in this country, like half the marriages don't work, which is staggering statistics. And if you think about it, the ones that do stay married, a bunch of those probably aren't just fantastic either. So, the odds of having a fantastic marriage, at least in this country, it's not great. The odds are not high.

Right, that's true.

And marriage takes, you know, it's wonderful. I've been married to my wife now for quite a long time and we have a great relationship, but marriage does, you know, it does take some significant amount of effort, but you get a lot out of it. And I always used to joke that friendship is not the same as marriage. Friends don't bring up kids together. Friends don't, you know, co-mingle their money. You know, so, but to be a good friend still takes responsibility and effort, just like in the story you just related. But you get, I don't want to sound the wrong way, but you get a lot of bang for your buck. In other words, it's not quite the commitment that a marriage is, but it's a relationship that is of incredible value. And it's probably, compared to something like a marriage, the value in it is very, very high. If you put in a modest amount of effort, you get at a tremendous amount. But we use the word friendship very loosely, I think. And now I have people who say to me, they know somebody, yeah, you're friends with that person? Well, we're Facebook friends. That always made me laugh. Because what in the world is a Facebook friend? means that you keep in touch. You find out what they're doing with their life and their career, their families, whatever. see, you just keep, it's like you're reading the story of their life basically. But it's not friendship. It's different, right? It's more news than it is action. That's that's I'm not criticizing Facebook at all. It's fine. But to use those two words together, Facebook friend, I think is a little misleading because most people don't know what it is. That's a terrible statement. Many people don't appreciate what it takes, what true friendship is like Arthur and Sandy. Right. That's that's something right. And we can't expect everybody to meet that level of commitment. That's that's a pretty high bar. But we all certainly could. And this is one of

Yeah, that's something.

of the things I talk about Enid, which is the difference between an acquaintance and a friend. So, and the way I like to frame this is, I'll you an example. If you called me, or if I called you, and I said, I need a favor, let's say I call you, and I say, Enid, I need a favor. You would say, sure, what can I, what do you need?

Mm-hmm.

By definition, you have established yourself, identified yourself as a friend. There were no conditions, no what ifs. On the other hand, if you would answer the phone and said, and I said, Inid, I need a favor, excuse me, and you said, I said, can you do me a favor? And you say, well, it depends. The word it depends means, okay, we're not really friends, we're acquaintances.

Yeah.

Now, maybe people are saying that's a little harsh, but I don't think so. Because friendship implies responsibility. So if you're gonna be somebody's friend, that means you've got some responsibility in there, you've got some investment. You can't say to somebody that whether or not you'll help them depends on the request. Well, that's easy, right? Let's say, yeah, I need a favor. What's favor? I need to borrow a screwdriver. OK, that's easy, right? Sure. But if I say, well, I need you to take care of my child for two days because I have a hospital procedure that I have to do and nobody else can watch my child, that's a little different commitment, right? And a friend would say, OK, let me figure out how to make this work. I'll call you back.

Mm-hmm.

An acquaintance might say, well, you sorry, I got a lot going on. I can't help you. Now, maybe a friend could not help either. Maybe a friend has a responsibility. It's unable to do it. But the friend's going to think about it. They're going to make the effort and say, I'll call you back. Let me see if I can change my schedule, whatever. That's a friend. So there's a difference. And so friendship is a commitment. It's a responsibility. Like so many things in life, you know, the value is in the effort. Right.

Well, know, know, Robert Louis Stevenson actually said a friend is a gift you give yourself. And it's true, isn't it? Because if we think about how many friends you have in your life, there's the whole saying that if you have one friend, you've got a lot. And the question is, you talk a lot about loyalty in the book, in the chapter two, and you equate the two. Does one need to be loyal to be a friend? Yes. Can you be loyal to someone and just still just be an acquaintance? mean, how do you define what a true friendship is or just sort of an acquaintance? Like we went to high school together and I liked him in high school, we were friends, we're no longer friends, we're acquaintances, but if we got together again, we'd be friends again. How's that work?

Well, I think you framed it beautifully. You were friends with somebody, then you lost track. But here's what it comes down to. So yes, loyalty is the hard work of friendship, right? Because it's easy to... Here's a great example. I had a friend, I have a friend, a good friend, who about 15 years ago or so, he had a very prominent position. And something happened in... in the company in which he was involved, not his fault, but, and he was very well known. And at that moment, his quote, friends kind of forgot who he was, kind of didn't pay much attention in the sense that, oops, I don't want to get soiled from what's going on here. Not friends, right? Not friends.

Yeah.

So it's almost like running into the fire. So a fireman is a fire and people run out of the building, but the fireman runs into the building, right? And that's the kind of way it is with real true friends. You run into the fire. So when your friend is encountering a difficult situation and the arrows are flying, it's another analogy I like to use, and the arrows are flying. If you're a really good friend, you could get struck by hanging, by sticking to your friend, by being there for him or her in that moment of need. You could be collateral damage. That is absolutely a possibility, which is why most people run the other way when a friend, quote, friend gets into some type of hot water. But a real friend says, okay, I'm not going to abandon you just like Arthur did in Abandon Sandy when it got tough. A real friend says, okay. I'm there for you. I'll do what I can. I may not be able to fix the situation. I may not be able to help at all, but at least you're not going to be alone. And if I get stung, so be it. And we see that now in the political world all the time, right? So especially in the era of what we used to call political correctness, wokism, whatever it is, right? or even the Me Too movement. not to defend people who do things that are inappropriate, illegal, but even when your friend does something inappropriate or maybe illegal, they still need a friend, you know, to lean on a little bit. You don't have to approve of the behavior. You certainly can condemn the behavior, but to abandon the person is a different thing altogether. Right. So.

huh.

To remain loyal. So you're saying that that friend still needs to remain loyal, even though I know you've done something wrong. I don't want to be painted with the same brush, but I have to stand by your side.

Right, I mean, if somebody's murdered somebody, we're not talking about that. We're talking about things that are much less egregious. know, somebody, I'm making this up so it's gonna sound ridiculous. But let's say you're a friend who, and I don't know anybody like this, this is just off the top of my head, but let's say you have a friend who has a problem with the IRS, right?

Right.

Exactly.

And it turns out they did something on the taxes that was inappropriate and it shows up in the newspaper, something like that, right? Because the person's a prominent person. OK, now it's a lot of embarrassment. And that's not easy for a friend to say, OK, my friend just is in the front page or somewhere in the newspaper for doing something shady with his taxes. So I'm never talking to you again. I never heard of you. No, you have to you have to do at least be able to give that friend some support because they did something wrong. They didn't kill somebody, but they did something wrong. And so you don't have to approve their behavior. You can say, you know, what you did was wrong. I mean, I can't condone it, but I'm not going to leave you hanging out to dry and I'll help you in any way I can through this time, difficult time. You know, I don't know if that was the best analogy, but you get the idea, right? Being a real friend is when it's...

Yeah, for sure.

It's important to be a friend when it's not easy, right? That's the point. Anybody can be a friend when it's easy. Sure, sure, it's hard. But that's, so okay, so why would you do that? Why wouldn't you just instead say, you know what, this friendship stuff, it's really a lot. If any one of my friends gets into trouble or does something inappropriate or whatever, I don't want to get tainted by that. So I'll tell you what, instead of that, I'm going to have a lot of those Facebook friends or acquaintances. I'm not going to bother with this real friendship stuff because it's too risky.

It's hard, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So what's wrong with that argument, in my view? What's wrong with that argument is that you're going to miss one of the most valuable things in life. So friendship is, as so many of us know, is so valuable. Really close friends. What you get out of that relationship is so deep, it's so meaningful, it's so important. So life is a series of trading risk versus reward. Is the risk worth the reward? And in this case, yes, by a factor of a thousand, it's worth the reward. Yeah, sometimes you may end up having to do things you don't want. You you may be put upon, you may have to be asked to do something you really didn't want to do. But the return from being there for a friend, let's put it this way. Let's say a friend has a problem, or let's take Arthur and Sandy. So at the end of the day, Arthur went through all this to help Sandy for those years in college. Big investment of his time and effort. But what happened? Sandy became independent. Sandy was very successful. And Arthur can feel for the rest of his life that he helped his friend achieve a meaningful, worthwhile life. OK, Arthur, even if he isn't a famous singer, no matter who he is, Consider the value that has added to his own life. When you help somebody, you know the scene, you do it every day, you've been doing it for many, many years. When you help other people and give of yourself to them, during the process it's difficult. But when you get past it, the feeling you get from having made that effort, it lifts you, it elevates you, it fills you with joy. There are few things like it in the world.

in a different direction and it'll probably take us totally off track but as we're getting older and the good news is we're getting older and the bad news is we're getting older but as we do Billy Joel said life is a series of hellos and goodbyes I'm afraid it's time for goodbye again you do get to a point where we start to lose our friends for whatever reason either it's they move away they they die when you get older how do you make new friends Can you make new friends?

Yeah, of course, of course. You know, people look at you and me and go, you know, how come you're not retired? How come you're not like just hanging out at the beach, reading a book or something or whatever? And we and we wouldn't think about that at this point because we feel the not only the obligation to, as I like to say, run through the tape, keep going, but it's joyful, right? So you can learn new things at any age. This whole idea meant that whole story that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. That is ridiculous because

Yeah.

I've learned so many things later in my life. It's no problem learning new things. Friendship is the same way. There's no reason you can't make new friends till the last day before your last breath. I relationships, as we've talked about, and I'm sure we'll talk about many times, relationships are the cornerstone of life. They're where you do the hard work to make that evolution from selfish to selfless, from inward to outward focus. That's where it happens, through relationships. talked about the fact that there are myriad types of relationships from talking to a person in a store to the kind of lifelong friendships that people develop. Yeah, you can make a friend. There's no limit on, there's no expiration date of when you can make a friend. I don't think that's a problem. But if you sit in your room all day or in your house or your apartment, you never go outside, that's going to make it a little harder.

Right.

Yeah, which, and of course, you when you think about that, it's what more and more people are actually doing that. We're suffering in this country from the epidemic of loneliness, of isolation. And when you do that, you're isolating yourself from the outside world and you're not gonna make the friendships that you desperately need in order to keep your body and your mind going. You have to be, I don't say you have to be an extrovert, but you do have to make, it is a commitment, it's a time commitment. And it's the kind of commitment that one has to make to keep yourself healthy. Wouldn't you say that that would be true, doctor?

Yeah, but not only that, don't, you we talk about the fact that inside every pessimist is an optimist yearning to be free, right? Nobody says, I love being a pessimist, right? No, every pessimist secretly yearns to be an optimist. Every introvert would prefer to be an extrovert. Every, know, you're in high school and you want, of course, I do believe that. Now, I'm not saying you can't be happy being an introvert. Of course not. but, you know, look.

You think so? Okay.

I'll give you an example. We were in high school together, we were junior high school together. We saw those kids who were like super popular, super friendly. They were just so comfortable in their own skin. And at least I thought so. I don't put words in your mouth, but I say, gee, I wish I could be a little more like that. Right? I'm a pretty extroverted person, but still I wasn't, especially when I was younger, certainly when I was younger, I didn't have that comfort. So, yeah, I think so. And the reason to be an extrovert, and I'll also lay this out, it is better to be an extrovert. Absolutely, I'll tell you why. Because if you're an extrovert, it's easier to make friendships and develop relationships. And the relationships are the core of joy in your life. It's as simple as that. It doesn't mean you can't be happy. You just, it's just, you're going to have better and deeper, more meaningful... Relations both in quantity and quality. It's just it's just what what's gonna happen. So people who who are quote introverted who are Who find it difficult to talk to people and to relate to people just you know, these could be brilliant fabulously wonderful people but in terms of getting joy in their own life, I would like this I would When I see people like that I say I wish you would have a little more confidence and comfort because I want you to be happy in your life. want you to feel fulfilled. I want you to have a meaningful life. And with that relationships, there's a limit on how much that can occur. Right? Relationships are just about everything.

You know, you always see people who say, married my best friend. Is it true? Do you marry your best friend or is their marriage, is their marriage over here and a best friend over here? Or does it have to be the same person?

Oh, I love that question. So I would say, you know, you're the best. By the way, those of you who are listening, know so many of you have told me you love Enid and it doesn't make me jealous. It makes me happy because I love Enid too. So anyway, so if you have a lousy marriage, your best friend is not going to be your spouse. No, it doesn't start that way. Well.

Thank you.

Aye.

But it doesn't start that way. Hopefully it doesn't start that way. in fact, you know, okay.

A lot of people get married and go, is this really a good idea? And when you ask that question, it's generally, most of time the answer is no, but you're going through it anyway. any rate, so for people who don't have a great marriage, your best friend's side, but even if people have a great marriage, that's an interesting question. Do you have a best friend apart from your spouse? I would say that there's no hard and fast rules on things like this.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, right, right, right.

Generally speaking, think people who have really fantastic marriages almost universally would say my best friend is my spouse. Well, you spend the most time together, you share the most important things in the world, if you have children certainly, or so many other things you do together. So I would say in that case, sure, I mean, I think it is. And that doesn't mean that you don't want to have other, quote, best friends or close friends with whom you usually have your own same gender, let's say. think it's hard for a guy to have a great marriage and have another woman be his best friend. That's challenging. but I'm sure it happens, but that's probably more challenging. look, I have a friend.

Challenging to...challenging to whom? The wife? Who?

It's a little, yeah, I think maybe to the relationship it could be. I'm probably getting out of the lane here, so we should probably pull back in, because I don't know, I'm not a marriage counselor, so I probably am wrong.

Well, I am and I think that you're wrong. I think the sex, the gender has nothing to do with it, frankly. I think it's good to have close relationships with people of your own sex and the other sex. I I think it's really important because you get to see things from a different perspective. And it's the same way I feel. Yeah, but I also feel the same thing about age. I think...

100%. That's why I said I was getting out of the lane there.

that it's good to have friends who are not your age. want young people. I need to I need to stay young. And so I have friends who are young and they are very good friends of mine. I love them. They are my friends and they keep me they keep me on my toes. They keep me in the know. I mean, I don't some of the music I you know, you think I would listen to Taylor Swift? I still don't listen to Taylor Swift. But but I understand. Yeah.

actually believe it or not, I own Taylor Swift songs that I actually bought years ago, but on my phone. So yeah, I listen to Taylor Swift sometimes.

Yeah, okay, well, that's good. We are younger than I'm but but the point being that I think friends shouldn't there shouldn't be boundaries. It shouldn't be well, I'm a girl and I gotta have girlfriends. I think the boundary lessness of friendship is what makes it so special.

I completely agree with you. mean, that's why I said I knew I was going down, going into the rabbit hole there for a minute. So let me just, let's go back to that for a second, why it is important to have friends, not only of different genders, I was just saying in a marriage, I think for a guy, if his best friend is a woman, I'm not so sure that would work so great for the marriage. But so maybe I'm wrong. That's why I said, if I'm wrong, just ignore me. We did talk about how being right is overrated. So I'm quite comfortable being wrong, right? No problem.

Yeah, no, absolutely. Sure.

Maybe, but you know.

Yeah, I ignore you every week, so don't worry about it. Keep going.

You know, here's the other thing about getting back to friendships and like you just said, different kinds of friends. And you mentioned loneliness and people being in the house. This is a crisis. So A, I don't think I think people working from home exclusively is a terrible, awful, idea for everybody. It's bad for the society. It's bad for the person. It's just bad. That doesn't mean you have to go into the office five days a week. I'm fine with people, you know, with companies that decide you come in three days, stay home two days, whatever it is. But

Yeah.

if it's exclusively remote, that's not healthy for most people.

I agree.

because relationships are so critical, not only for the company or the organization to share ideas, but also to make friends, to understand the world from somebody else's point of view other than your own. And this is another problem with our society now in terms of the polarization, that when you don't meet people who disagree with you, when you're only spending time with people who are on your team and see the way you see your team, or you only watch the, or read the, read or watch the news from some source that is only going to agree with you, this is a really bad idea because you need to understand how other people see the world. We live in the Washington DC area, which is truly a melting pot of the world. So, you know, I've seen patients from every country, pretty much, maybe not everyone, but well over 100 something countries. And I've learned a lot from these people and from all religions, from all ethnicities. So the more you see and have these experiences and exposure to other people, the better for you and the better for the society for sure. And so the segregation of two with people, the combination of the segregation of only. hearing and listening to things and reading things that agree with us, number one, to being too much at home and not out in the world, either for work or socially. These things are very detrimental to the growth of the individual for us as we make our evolution and also terrible for the society. So. And also the epidemic of loneliness that you described is awful. And I don't think an AI chatbot is going to fix this. So we need to spend more time together to be out in groups with people other than ourselves, other religions, other ages, other ethnicities, other political persuasions for sure. This is the way we we move forward.

I agree, I absolutely agree. I also see that we're just about, excuse me, see, I caught it from you. Okay. Running out of time, I want to end, as I usually do, with a quote from your own book. And I like a conversation about friendship. We had a friend of ours on our show just not that long ago, and we've known each other, all of us, for about 60 years. We've remained friends.

You're excused.

or have we? don't know. We've remained acquaintances? No, I think we're friends.

think you and I for sure are friends.

Definitely, you're my friend. You're not getting rid of me, So let me end with this from your book. To have a friend, the adage goes, one must be a friend. That should not be a surprise. Good things demand something of us. In his book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell informed us that 10,000 hours or more of practice are necessary to master a skill.

No, you're not getting rid of me either.

Fortunately, far fewer are required to become a reliable friend. But it does take commitment and time, often when we can least afford either. Knowing how to be a friend is not coded in our DNA by a set of genes. It's a skill that needs to be learned over time. You get the last word, doc.

I think in my life, friendship has been an unbelievable joy. I've been blessed to still have friends from high school, and even earlier. I friends who you know since I'm 10 years old. And at every point in my life, I've tried to make new friends, high school, college, medical school, certainly residency during my career, and going forward. I used to joke around, my wife has a lot of hobbies, you know, and she collects a lot of things. And I used to joke and say, well, she collects china and I collect friends. And for me, friends are one of the most valuable things in my life. And at the end of my life, when I'm thinking about all that's transpired, my friends will rise right to the top because they have been a source of utter joy for me and meaning. And I hope I've been a good enough friend to them. I haven't always. But I think most of them know that I care about them and I love them and if they need me, I'm going to show up if I can.

Hello darkness my old friend. With that, it's a great song. I've been singing it since I found the story and I can't stop singing it. But I also don't want to stop being your friend. So on that note, we'll say until next time, I thank you. Thank you for listening. We hope that you continue to write us notes, tell us what you think, even the bad stuff. That's fine, that's good. We like it. We're just not gonna, we're gonna unfriend you on Facebook. That's all, not to worry.

I love that song.

Yes, you can contact us at send an email to. God, question, question, a question at wisdom from the aerial view dot com. So sorry, a little fog there, but question at wisdom from the area. We dot com and we will certainly respond and thank you, Enid. Thank you all for listening. We'll see you next time.

something.

Until next time, peace.