Kathleen Mcneeley
Jill Loop
English 100
3/2/15

[Mcneeley1]

Chosen Family
“You can choose your friends but you sho' can't choose your family” (Harper Lee, To
Kill a Mockingbird).Do you agree with Mr. Lee can friends not be family? There are intricacies to friendship that have been explored by musicians ,writers , and philosophers alike. From the
Beatles telling us that we can get a little help from our friends (1967) to Greek philosophers defining philia, the love between two friends and to the depths to which a friendship can go . I believe friendship can create a bond as stronge as any blood.
The Sioux believed in Hunkapi , or the making of relatives . They preformed ceremonies uniting tribes together as family, and sharing blood between two men binding them as brothers .According to their mythology the souls of unborn children would ride on the backs of jack rabits and fly into the mothers whomb. Some times when twins went flying off to enter the whomb they would accidently enter different mothers. They belived Hunka brothers were really twins whose souls happened to be born by different mothers. “Friendship is one soul in two bodies “(Aristotle).
True bonds of friendship are just as strong as family ties, but they are few and far between.
Frienships of necessity are part of all our lives, they are superficial , lack commitment and are often just for pleasure or utility. They can form out of usefulness or because of what someone can offer. Friendships based on these weak bonds are quick to form and just as quick to end.
True friendships involve not only commitment but, concern for others. The essence of friendship is empathy. Alder defined this best as “To see with the eyes of another, to hear with the ears of another, to feel with the heart of another” (Ansbacher&Ansbac her).”It is those who desire the good of their friends for their friends’ sake that are most truly friends, because each loves the other for what he is and not for any incidental quality “(Thompson).
True friends help each other become whole and exept you for who you are.
In my life I have seen many friends come and go. The ones that have lasted are no less my brothers and sisters than my siblings. They have seen the worst of me, the awkward moments , and the embaressments. They laughed with me, cried with me and listened.
They held my hand and let go when I needed to be on my own, lingering by just incase I fell.
They loved and exepted me for exactly who I was, flaws and all. True friendship ripples through the words “Rare as is true love, true friendship is rarer.(Jean de La Fontaine).
There was a study conducted by Fowler JH, Dawes CT, Christakis NA in
2009 to find out if we are drawn to friends becouse of genetics . They identified 1,300 pairs of friends among that group and compared their genetic markers.