FRIENDSHIP: Practical philosophy club Stockholm 🇸🇪

Dear all! See you on Thursday at 19 h at Källarbyn, Stockholm Old town. The subject is FRIENDSHIP. Here comes some questions to start the discussion with:

What makes someone a true friend?

“Friendship is a priceless gift that brightens the best days and shares the load of hard ones.” — Cicero

Friendship is surely one of the most beautiful forms of human connection. Yet we may have very different ideas about what a friend is, what we owe our friends, and what we can reasonably expect from them.

1\. What does friendship mean to you?

• What is most important to you in a friendship: acceptance, time, care, loyalty, honesty, support, shared interests — or something else?

• What makes someone a friend rather than simply an acquaintance?

• Is friendship unconditional, or does every friendship have conditions?

• Do we choose our friends because they are similar to us, or because they bring something different into our lives?

2\. Friendship\, closeness and boundaries:

• How close should a friendship be? Can friends become too close or too dependent on each other?

• How much time and attention should we reasonably expect from a friend?

• Does a good friend always support you — or should a good friend sometimes challenge you, disagree with you, or tell you an uncomfortable truth?

• Can you remain friends when your values, lifestyles or life choices become very different?

Trust, disappointment and forgiveness

• How important is confidentiality between friends? If a friend reveals your secret, is the friendship over — or should friendship also include forgiveness?

• What other behaviours would make you end a friendship?

• If a friendship becomes one-sided, how long should we continue investing in it?

• Do we sometimes expect more loyalty from our friends than we are prepared to give ourselves?

3\. Friendship through life:

• Why does making new friends often become more difficult with age?

• Or do we simply need fewer friendships as we grow older?

• Why do some friendships survive decades and long periods without contact, while others disappear as soon as circumstances change?

• When an old friendship fades, should we fight to preserve it — or accept that some friendships belong to a particular chapter of life?

4\. Friendship in complicated situations:

• Being friends with colleagues at work: good idea or bad idea? What happens when friendship and professional interests conflict?

• Can you genuinely be friends with someone you previously dated or loved? Why — or why not?

• Can friendship survive jealousy, competition, differences in success, money or social status?

• Can men and women be close friends without romantic or sexual expectations entering the relationship?

And finally…

Think about the people you call your friends today:

What kind of friend are you to them?

Would you want to have yourself as a friend? /// Best regards and warm welcome!/Vilija

Practical Philosophy is based on the idea that philosophy should be accessible to all, and not something reserved only for academics. Each week we choose a topic, and the goal is to use the conversation to develop our critical thinking and communication as we explore that topic.

The goal is to help develop our Critical Thinking, Communication, and Community 🙌

📓 HOW DOES IT WORK?

Each week, we pick one topic and discuss it. The topic for the week is shared, generally in the Whatsapp groups,

along with jump-off points to get the conversation going.

When groups get bigger than 7-8 people, it’s important that we break into smaller groups. This way we are able to maintain a conversational flow as opposed to having our meetups feel like a discourse or lecture.