Friends

Living Liberty Today with Charlie Earl

Pain is my friend because it informs me every morning when I wake up that I’m still alive. During the day, however, pain becomes a frustrating annoyance. Nevertheless, pain is reliable and stays with me and never abandons me. Human friends are like that, too. Sometimes they are annoying and hurtful, but they are reliably present.

“Friends” the television show didn’t appeal to me. I saw it just a couple of times. I thought the ladies were cute and the men were stupid. Still do even though Matthew Perry has died, and the women are basically cougar age now. Perhaps the fault is mine for not appreciating the value of a small cluster of friends of both sexes (yes, I think there are only two). Over the years my friends have been predominately men. Acquaintances of both sexes some with non-heterosexual preferences adorn my lifescape, but my truest dearest friends have been men. A couple of my friends shared reading, debating, and resolving important issues. Most of them, however, had sports as a central common interest. Perhaps because I moved so often through 5 states and various cities or communities, I rarely had more than two solid friends at one time. If I were a committed urbanite, I would have been a lousy prospective gang member. I would have been Zuckerberg’s target audience.

From “The Hustle (5/6/25:”

“Speak for yourself: In a new interview, Mark Zuckerberg essentially called Americans friendless losers who want many more companions than they have, and suggested that, instead of fostering more human connections (there are only 8B+ of us, anyway), people supplement their IRL friendships with AI ones.”

My initial reaction to Zuck’s suggestion is, “No way, Mark! It’s a lark.” I have enough problems getting ‘Alexa’ to cooperate. Besides, I truly doubt that my A.I. buddies would help me move.

Proverbs 17: 17 A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

It seems rather unlikely that a super charged algorithmic fake human clone would love me “at all times” let alone love me at all…anytime, no time. Zuckerberg, in my view, has short-changed friendships. Indeed, companionship is the more likely description for what he believes A. I. can deliver for ‘all the lonely people.’

John 15: 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

14 You are my friends if you do what I command.

15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

Friendship requires commitment. Friendship develops into love, and love sometimes commands sacrifice.

Proverbs 27: 17 As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

From “The Free Press” by Tyler Cowen, Avital Balwit

“We stand at the threshold of perhaps the most profound identity crisis humanity has ever faced. As AI systems increasingly match or exceed our cognitive abilities, we’re witnessing the twilight of human intellectual supremacy—a position we’ve held unchallenged for our entire existence. This transformation won’t arrive in some distant future; it’s unfolding now, reshaping not just our economy but our very understanding of what it means to be human beings.”

In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge.

- Aristotle

From Alistar Begg Devotional, 5/13/2025:

“Today, then, consider the godly friends that the Lord has placed around you. Offer thanks for their love and support.”

True friends are not a collection of 1’s and 0’s. True friends are not an algorithmic absorption of multiple texts followed by spewing them back in a somewhat normal fashion.

True friends share the foxhole with you, one to the right and one to the left while Jesus has your back.