It starts with a schedule. Four people on the same rotation, all driving in from the same side of town. Somebody says, why don't we take turns? So you do. At first it is about gas money and wear on the truck. Then it becomes something else, or it doesn't.
About 2,300 years ago the Greek philosopher Aristotle spent two whole books of his Nicomachean Ethics on friendship. What he wrote fits a carpool surprisingly well.
Three kinds of friends
Aristotle said people become friends for one of three reasons.
- Usefulness. You are friends because you help each other. The carpool, the coworker who covers your shift, the neighbor who lends you a trailer.
- Pleasure. You are friends because you enjoy each other's company. The fishing buddy, the guys you watch the game with, the people who make you laugh.
- Character. You are friends because you admire who the other person is, and you want good things for them for their own sake, not for what they do for you.
He did not say the first two are bad. Most of the people in anyone's life are friends of use or pleasure, and life is better for them. But he noticed something about them: they end when the reason ends. When one of you changes shifts, the carpool breaks up. When the fishing buddy moves away, you stop talking. Nobody did anything wrong. The thing that held you together just went away.
The third kind
Friendship of character is rarer. Aristotle thought it could only happen between people who are both good and alike in character, and that it takes a long time. He quoted an old proverb: you can't really know someone until you have eaten salt together. In other words, until you have shared a great many meals, a great many ordinary days.
A carpool gives you that. Ten hours a week in a truck cab, at five in the morning and seven at night, through good news and bad, is a lot of salt. You see how someone acts when they are tired, when traffic is bad, when their kid is sick. You find out who keeps their word.
Sometimes, out of all that ordinary time, a friendship of usefulness turns into a friendship of character. You realize you would drive across town for this person even if they never paid for gas again.
Another self
Aristotle had a striking way of describing a true friend. He called a friend "another self." He meant that a good friend wishes for your good the way you wish for your own, and that seeing a good friend's life is a little like seeing your own from the outside. It helps you know yourself.
That is one reason he thought friendship was not a luxury. Nobody, he said, would choose to live without friends, even if they had every other good thing.
What to do with this
You don't need to sort everyone you know into three boxes. But it helps to be honest about which is which.
Be grateful for friends of use and pleasure. They make the work and the weekends better. Don't expect them to last forever, and don't feel betrayed when they fade.
And watch for the few people who might be the third kind. Those friendships need time, and time is exactly what shift work makes scarce. If you have one, protect it. Call when the schedules don't line up. Show up when it counts.
The carpool may break up when the rotation changes. The best friendships that came out of it don't have to.
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Sources
- Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Books VIII and IX (three kinds of friendship; eating salt together; a friend as another self; no one would choose to live without friends).