Renewal and Friendship

The self-renewing man has mutually fruitful relations with other human beings. They are capable of accepting love and capable of giving it – both more difficult achievements than is commonly thought. And what has that to do with self-renewal? The man or woman who is incapable of accepting love or of giving it is imprisoned, cut off from a great part of the world of experience. Love and friendship dissolve the rigidities of the isolated self, force new perspectives, alter judgments, and keep in working order the emotional substratum on which all profound comprehensive of human affairs must rest.

John Gardner, Self-Renewal