The Ultimate Touchstone of Friendship Is Not Improvement

All friendships of any length are based on a continued mutual forgiveness without tolerance and mercy. A close friendship will always reveal the shadow in the other as much as ourselves. An enduring friendship goes on after death, the exchange only transmuted by absence. But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long, close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the self nor of the other.