What is the Meaning of Friendship?

Friendship is so many things to so many people. Friendship is magic. Friendship is powerful. Friendship can heal. And friendship has been a core aspect of human culture since before recorded history.

The power of friendship is undeniable. Friends can help us cope with the biggest challenges we face, motivate us to our highest achievements, and help us celebrate life to its fullest. Friendships come in many forms, cross all kinds of natural and man made barriers, and can get sparked between the most unlikely of participants.

Science, philosophy and literature have all delved into the power of friendship. The Adventures of Superchum and the Mighty Befrienders is a comic strip that for the past 24 years has championed the power of friendship directly in its pages. 

The Paths of Chumliness are a manifestation of the titular character Superchum sharing his most powerful ability - super friendliness or as he calls it, Chumliness - with the world. Teaching people, one step at a time, how to harness the most powerful aspects of true friendship.

The Power of Friendship is such that it can sustain, nourish and support us.

There has been a ton of research done over the years that confirms how friendship enriches and empowers humans. 

Carlin Flora, a writer and editor for Psychology Today, put out the article Friendfluence: The Surprising Ways Friends Make Us Who We Are. In that piece Flora noted that one of the major benefits is that friendships can help people "shed pounds, sleep better, stop smoking and even survive a major illness."

Expanding on the positive effects of friendship, an ongoing study of 1,500 seniors by the Flinders University Centre for Ageing Studies in Australia found that over a two decade period those seniors with a large network of friends outlived seniors with the fewest friends by 22 percent.

And the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center reported that people with five or more close friends were 50 percent more likely to describe themselves as "very happy" than respondents with fewer friends.

According to Claire Yang, a sociologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, friendship can have an effect on a person's health and life expetancy that is equivalent to quitting smoking. A 2010 study found that the effect of social ties on life span is twice as strong as exercising regularly. These studies, which examined 148 prior studies on social links and mortality comprising more than 300,000 participants, found that health and friendships are linked through the body's processing of stress, Yang revealed.

The Mayo Clinic says it very simply: Good friends are good for your health.

Friends can:

• Improve your self-confidence and self-worth
• Increase your sense of belonging and purpose
• Help you cope with traumas
• Boost your happiness and reduce your stress
• Encourage you to change or avoid unhealthy lifestyle habits

Scientific research and studies and papers all demonstrate the measurable effect of the power of friendship. Close friends can give us confidence, bolster our sense of self, improve our well being, and increase our lifespan.

But the power of friendship works best when harnessed by good friends. And that's where we need to go deeper.

This is another one of the ongoing themes of The Adventures of Superchum . The Paths of Chumliness require people to be true friends. And finding out what that is, goes back in time to our very beginnings.

The people that you surround yourself with have a massive impact on your behavior and your lifestyle. Your friends and family members shape your life. And this has been true forever. So the framework of the Paths of Chumliness have their origins in ancient history.

There's much of it influenced by religious thought and creed. Morality is one of the core aspects of being a superhero. So you find a lot of aspects of The Golden Rule in Superchum, which aligns with varying degrees of Christianity, Judaism, and Taoism.

But then there's friendship. And for that the Paths of Chumliness layered in some good old fashioned classical Greek philosophy from the man himself, Aristotle!

More than 2,000 years ago Aristotle dropped his Nichomachean Ethics , and in that volume Big A talks about some specifics of the state of being friends and the philosophy of friendship.

Aristotle wrote that there are three types of friendship:

1. Friendship based on utlity - This is where one or more people involved in the relationship gain something as a result of the friendship. Someone becomes your friend because they think you can help them or vice versa.
2. Friendship based on pleasure - This is where people become your friend because of pleasant experiences that you share in common. Think of this as people you hang out with or party with to have a good time.
3. Friendship based on virtue - This is where people become friends because they share the same values. Think of this as becoming friends with someone because you admire them or respect them or share the same goals as they do in life.

The trope of the "Power of Friendship" is a major theme across all media - including television, literature, film, and as Superchum and the Mighty Befrienders demonstrates, comics.

In fact, it's such an oft used theme that it has its own entry on TV Tropes. That cements its usefulness within the goals of the Superchum comic. It's a theme that the archetypal superhero can and has explored many times in the past.

As a foundational plot device, the Power of Friendship shows up as an aspect of conflict between the hero and the villain. Villains often mock the idea of relying on others. They typically claim the emotional support that a true friend provides makes a person weak and ineffectual. They ascribe to a philosophy that fear or intimidation gets results. 

The plot then turns when the hero shows the villain that the hero's friends do stand up for the hero. That the power of friendship is real and strong. Being alone makes the villain weak. This plays out quite often in Superchum. 

But can also be seen in many other examples - including Batman when his extended Batman Family come into play, Superman when he relies on human friends to help him overcome struggles, and Star Wars quite literally when Luke Skywalker confronts Emperor Palpatine.

These plots reveal the Power of Friendship through specific Friendship Moments. Generally, according to TV Tropes, a friendship moment is "a moment of pure love and empathy displayed by one friend to another that goes beyond the call of duty or against the character."

You see these quite often in The Adventures of Superchum when Chum himself extends his hand for a shake. But they are also played up when his sidekicks, Friendand Girlfriend, demonstrate the same empathy. You'll see them in other popular media as well, including My Little Pony Friendship is Magic which has countless friendship moments from Twilight Sparklein Ponyville.


The Power of Friendship's plot movement typically turns on a specific kind of friendship moment, however, that TV Tropes calls A Friend in Need. 

This is a profound test of character, where someone is in trouble and in need of help. The character must then make a choice and the help often comes at a cost. When friends friendly intentions get them in trouble, the conflict can move the plot forward. This is seen in Superchum from time to time, like when Girlfriend succumbed to her unfriendly anger to help Friend break free of the XYZ Clan's psionic prison during the Comic Book Shop hostage situation. Other examples in popular culture include Luke Skywalker walking into a trap in Bespin City set by Darth Vader to save Han and Leia, or Mr. Spock manually shutting off the reactor to save Kirk, Bones and the Enterprise in Wrath of Khan. 

The next bit that TV Tropes has to say about the Power of Friendship is actually the most often used example of conflict in The Adventures of Superchum. It's the harrowing obstacle that any Befriender who walks the Paths of Chumliness often faces. Heroes who use the Power of Friendship invariably attract villains and antagonists that try to prove the power doesn't work. These villains typically do not have any friends themselves and thus they do not believe in the Power of Friendship. You can see that play out time and time again in the pages of Superchum. Whether it's Mike the One True Cosmic Friend, Baron Bad Guy, or even the Anti-Chum himself, none of them take Superchum at his word. And every single time the Power of Friendship comes into play because of this challenge. But you also see this play out in other stories. A common theme in Superman is that he's an alien or other and isn't to be trusted. That no one would have his pure motives. But time and time again he proves to the people of Metropolis that villains like Lex Luthor, General Zodand Darkseidare wrong. His power of friendship for all of humanity overcomes and Metropolis is safe.

The last bit that TV Tropes talks about in terms of The Power of Friendship that relates very specifically to The Adventures of Superchum is the "combined energy attack."

This is most clearly played out in pop culture by the Care Bears with their Care-Bear Stare. But you can find it in a host of other examples, from anime like Sailor Moon with its Sailor Planet Attack, to western cartoons like Captain Planet.

This is also found in more subtle references, like the credo in Lost: "Live together, die alone." Or the Avengers battlecry, "Avengers Assemble!"

In Superchum this is the core reason for why Superchum is on his mission to befriend the world. He wants to expand the circle of friendship to its most powerful apex. That's why the Befrienders walk the Paths of Chumliness. And that's why they overcome their problems and defeat the villains more easily when they work together.

So there you have it. Friendship is a super power. Batman has his Batmobileand his relentless training. Superman can flyand juggle planets. Thor has his hammer. Your friendly neighborhood Spider-manhas his wall crawling and his spidery agility. Aquaman can talk to fish. But among all of those titanic superheroes in the world of comics, Superchum stands alone as having the Power of Friendship amplified to super heroic levels.

And this is a mighty power indeed. We've seen that the Power of Friendship:

• is scientifically proven to improve humanity
• is philosophically linked to the core of our culture
• is a key literary trope present throughout literature and mass entertainment