Reciprocity, friendship, and the decline and fall of everything

I’ve been thinking about it, off and on since I read this book many years ago. And I’ve decided that, where there is no reciprocity, there is no friendship. This is saddening realization.

The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies

By Marcel Mauss (1954)

Add to that, these observations by C. S. Lewis, who himself was the chief connecting force among the Inklings: CSL on ‘friendship’ (philia) from his book, ‘The Four Loves’ (1960)