(The elevator rings and the door slides open. Scully steps out into the basement and comes to an office secluded in the back. She knocks on the door.)
MULDER :
Sorry, nobody down here but
The FBI's Most Unwanted.
(She opens the door to see Agent Fox Mulder sitting at his desk, going over some slides. Walking slowly to him, she sees various pictures of UFO's and a poster that reads "I Want to Believe" with a UFO on it. He looks at her.)
SCULLY:
Agent Mulder.
I'm Dana Scully, I've been assigned to work with you.
(He shakes her hand.)
MULDER:
Oh, isn't it nice to be suddenly so highly regarded?
So, who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail, Scully?
SCULLY:
Actually, I'm looking forward to working with you.
I've heard a lot about you.
MULDER:
Oh, really?
I was under the impression...
that you were sent to spy on me.
(He smiles.)
SCULLY:
If you have any doubt about
my qualifications or credentials, th...
(He stands and takes out a paper from a pile with his telephone as a paperweight.)
MULDER:
You're a Medical Doctor,
You teach at The Academy.
You did your undergraduate degree in Physics.
(He takes off his glasses and looks at the paper.)
"Einstein's Twin Paradox : A New Interpretation.
Dana Scully Senior Thesis."
Now that's a credential,
rewriting Einstein.
SCULLY:
Did you bother to read it?
MULDER:
I did. I liked it.
(He takes a slide canister and puts it into the slide projector.)
It's just that in most of my work --
The Laws of Physics rarely seems to apply.
He walks past her and turns off the lights.
She glares at him slightly.
“This Companionship is, however, only the matrix of Friendship. It is often called Friendship, and many people when they speak of their “friends” mean only their companions. But it is not Friendship in the sense I give to the word. By saying this I do not at all intend to disparage the merely Clubbable relation.
We do not disparage Silver by distinguishing it from Gold.
Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden).
The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one.”
We can imagine that among those early hunters and warriors single individuals — one in a century? one in a thousand years? — saw what others did not; saw that the deer was beautiful as well as edible, that hunting was fun as well as necessary, dreamed that his gods might be not only powerful but holy. But as long as each of these percipient persons dies without finding a kindred soul, nothing (I suspect) will come of it; art or sport or spiritual religion will not be born. It is when two such persons discover one another, when, whether with immense difficulties and semi-articulate fumblings or with what would seem to us amazing and elliptical speed, they share their vision — it is then that Friendship is born. And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude.
Lovers seek for privacy. Friends find this solitude about them, this barrier between them and the herd, whether they want it or not. They would be glad to reduce it. The first two would be glad to find a third.
In our own time Friendship arises in the same way. For us of course the shared activity and therefore the companionship on which Friendship supervenes will not often be a bodily one like hunting or fighting.
It may be a common religion, common studies, a common profession, even a common recreation.
All who share it will be our companions; but one or two or three who share something more will be our Friends.
In this kind of love, as Emerson said, "Do you love me?"
means
"Do you see The Same Truth?" : —
Or at least,
“Do you CARE about The Same Truth?”
The man who agrees with us that some question,
little regarded by others, is of great importance
can be our Friend.
He need not •agree• with us about
The ANSWER.
— C.S. Lewis,
The Four Loves
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