Why you might be not that good at supporting your Brilliant Friend
***Potential spoiler alert***
Have you ever been to Naples? It is where I come from — a beautiful and complicated land. Anyone curious to know more about it should read or watch My brilliant friend — a novel and then a TV show written by Elena Ferrante. While it tells the story of the never-ending friendship between Lila and Lenú, My brilliant friend also shows Naples in an honest and direct way by describing that complicated land without neither justifying or demonizing it.
I think My brilliant friend is worth reading or watching even only for this reason, but this is not why I write this blog. Instead, I write this blog to share words of wisdom on how our brilliant friends might be the best way to make us understand how brilliant we are.
Lila and Lenú are bound by a strong friendship despite the apparent differences between their personalities. Lila is charismatic and bright, Lenú is shy and diligent. As young kids, they like each other even though they come from seemingly incompatible worlds. For example, Lila is not allowed to study because of the ignorant prejudice of her father. In contrast, Lenú is encouraged to pursue her education. As adolescents maturing to young women, they remain friends despite everyday life trying to grow them apart. For example, Lila gets married at a young age with the guy she chose (more or less), whereas Lenú has more frustrating (when not traumatic) romantic experiences. In sum, a deep friendship that resists the intricacies of life.
Before continuing, I should say that I did not read the book(s). I often resist the temptation to read a book when it is loudly famous. I was also stoically resisting the temptation to watch the TV show, for that matter, but my mother-in-law insisted so hard, and she is so stubborn that I just caved and watched it.
So, I watched the first season — the only one that has been released to date. It depicts the life of Lila and Lenù as little girls, when they meet, and then as young women, with the season finale closing up on the heartbreaking events of Lila’s wedding. The entire season was just perfect. Saverio Costanzo director, Elena Ferrante screenplay co-author, Alba Rohrwacher narrating voice, great actors. Simply beautiful. I can’t wait to watch the next seasons and then let time pass to forget everything and read the books.
One of the most truthful aspects of how this story is told is that the friendship between Lila and Lenú is not portrayed as all fun and games. For example, during their journey through life, their mutual attraction also comes with moments of reciprocal repulsion. There are moments in which they even try to harm each other. When they are kids, for example, Lila suffers from the constant comparison with Lenù’s diligence and tries to get her punished with a non-permitted outing. During adolescence, Lenú experiences envy for Lila’s strong independence and womanly appearance. Feeling herself diminished in the comparison, she is relieved when she can go alone in a summer getaway, taking advantage of the escape opportunities that are available to her but out of Lila’s reach. These moments spoke to me as particularly truthful because they reminded me how complicated deep friendships can be.
Why deep friendships sometimes come with an unwanted sense of competition? We are perfectly able to support and admire distant others. The success of Elon Mask seems not to bother us at all. We are fully ready to consider strangers as exceptional individuals to whom we cannot keep up. We accept the disparity between our relatively normal life and the brilliant successes of strangers almost as a natural fact. But when the closest of our friends show outstanding skills or start ambitious projects, we often fail in acknowledging their qualities and rejoicing of their thriving abilities. As a consequence, we fail in providing them full support.
I was there on my couch watching the TV show and started thinking: Why is that? And I saw something that I simply never realized before. The reason why Lila and Lenú cannot entirely be happy with each other’s successes is that one reminds the other where they failed.
A core feature of all friendships is the perceived similarity. But here is what perhaps one starts wondering when their friends prove themselves brilliant: If we are that similar, how is that they could, and I could not? Thus, your friend becomes a mirror that pushes you to a continuous comparison.
With strangers is different. As it has been emphasized in many artworks and thoughts (see this example on Medium by Thomas Oppong), talking to a stranger comes with a sense of freedom and relief. When you speak to a stranger, it is easier to think of them as someone other than you, someone whose life does not question your own life in any possible way. When you think of a close friend, instead, you lose that objectivity and start thinking of yourself. And you do it in the worst possible way: starting from your personal failures.
But, wait a second. I am here writing these words to say that this is not the only way. True, the accomplishments of your brilliant best friends make you wonder why you did not get the same success. Oh, it’s so easy to think about what we did not get. But please, try for a moment to think about what you did get.
In their story, Lila and Lenú have moments of true reciprocal understanding and admiration. But these moments come with their ability to recognize their own successes. It is only when Lila gets married — a way to gain freedom, she thinks — that she can express her love and full support to her friend. Similarly, it is only when Lenú starts realizing the limited environment of Lila’s successes that she can feel only love and concern, and not competition, for her friend.
To put it simply, it is only when you accept your life and acknowledge your successes, that you can recognize your friends’. They will still be a mirror, but of the best parts of yourself, reminding you of the beautiful and lucky person you are, instead of feeding petty feelings.
When you refuse to see how brilliant your friends are, the simple truth you are missing is that, if you have brilliant friends, it is likely because you are brilliant yourself. In the show, during the entire season, it is easy to think that Lila is “the brilliant friend” because she is ostensibly strong and charismatic. It is only at the end of the season that we realize where the title comes from. In a moving moment, when Lila and Lenù are together and the time of Lila’s wedding is approaching, Lila says to Lenú something like: “You are my brilliant friend, you have to keep studying forever”. As she acknowledges that none of the injustices she experienced were her or her friend’s fault, Lila can finally take charge of her life and be happy that her friend can do something that was taken away from her.
And that’s it — truly brilliant people have brilliant friends. They do not choose friends who will make them feel superior, they choose friends who can inspire them.
I genuinely believe I have amazing and out-of-the-ordinary human beings as friends. None of them are perfect, but all of them have something unique and special that I simply cannot find in anyone else. They improve my life and help me grow every day. And I consider myself more than lucky: I consider my ability to gain and keep their friendship as a personal success. They are my brilliant friends. They help me improve. Their accomplishments are opportunities to think of what I don’t like about my life and how I can improve it. They inspire me to be the best version of myself, every day.
So next time a friend of yours says or does something brilliant or starts something ambitious, compliment them out loud. Support them wholeheartedly. Let them be the mirror of the best version of yourself. And take that as an opportunity to improve your life or to recognize your own successes. If you have brilliant friends, you are likely to be brilliant too, maybe just in a way you did not understand yet.
Written in December 2019.
