You Make Me Mental
Friends Among Us (2020) by Philosopher Daniel Sanderson
Sophia: Plato, today we consider friendship, love, and the strange intersections between the two. Tell me, what is it about love that makes it a “serious mental disease”?
Plato: Ah, Sophia, love disrupts reason. It overwhelms the mind, bends judgment, and yet drives the soul toward the pursuit of beauty and truth. In that sense, it is both peril and philosopher.
Sophia: And yet, within this “disease,” friendship often blooms. The affection of the soul for another, tempered by reason, is a medicine of sorts—less chaotic, more enduring.
Love is a serious mental disease.
— Plato (c. 424 BC to c. 348 BC)
Plato: Precisely. The madness of love can inspire poetry, philosophy, even the highest forms of virtue. But friendship—true friendship—anchors the soul. It is love moderated, a shared rational delight in the good.
Sophia: Daniel Sanderson might say that in our contemporary world, friends are the quiet scaffolds of our existence. Love may unsettle us, but friendship sustains us, and sometimes, it quietly teaches us the very virtues that love excites.
Plato: Then let us acknowledge both: the fever of love that illuminates, and the calm of friendship that endures. Perhaps the “disease” need not terrify us if tempered by understanding and companionship.
Sophia: Indeed. Friends among us are the living proof that reason can coexist with passion. They remind us that while love may unsettle, friendship teaches us to navigate its storms with grace and laughter.
Plato: And in that navigation, wisdom finds its path—not in avoiding love, but in embracing both love and friendship with eyes open.
Sophia: Exactly. The mind may be ill with love, but the heart, through friendship, remains resilient.
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Heraclitus
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