Friendship is one of the domains where the leveling process is most easily mistaken for something natural. The age multiplies contacts and empties them of rank. Companionship is measured by frequency of contact, by shared consumption, by the absence of friction. The higher type measures differently. A relation that does not strengthen the interior order or that actively dilutes it is not friendship. It is a form of mutual dissolution conducted under a softer name.
The practical demand is selectivity. The man who keeps every association that offers comfort or entertainment has already surrendered the principle of quality in the social sphere. He will find that the presence of the wrong men slowly alters the standard he applies to himself. Conversation sinks to the common level. Ambition is softened. The capacity for solitude is eroded by the continuous availability of distraction. These are not minor effects. They are the means by which the age reclaims the man who has begun to differentiate himself.
Young men are taught that the refusal of certain company is arrogance or coldness. The higher type accepts the charge without adjusting the practice. Friendship worthy of the name is rare because the type capable of it is rare. The man who pretends otherwise in order to remain surrounded has chosen quantity. The loneliness that follows a stricter selection is the price of remaining vertical. That price is paid deliberately.
Examine the associations that claim the largest share of time and attention. Ask what each one strengthens and what each one weakens. Then act on the answer without the need for dramatic rupture. Distance is often enough. The differentiated individual does not require an audience for the decisions that maintain his form. He requires only that the decisions be consistent with the measure already established in every other domain.