A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature.

A real friendship is an unlikely thing: two people who need nothing from each other, who chose each other repeatedly over years, who can be honest without the relationship breaking. Nothing about it is guaranteed, and most of the conditions that produce one are outside anybody’s control. That is why it deserves more attention than the things we schedule instead.

Think of a friend you have not spoken to properly in months. Make the contact this week, without an occasion and without an agenda. Friendships end mostly by drift, and drift is reversed by exactly this kind of small unprompted effort.