You sent me a letter through someone you called your friend, then in the same breath told me not to confide in him certain things that concern you, because you do not do so yourself. Do you see what you have just done? In a single letter you have both granted and revoked the title. Which is it?
Perhaps you used the word loosely, the way we call every stranger we cannot name “sir,” or every politician “an honorable man.” Fine. But understand this: if you call someone a friend and still will not trust him as you trust yourself, you have not yet understood what friendship is or what it costs. You should discuss everything with a friend, but before you do, you must discuss the friend with yourself. Trust should follow the bond; judgment must come before it. Most people get this backward. They develop an attachment first and only try to evaluate the person after they are already entangled.
Here is the order that matters. Deliberate long before you let someone in. Take your time, be hard‑nosed, look clearly. But once you have decided, open yourself completely. Say to him what you would say to yourself alone. Hold nothing back out of fear. Live, in fact, in such a way that even your enemy could watch you without finding much to use against you. And the things that are genuinely private, the ones convention keeps close, share those precisely with your friend. Treat him as loyal, and you help make him loyal. Many people, terrified of being deceived, have trained others in the art of deceiving them. Their suspicion handed out the license.
So why should I weigh my words around a friend? Why should I not feel as if I am alone in his presence?
There are two kinds of people who get this wrong. The first pours out their private troubles onto anyone nearby, telling strangers what should only be said to the one person who has earned it. The second seals everything off, trusts no one with anything, and presses their own secrets so deep that they almost hide from themselves. Both are failures. Trusting everyone is the more generous mistake. Trusting no one is the safer one. But both are still mistakes.
The same trap appears in how people spend their days. Some are in constant motion, agitated, never still, and mistake the churning for work. It is not work. It is the thrashing of a mind that cannot settle. Others refuse all motion, call every demand on their attention an intrusion, and mistake their paralysis for peace. It is not peace. It is a slow collapse. You need both. Action has its hours; so does rest. If you are not sure of the ratio, ask Nature directly. She will tell you: she made both the day and the night.