C. S. Lewis: The Inner Ring

         Lewis here addresses one of the characteristics that is endemic to  human society, that of the tendency for small groups to form unintentionally, and a person finds oneself either within or without a group.  To find oneself within a group can become a source of satisfaction and pride; to be outside can become a source of  dissatisfaction and disappointment.  One is unable to choose, but this an unavoidable feature of life.

  His object in addressing this feature of life is to warn against its subtly generating immoral attitudes of envy or ambition or pride, and his advice is simply not to concern oneself with the phenomenon.  If one applies oneself to one’s work, unconcerned as to which group one is or is not a part of, true friendships automatically arise, and in them true pleasure exists.  A person should let any secrecy be accidental, and any exclusiveness a byproduct, not concerning oneself with either.  True friendship “causes perhaps half of all the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ringer can ever have it.” 

Lewis does not refer overtly to his own experiences of life, but this phenomenon caused him a great deal of both pain and pleasure.  As a young person in English boarding schools he found himself to be outside the coteries that fellow students formed and the object of painful bullying.  As don at Oxford, he saw the phenomenon to be very real among the faculty and, having the reputation of being an active Christian writer, he found himself to be an outsider.  But friendship arose with men of similar interests, such as with Tolkien and Barfield, and their fellowship led to the establishment of what has become known as the Inklings.  Their interactions were the source of much pleasure for him.


ANY THOUGHTS?  HAVE YOU FOUND THIS TO BE AS MUCH A PART OF YOUR EXPERIENCE OF LIFE AS IT WAS FOR LEWIS, OR LESS SO? 

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