Keeping Friends Close and Enemies Closer

Sun Tzu, a Chinese general and strategist from long ago, suggested we keep our friends close and our enemies closer.  From a strategic perspective, of course you want to know every move your enemies make.

Here's another perspective.  Both our friends and our enemies are on our minds a lot: we wonder what they're doing, have imaginary conversations (or battles) with them, wonder how they would like this or react to that.  This tells us about ourselves, too: how we think of them, how that reflects on how we think of ourselves, what's important to us.

Who our friends and enemies are also shows us what parts of ourselves we are friendly or inimical toward.  For example, a close friend of mine has some qualities that I find very irritating (the reverse is true, too) - directiveness (or, perhaps, bossiness).  The truth of the matter, when I look at myself, is that I have a strong aversion to being bossy myself.  It's part of my possible self that I don't know very well because I have consistently shoved it into a closet - a closet without a light, and with a pretty strong latch on the outside.

If friends can show us those parts of ourselves that we don't really want to look at or challenge, imagine what our enemies could do for us if we kept them close enough!