I recently came across a line from Epicurus, the Greek philosopher, that fits one part of my life over the last few months pretty well.
He said that before you think about what you are going to eat and drink, you should think about who you are going to eat and drink with, and that eating without a friend is like living the life of a lion or a wolf. It is a strange comparison, but I understand what he meant. Food on its own fills you up, and it becomes a meal when there are people around the table.
Over the last few months, I have been on a few road trips with my friends and cousins. The places we went to were good, and so was the food, and I enjoyed both. Still, when I think about those trips now, most of what made them good was the people in the car.
On a recent trip to Hampi with my cousins, we ended up having something like a group podcast on the drive back. We talked about life and the future, about the things each of us loves and wants to do, and about what a happy life looks like for each one of us. It started as a random conversation, and none of us thought we would be talking about any of this. It reminded all of us that, in some ways, we are there for each other, and that each of us is chasing something we care about. It came from nowhere, and that was kind of special.
Epicurus seems to have lived this way himself. He set up his school, the Garden, in Athens and lived there with his friends, and he wrote that of everything that helps us live a happy life, friendship is the greatest. For someone whose whole philosophy was about pleasure, he put a lot of weight on the people you share it with.
I think most of us plan trips the other way around. We start with the destination, then the stay, then the list of things to do, and the people come in at the end. Whoever is free that weekend comes along. After these trips, I would start with the people. Once that part is sorted, the place matters a lot less, because the people will make most of the trip anyway.
This probably goes beyond trips. The same thing applies to the people you work with, the people you live with, and the people you sit with at dinner most nights. A lot of what we remember as a good place was a good group of people, and the place was just where we happened to be together.