Book 9: Friends and Fortune

In Book 9, Chapter 11, Aristotle makes the claim that we need different sorts of friends in different circumstances. When one has stumbled upon misfortune, one needs useful friends who help them to escape from their current situation. Upon experiencing good fortune, one needs good men to be their friends because it is more beneficial. I can’t help but consider how my friendships have been dictated in the past according to my own circumstances. Sometimes it can be difficult for us to know whether we are experiencing good or bad fortune because the transition between the two are so gradual. During a gradual shift between good and bad fortune, is it possible to see a friendship gradually failing? If we experience good fortune for an extended period but drastically and suddenly fall into misfortune, our “good” friends that complimented us so well in good fortune may not be useful to us anymore, no matter how close we were. It is easier to visualize one shedding friends who were present during misfortune, because these friends are not required to be good. Is there a sudden moment, a point of realization that alerts us to our friends shortcomings? It seems to me that we try to cling to those old friendships, no matter how useless they are to us know, because they still offer an illusion of security