Love is about bottomless empathy, born out of the heart’s revelation that another person is every bit as real as you are. And this is why love, as I understand it, is always specific. Trying to love all of humanity may be a worthy endeavor, but, in a funny way, it keeps the focus on the self, on the self’s own moral or spiritual well-being. Whereas, to love a specific person, and to identify with his or her struggles and joys as if they were your own, you have to surrender some of your self.”
― Jonathan Franzen, Farther Away
Farther Away - The New Yorker : http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/04/18/farther-away-jonathan-franzenMy dearest friend's birthday was yesterday and so I decided I must see her. I choked down some advil and we went for a walk. It felt good to be in the sunshine and to be with her on her birthday. One of the unique things we share is that we both grew up with severely depressed mothers... so birthdays are weird because they never really happened in any real traditional sense. I could talk about this more (because it is also the reality and one of the defining features of the main character of my book) but I will discuss that another day. So, understanding this about my dear friend perhaps more deeply than anyone in her life, I like to make a really big deal about her birthday. She loves books as much as I do and so we talked much of the time about David Foster Wallace. We are so kindred that, not unexpectedly, she told me that seeing the movie about him this weekend, The End of the Tour, was her birthday present to herself. She cautioned me about seeing it, saying that she had wept quite hard at the end. He was a severely depressed man who did not survive, taking his own great life. Knowing that I have watched several loved ones in my life walk that delicate tightrope made her caution me about seeing it.
She sent me this article by one of his good friends and a fellow author Jonathan Franzen. It is a very long and raw article, but I loved it for its honest portrayal of his raw and desperate anger at his friend. He took a pilgrimage to a remote island off of Chile to find a rare bird, to disperse some of his ashes, and to come to terms with his feelings. This quote is from that article. Surrender. Vulnerability. I would go further with what Franzen said... Love is about bottomless empathy and bottomless surrender. What having a depressed mother taught me was that there are no guarantees on what is returned to you, but maybe that's the pain and the point. Offering love is the one experience that makes life real. Franzen clearly felt that kind of love for Wallace and that's why two years after his death, he found himself on a remote island over a cliff, spreading ashes and crying and screaming out to the wind.
― Jonathan Franzen, Farther Away
Farther Away - The New Yorker : http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/04/18/farther-away-jonathan-franzenMy dearest friend's birthday was yesterday and so I decided I must see her. I choked down some advil and we went for a walk. It felt good to be in the sunshine and to be with her on her birthday. One of the unique things we share is that we both grew up with severely depressed mothers... so birthdays are weird because they never really happened in any real traditional sense. I could talk about this more (because it is also the reality and one of the defining features of the main character of my book) but I will discuss that another day. So, understanding this about my dear friend perhaps more deeply than anyone in her life, I like to make a really big deal about her birthday. She loves books as much as I do and so we talked much of the time about David Foster Wallace. We are so kindred that, not unexpectedly, she told me that seeing the movie about him this weekend, The End of the Tour, was her birthday present to herself. She cautioned me about seeing it, saying that she had wept quite hard at the end. He was a severely depressed man who did not survive, taking his own great life. Knowing that I have watched several loved ones in my life walk that delicate tightrope made her caution me about seeing it.
She sent me this article by one of his good friends and a fellow author Jonathan Franzen. It is a very long and raw article, but I loved it for its honest portrayal of his raw and desperate anger at his friend. He took a pilgrimage to a remote island off of Chile to find a rare bird, to disperse some of his ashes, and to come to terms with his feelings. This quote is from that article. Surrender. Vulnerability. I would go further with what Franzen said... Love is about bottomless empathy and bottomless surrender. What having a depressed mother taught me was that there are no guarantees on what is returned to you, but maybe that's the pain and the point. Offering love is the one experience that makes life real. Franzen clearly felt that kind of love for Wallace and that's why two years after his death, he found himself on a remote island over a cliff, spreading ashes and crying and screaming out to the wind.
RSS Feed