"Is it possible to really love other people? If I'm lonely and in pain, everyone outside me is potential relief -- I need them. But can you really love what you need so badly? Isn't a big part of love caring more about the other person's needs? How am I supposed to to subordinate my own overwhelming need to somebody else's need that I cannot even feel directly? And yet if I can't do this, I'm damned to loneliness, which I definitely don't want...so I'm back at trying to overcome my selfishness for self-interested reasons. Is there any way out of this bind?"
-- David Foster Wallace from his essay, "Joseph Frank's Dostoevsky".
PS. Forget the PS. I can't add anything to this. He nailed it.
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4 days ago
He is just very sad. I think Kantian thinking applied to love is crazy. Love is not a choice, not rational,it appears, morphs, vanishes, reappears, is joyous, is terrible. He wants to rationalize the irrational as a way out of isolation and pain. So tragic.
ReplyDeleteI am happy I am a happy person by nature because I have a tendency to think that life is over rated when I look at it rationally.
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